Privilege: Conduct of Right Hon. Boris Johnson
Debate between William Cash and Chris Bryant(10 months, 2 weeks ago)
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Sir Chris Bryant
The right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. I have looked around for some parallels for what can be done about a Member who has already left the House by the time the Privileges Committee, the Standards and Privileges Committee, the Standards Committee or the Independent Expert Panel has adjudicated. The only one I can find is Sir Michael Grylls, the former Member of Parliament for North West Surrey, who was involved in the Ian Greer-Mohammed al-Fayed cash for questions row in the 1990s. He stood down in the 1997 general election so he was not an MP by the time the Standards and Privileges Committee reported on him. It said, categorically, in relation to the question of whether lying to Parliament is a contempt that
“Deliberately misleading a Select Committee is certainly a contempt of the House…Were Sir Michael Grylls still a Member we would recommend a substantial period of suspension from the service of the House, augmented to take account of his deceit.”
That is precisely, following precedent, what the Privileges Committee has done in its report. The truth is that Mr Johnson, as Prime Minister, was a senior and long-standing Member of the House. It was not the first time he got into trouble with either the standards system in the House or the rules. He has shown absolutely no contrition. He chose to attack, intimidate and bully the Committee, which could indeed be a breach of the rules in itself. Everything he did fell far, far short of the standards that this House and the public are entitled to expect of any Member.
I just want to say a few words about the process. The House has always claimed, as the Leader of the House said in her excellent speech, exclusive cognisance; that is to say, apart from the voters and the criminal law, the only body that can discipline, suspend or expel a duly elected Member of the House is the House of Commons in its entirety. I still hold to that principle. It is why any decision or recommendation to suspend or expel a Member that comes from the Standards Committee or the Independent Expert Panel has to be approved by the whole House. It is also why the only way to proceed when there is an allegation that a Member has committed a contempt of Parliament, for instance by misleading the House, is via a Committee of the House and a decision of the whole House. That is why we have to have the motion today and had to have the Committee on Privileges. It cannot, I believe, be a court of law. It has to be a Committee of the House. I do not think some commentators have fully understood that, including Lord Pannick and some former Leaders of the House.
I say to those who have attacked the process that they should be very careful of what they seek. There are those who would prefer lying to Parliament to be a criminal offence, justiciable and punishable by the courts, but that would drive a coach and horses through the Bill of Rights principle that
“freedom of speech and debates or proceedings in Parliament ought not to be impeached or questioned in any court or place out of Parliament.”
So I am left feeling that those who attack the process simply do not believe that there should be any process for determining whether a Member has lied to the House. As I have said before, I kind of admire the personal loyalty, but I dislike the attitude because it is in effect an excuse for appalling behaviour.
Sir William Cash
I am most grateful to the Chairman of the Standards Committee. He and I took part in the debate, as he will well remember perhaps, on 21 April 2022. I raised the question of “knowingly misleads” because it was not included in the original motion, which was then passed, which led to the reference to the Committee on Privileges. In the course of the debate, I raised—I think with him directly, but he certainly made the remark, for which I pay credit—the fact that intention is at the heart of this question. If we knock out the word “knowingly”, we knock out the intention as well and that is a fundamental question of process on which I will, if I catch your eye Madam Deputy Speaker, want to refer.
Sir Chris Bryant
I am going to ferociously agree with the hon. Gentleman. I said earlier that Mr Johnson knowingly lied to Parliament and that is what the Committee has concluded. There was a point at which people thought they would only consider “recklessly” but they found that he knowingly, with knowledge aforethought, misled Parliament and was deliberately duplicitous. I think the hon. Gentleman’s point is destroyed—
Sir Chris Bryant
If the hon. Member for Stone (Sir William Cash) does not mind, I will give way to another Member.
Sir Chris Bryant
I am wrong; I apologise. However, it is certainly the case that the whole House agreed that membership, fully knowing everything that had been said up until that moment. Three members of the Committee had sat on a previous case in relation to Mr Johnson that came to the Standards Committee. The Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards had found against Mr Johnson, but we, the Committee, found in his favour. I therefore do not think that this was in any sense a biased Committee. Let me also say that anyone who thinks that Speaker’s Counsel, or, for that matter, Sir Ernest Ryder, who ran the whole of the tribunals service in England and Wales, would not stand up for a fair hearing and due process is misleading themselves, and doing so almost recklessly.
