Responding to the government’s decision to back a vote to overhaul the rules on MPs’ standards, cancelling the suspension of a Tory MP found guilty of an “egregious” breach of lobbying rules, the member of Parliament for Portsmouth South, Stephen Morgan MP, said:
“What the Conservatives have done is nothing short of corruption.
“One of Boris Johnson’s MPs was found to have taken hundreds of thousands of pounds from a company and then sought to influence ministers to benefit those that were paying him. An independent committee ruled that he should face sanction. He should have apologised and taken his punishment.
“Instead, Boris Johnson and the Tories took the shocking decision to scrap the Standards Committee and replace it with one run by one of their MPs.
“Imagine if that happened in any workplace across the country – someone is shown to have acted improperly – but instead of facing disciplinary action, the boss intervened and said, “don’t worry, we’ll get rid of the HR department instead.”
“It surely wouldn’t happen. And if it did, we’d say it was utterly corrupt.
“Over and over again, this Government shows total contempt for the rules. Let’s not forget, they defended Dominic Cummings when he mocked the British people by breaking lockdown rules and handed billions of pounds of taxpayer money to their donors and friends during Covid-19.
“The truth is, we have a Prime Minister who thinks the rules are for everyone else, not him and his chums. With his every action he signals to his MPs: do what you like. There are no consequences.
“Labour will not be taking part in this sham new system the Tories have set up. We will not insult the British public by taking part.
“Instead, we are focusing on cleaning up politics. We’ve got a lot of plans in this area. Under a Labour government, anyone who holds ministerial office would be banned for five years working for companies who want to write legislation in their own interests. The current situation is absurd and shouldn’t be allowed. You can choose to be a lawmaker or a lobbyist – you can’t be both.
“We would also introduce a truly independent anti-corruption and anti-cronyism commission, to ensure we never again see a situation where Tory MPs gorge their donors on billions of pounds of taxpayer money. And we would improve transparency around public spending and government contracts through a new Office of Value for Money, set up to ensure the government treats taxpayer money with the respect it deserves.
“I can promise you that I will continue to hold the Government to account on this and Labour will be setting out a lot more about how we would clean up politics on behalf of ordinary people.”
