Privilege

Simon Hoare Excerpts

Thursday 4th September 2025 Commons Chamber

[Simon Hoare (North Dorset) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That—

(1) There be laid before this House the reports of the Parliamentary Commissioner for Administration proposed to be laid under section 10(3) of the Parliamentary Commissioner Act 1967 concerning the steps taken by the Charity Commission to implement recommendations contained in two reports issued by the Commissioner in respect of “Miss A” and “Mr U”;

(2) The matter of the actions of the Charity Commission in bringing legal proceedings that would prevent the laying of a report before this House be referred to the Committee of Privileges.

I am grateful to Mr Speaker for granting this request. The House will be delighted to know that on the first week back after a longish summer recess, the five hours allocated for this debate will not be taken up—I will only take four hours and 50 minutes. [Laughter.] No, do not worry. I know the House wants to get on to the House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill.

The motion before the House is, I hope, clear. I believe it will command support across all parties in the House, but I think it is important to put on the record why it has been tabled. We have too often allowed the privileges of this House and our parliamentary process to be slightly nibbled and chipped away at, and sometimes we have been reluctant to defend robustly those privileges, which are important for Parliament to function as our constituents expect. I am delighted that my hon. Friend the Member for South Leicestershire (Alberto Costa), who chairs both the Committee on Standards and the Committee of Privileges, is alongside me this afternoon.

The House of Commons’ role used to be described as the “grand inquest of the nation”. It meant that one of our great functions was to consider and debate everything that we thought mattered. In a famous case, one of the Law Lords recognised the key importance of

“the need to ensure that the legislature can exercise its powers freely on behalf of its electors, with access to all relevant information”.

This is a case about the ability of the House to receive information, which the House has always taken very seriously. “Erskine May” has an entire section on obstructing witnesses and others. It states boldly:

“Any conduct calculated to deter prospective witnesses from giving evidence before either House or a committee is a contempt.”

The circumstances here are slightly different, because this is about a prospective case against the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman. I have tabled the motion for two reasons, which I shall set out briefly, but they are explained in the motion itself.

The Parliamentary Commissioner for Administration, also known as the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman, is technically an officer of the House—a Crown appointment appointed by resolution of the House. They have a duty to respond to complaints from all our constituents, where there is validity in doing so, in coming to reports, making observations and suggestions, and submitting those reports to Parliament.

As referenced in the motion, there is the case of “Miss A” and “Mr U”. I have no idea who Miss A and Mr U are, and I have no idea what complaints about the Charity Commission were set out before the commissioner, but the Charity Commission has clearly taken umbrage or offence at what the PHSO has been seeking to do. The Charity Commission is bringing legal proceedings deliberately to prevent the laying of two reports before this House. That completely undermines the linkage between the ombudsman and this place, and, as I said at the start, it undermines our opportunity and decisions to look at any information that we deem to be of importance, or that matters to us, in order to allow us to advance policy.

The motion is a very simple one. If approved, it will compel the commissioner to lay before the House the reports that they have undertaken with regard to the complaints of Miss A and Mr U. I have tabled the motion as Chair of the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee, which is responsible for the PHSO. We will look at those reports and advise accordingly, if necessary. I make no prior judgment of whether the PHSO or the Charity Commission has got it right in this instance, because we have not seen the reports. However, it fundamentally undermines the rights and privileges of this place, and all of us as Members, when we are prevented from seeing reports that have been produced following due diligence and proper investigation and inquiry by a statutory body and the ombudsman, who is a servant of the House. Because there is concern, which I share, that the Charity Commission has acted perversely in bringing legal proceedings that would prevent the laying of the reports, the second part of the motion seeks to refer that action to the Committee of Privileges so that it can take a look.

In the general scheme of things, this may seem a very small element of parliamentary life, but the courts have hitherto always taken the standpoint that Parliament can and should see what it wants and needs to see, and that the courts should take no role in interfering with or obstructing that channel of communication. We are all familiar with Mr Speaker giving advice from the Chair about the sub judice rule, for example, but it does not mean that we cannot talk about things. We do so knowing full well that privilege entails both rights and responsibilities.

I hope the House is with us on this matter, which is important. It is time for us to robustly reassert our rights under the idea of privilege and having access to information. I remain to be convinced that the Charity Commission has acted advisedly in bringing the action. Even yesterday, the commission tried to put pressure on me to withdraw the motion, believing still that it is in the right. I decided not to do so, and I think it is an abuse of the commission to ask us to do that.

The Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee will undertake an inquiry on arm’s length bodies, of which the commission is part, and a number of right hon. and hon. Members from across the House have privately raised with me concerns about decisions that the commission is taking. It is appearing to do so in a slightly abstract or perverse way, without any degree of accountability. That matter is separate from this motion, but it is important for all our arm’s length bodies, and particularly the Charity Commission, to understand that this House will not be bullied by arm’s length bodies seeking recourse to the courts to stop us doing our job properly, efficiently and professionally on behalf of all our constituents.