Sir Chris Bryant
I am tempted not to give way to the hon. Gentleman. I am very hopeful that he will have an opportunity to speak to the House fully a bit later.
Some people have attacked the process for a different reason, and I understand the nature of that attack. They say that Johnson won a general election, and they argue that only voters should therefore be allowed to remove him from office. I passionately disagree with that view, because I hold a different understanding of democracy. It
“does not mean, ‘We have got our majority, never mind how, and we have our lease of office for five years, so what are you going to do about it?’ That is not democracy, that is only small party patter, which will not go down with the mass of the people of this country.”
Members may recognise those words. They are not mine; they are Churchill’s, addressed to the Labour Government in 1947. He went on:
“there is the broad feeling in our country that the people should rule, continuously rule, and that public opinion, expressed by all constitutional means, should shape, guide, and control the actions of Ministers who are their servants and not their masters.”—[Official Report, 1 November 1947; Vol. 444, c. 206-7.]
I agree, and that is why I think it important to note that public opinion on this matter is extremely clear. Most people think Johnson lied. A few of them do not think that that matters very much, but most of them do. Most of them think that Ministers who lie should be removed and punished, and being truthful is the one quality that they seek above all else in a Member of Parliament.
Harold Wilson said, in a debate in the House when John Profumo had just been forced to resign for lying:
“The sickness of an unrepresentative sector of our society should not detract from the robust ability of our people as a whole to face the challenge of the future. And in preparing to face that challenge, let us frankly recognise that the inspiration and the leadership must come first here in this House.”—[Official Report, 17 June 1963; Vol. 679, c. 54.]
Leadership means taking a stance. Abstention is a failure of leadership. I believe that today is a good day for democracy. We have remarkably few checks and balances in our system, and the only real check is the collective conscience of the Members of this House. That is the burden of our elected office, and I pay tribute to Conservatives, and people of every party, who have had to face a difficult decision in relation to this. We exercise our conscience on behalf of our constituents. Edmund Burke said that the most important thing we owe our constituents is our conscience. Thereby we tarnish or we burnish the reputation of Parliament. So let us assert today that no one is above the law and the rules apply to all, because every abstention is another excuse. I repeat Wilson’s words: the leadership must come first here in this House.
Sir William Cash (Stone) (Con)
The original motion, which was discussed on the Floor of the House on 21 April 2022, in which debate both I and the hon. Member for Rhondda (Sir Chris Bryant) happened to speak, should never have been allowed through by default, as I said at the time. I cannot understand how it happened and I have never had a proper explanation. What I do know, as I said earlier to the hon. Member, to others and to the Chair of the Committee, is that it uses the word “misleading” but not the words “knowingly misleading”. There is a vast difference. It is about intention. It is about whether or not Boris Johnson could have lied. That is the crucial issue.
I put down an early-day motion immediately after the Privileges Committee produced its process report, on 21 July 2022. The Committee itself drew attention, as I have, to the divergence from the established convention of deliberately or knowingly misleading the House—I made that point; I am afraid the Committee did not—as set out in the unanimously agreed 1997 resolution of the House on ministerial accountability. My motion therefore called for the 21 April motion to be rescinded. I have not changed my mind, especially as the proceedings have unfolded. My concern is also that the procedure followed has pursued a course that could even tend to undermine democratic and ministerial accountability because that is contained in, fundamentally, a unanimous resolution of 1997, which is still very much alive and kicking. Every day, the words “knowingly misleads” apply to Ministers who speak from the Dispatch Box. It was well said by the great constitutional lawyer Maitland that
“justice is to be found in the interstices of procedure.”
Thus, the procedures should reflect natural justice and the right to fairness in proceedings. I know that the Chair of the Privileges Committee has chaired the Human Rights Committee. One of the most fundamental questions in relation to the Human Rights Act 1998 and the European convention on human rights is fairness in proceedings and trials.
The Committee of Privileges is uniquely concerned with personal accusations and complaints, as compared with all other Select Committees, which concentrate largely on departmental policy. Natural justice therefore requires cross-examination by counsel. The rule of law requires that, where there is an accusation of misconduct or of lying, particularly by Members of the House, an individual should be entitled to have his counsel cross-examine the evidence and obtain the names of potential witnesses. Indeed, counsel can be heard in person with the leave of the House and I truly believe that the Committee of Privileges could and should have proposed that itself.
I have already dealt with the question raised earlier with respect to the admission. I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Rhondda for saying in the debate on 21 April 2022 that “intention” is essential. I am glad that he reconfirmed that point today. In my view, intention cannot be excluded by any presumption of strict liability. That, as I understand it, was considered by the legal adviser to the Committee and he came to the view that strict liability applied. I do not agree, but that is a personal view and it is a view that I take as a lawyer. I do not think that strict liability is consistent with ensuring that the word “intention” is applicable in such circumstances.
Sir Chris Bryant
I have two very quick points. The hon. Gentleman has referred to motions of the House. He will be aware that there is also a motion of the House that says that a Member will always represent themselves and not be represented by legal counsel. Therefore, if we are going to barter off motions, that is also the will of the House universally expressed. However, the bit I really cannot understand is why he goes on about this intentionality point, when page 7 of the report says that Boris Johnson was guilty of contempt by “deliberately misleading the House”. That is intentionality. They have proved it.
Sir William Cash
I will leave that for a moment. I have more to say on that very question.
Only by cross-examination of witnesses can truth be properly established. The 1997 resolution went through unanimously after a series of many Select Committee reports in the 1990s following the arms sales to Iraq saga. There were intensive cross-party discussions and, eventually, John Major and Tony Blair insisted on the words, “knowingly misleads” in the resolution that was unanimously passed; the House agreed to it. That resolution, as I have said repeatedly, prevails to this day. Therefore, no Minister shall be expected to resign, or be forced to resign, unless that can be proved.
The motion of 21 April deliberately left out the word “knowingly”. It was a Labour bear trap for Boris Johnson and the Government. Changing this fundamental principle through a new precedent would, in my view, affect all Governments and democratic accountability in future, and would, incidentally, apply to civil servants, who are also governed, under the civil service code of conduct, by the words “knowingly misleads”. They are the people who have to put together the answers to the questions that are raised on the Floor of the House and, for that matter, in speeches, too.
Referral of Prime Minister to Committee of Privileges
Debate between William Cash and Chris Bryant(2 years ago)
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Chris Bryant
I think I ought to give way to the hon. Lady first.
Chris Bryant
I would normally agree with the hon. Lady on these kinds of things, and I sort of would have agreed with her last night, but I think we are getting to a better place now. In a sense, sometimes the Back Benchers persuade the Front Benchers of a better course of action—I am looking intently at the Government Chief Whip at the moment.
As the Clerk advised in the case of whether Stephen Byers had misled the House on a single occasion in 2001:
“In order to find that Mr Byers committed a contempt in the evidence session of 14 November 2001, the Committee will need to satisfy itself not only that he misled the Sub-Committee, but that he did so knowingly or deliberately.”
As I said, that is quite a high bar, but it is for the Privileges Committee to decide that.
Sir William Cash
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman, because what he just said is what I was going to raise with him. The “Ministerial Code” says that it is open to a Minister to correct
“any inadvertent error at the earliest opportunity. Ministers who knowingly mislead Parliament will be expected to offer their resignation to the Prime Minister”.
The question rests on “knowingly”, and I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for making that point clear.
Code of Conduct: Consultation
Debate between William Cash and Chris Bryant(2 years, 4 months ago)
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Chris Bryant
I am not sure whether the hon. Member means a statutory footing, as in putting it in a piece of statute law. It might be a relevant change to Standing Orders. If she wants to make that recommendation to our Committee, I am sure we would listen to it.
Sir William Cash (Stone) (Con)
On the issue of natural justice and a fair hearing, as I have said several times recently, all Members of the House, because of article 9 of the Bill of Rights 1689, are treated differently from every other citizen in the country. I welcome the consultation, but in regard to paragraphs 196, 243 and 244 of the report, will the Chairman accept that there must be full and proper consultation before any judicial figure is appointed, and therefore before his or her report comes about? Otherwise, we will have a prejudgment on the question of fairness, article 6 and all that goes with it and the issue of a fair trial with Members. The person in question must be approved by the House by resolution, and the House must not be bounced.
Chris Bryant
No, I disagree with the hon. Member. There is an issue about appeals, but it is not as simple as he would like to have us suppose. At the moment, a Member who has been found in breach of the rules by the commissioner can effectively appeal to our Committee. They can appeal on any basis whatever—no formal ground of appeal needs to be advanced. We might go to a more formal process, but that might limit a Member’s right to appeal; they might be allowed to appeal only on certain fixed grounds, as happens in most other appellate bodies. Members might think that that ended up leaving them in a worse position, rather than a better one. It is for our Committee to decide who we appoint to advise us. That is the standard way in which every Select Committee of the House works. If the person we are thinking of and are trying to secure ends up taking up the post, I am sure the hon. Member will be happy with the appointment.
Committee on Standards: Decision of the House
Debate between William Cash and Chris Bryant(2 years, 5 months ago)
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Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
Thank you, Mr Speaker. First, I want to congratulate the hon. Member for North East Fife (Wendy Chamberlain) on securing this debate. Secondly, I want to thank all the members of the Standards Committee. As the House can tell, we do not always agree on everything in the Committee. The hon. Member for South Leicestershire (Alberto Costa) is absolutely right to say that he has often raised process issues. I think he would also confirm that, quite often, the legal advice that is provided to the Committee by the House has disagreed with him very strongly. There are legitimate issues that we have to address, and that is why we are engaged in a code of conduct review. I take his points very seriously, and I have spoken to him many times on the phone, as he has said. He sounded a bit angrier with me in the debate just now than I think he really means. I am grateful to everyone on the Committee.
Let me start with a very simple point. I do not think we do ourselves any favours if we say that voters do not care about standards in public life. I do not know whether they care or not; I suspect that they do, but I do not know for certain and the opinion polls vary on this. We have always prided ourselves as a country on not being corrupt, unlike some other countries in the world, but that is not really the point. The question is not whether Mrs Jones at No. 32 cares about standards in Parliament; it is about whether we care about standards in public life and in Parliament. Every time we say that this does not really matter or that voters do not care about it, we give another excuse for bad behaviour.
I might also say that those of us who are MPs at any one time only hold our place here on trust. Sorry, this is going to sound a bit pious, but I think it is true none the less: we have a duty, not just to our constituents, but to the nation, and not just to this generation of voters, but to future generations of voters, to protect the reputation of Parliament rather than undermine it. Parliamentary democracy based on universal suffrage has not been around all that long; it has not even managed 100 years yet. It is a precious thing, and we need to defend it.
My second point is that independence is central to any standards system for the House. Anyone involved in a disciplinary process, either as a defendant or a complainant—we must remember that quite often there are complainants, many of whom are victims—needs to be completely assured that those involved in adjudicating the matter will always approach the decision with a fair and open mind, without fear or favour. That is what all 14 members of the Standards Committee seek to do.
That is why it is a breach of the code for any Member of the House to seek to lobby a member of the Standards Committee. We must be allowed to do our work without any interference. Sadly, as I have told you before, Mr Speaker, over the past 12 months I have been lobbied repeatedly by a significant number of hon. Members about their own or other Members’ cases. I have always sought to be polite, but extremely robust in response. I apologise if I have seemed rude, but this is an important part of maintaining the independence of the House and of the system.
The same applies to Whips. Some of my best friends are Whips—to get the confession in early—but I gently urge Whips to exercise a self-denying ordinance when it comes to Standards Committee reports, as has always been the case in every single instance in the past. Of course there are matters on which the Government have an understandable interest—matters of policy and finance—but it is inappropriate for anyone to whip House disciplinary matters. By definition, that turns our decision into a political one rather than a quasi-judicial one. Government should serve the House in standards matters, not the other way around.
The independence of the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards is also vital. She must be able to get on with her work without being repeatedly attacked, briefed against, lied about, shouted at, bullied, threatened or generally undermined. I think I am quoting a former Government Chief Whip when I say that the recent campaign against her has been very unedifying. It has been worse than that—it has been cowardly and unfair.
I honestly think the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster should have apologised not just for last week, but to the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards. That would be the right, gentlemanly thing to do. May I, on behalf of, I think, the whole House, apologise to the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards for what she has been put through in recent days?
I want to address the question of due process and ensuring a fair hearing. It is an important distinction that we on the Standards Committee are not a court of law. Indeed, there would be dangers if we were to become a court of law that we would all have to be legally represented. That might lead to a process that benefited the wealthy, who could afford lawyers, over those who could not. We are a Select Committee of the House, and sometimes we deal with matters that are really rather minor and that we would not want to bother a judge with, such as the use of parliamentary stationery.
I want to make it absolutely clear, however, as Speaker’s Counsel did repeatedly as we went through both this investigation and every other investigation since I have been Chair of the Committee, that we have bent over backwards to ensure that any hon. Member gets a fair hearing. Due notice of the charges has always been ensured, as has a full opportunity to put one’s case in writing and/or in person, a chance to make arguments in defence or in mitigation and the right to appeal the commissioner’s findings to the Committee. There is a right of appeal—it is an appeal to the Committee. Every lawyer I have seen comment on our process who has read the report has said that it was an entirely fair one, and of course we have taken legal advice throughout. Let me just quote from one—
Chris Bryant
I will give way, but before I do, let me say that the hon. Gentleman made a speech last week, and he has repeated this point today, about the additional measures available to us in the Standing Orders, but he should understand that those panels are there only where there are disputed facts. In this case, there were no disputed facts at all. So the point that I suspect he is about to make is completely otiose.
Sir William Cash
First, I would refer the hon. Gentleman to appendix 2, set out before the Committee by Mr Paterson. Secondly, let me make the simple point that when the Committee in 2003, which was composed of only three Conservatives, six Labour and two Liberal Democrats, decided on the investigatory panel, this was what was said:
“The proposal for an Investigatory Panel—
which is for serious, contested cases, as this one clearly is—
“is designed to deal with cases (expected to arise only infrequently) which…meet both the following criteria:
proof of the complaint would be likely to lead to the imposition of a serious penalty on the Member; and
there appeared to be significant contested issues of fact which would not properly be decided unless the Member was given the opportunity to call witnesses and/or to cross-examine witnesses supporting the complaint.”
The hon. Gentleman obviously does not agree with me on that, but the facts speak for themselves; there are seriously contested facts and they are disputed.
Committee on Standards
Debate between William Cash and Chris Bryant(2 years, 5 months ago)
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Chris Bryant
I will not, if the hon. Member does not mind. I want to conclude my remarks; I am sorry. He has already caught Mr Speaker’s eye.
We are close to agreeing a report on how we can improve the system. I would also say that the suggested process will keep this running for yet more months. I agree with the Leader of the House: I hate investigations that take a long time, but I will point this out gently. The commissioner was, I think, right to suspend her investigation on the right hon. Member for North Shropshire after his wife’s death. It was only once his lawyers said it was okay to restart that she initiated it again. All the delays in the process have been down to his seeking further extensions of deadlines, and we have always sought to meet those. I think it is inappropriate to keep it going any further.
I also draw a distinction between an appeal on the facts, which we have heard, and an appeal on the sanction. It may be right that there should be an appeal process on the sanction. That is not the process that we have adopted with any other Member thus far, and that is why I think it is wrong to confuse changing the process with the case in hand. It is, as I said earlier, by definition wrong to change the process at the very last moment.
The Committee also says in the report:
“A Member is entitled to contest, even vigorously contest, the Commissioner’s interpretation of the rules and her findings. We do not mark down any Member for doing so.”
The aggravating factor in this case was a lack of insight into a conflict of interest, not a lack of acceptance of breach. I will say this to the Member: this could have been very different if you had come to us and said, “I am sorry. I was trying to do the right thing, but I got it wrong. I want the House to uphold the highest standards, and I accept the reprimand and the sanction. I hope my constituents will deal kindly with me.” The danger is that, if the amendment is carried, his name will become a byword for bad behaviour.
Let me end with this. I hope all Members know that I care passionately about Parliament. The vast majority of Members are here to do good. We make significant sacrifices, as our partners know. We make a big difference, often on campaigns that have no party issue in them—indeed, I hope the House will support my Acquired Brain Injury Bill on 3 December. [Interruption.] I think that was unanimous, Mr Speaker. But if the public believe that we are marking our own homework, our reputation, individually and collectively, will be tarnished. Independence is essential to protect us. A Conservative MP said to me yesterday:
“There have been times when I have been ashamed of being a Member of this House, I don’t want to go back to that.”
Of course, as Chairman of the Committee, I remain a servant of the House, but I also have to look at the public. They want the House to uphold the highest possible standards. Nobody can be above the rules. It is the public who should judge this, and I fear they will find us all wanting if the amendment is carried today. I warn colleagues, with all my heart: do not do something today that we will rue in the future.