Two years ago, I made headlines after being kicked out of the House of Commons for calling out the many lies of then-Prime Minister, Boris Johnson.
Now, I am once again forced to try and draw attention to parliamentary fibbing from this Conservative Government.
And it is time to toughen up the rules so that they can no longer get away with misleading the British public.
On this occasion, it was the Deputy Prime Minister, Oliver Dowden, who I had to call out in the chamber two weeks in a row
Back on June 7, when he was standing in for our absentee Prime Minister, Dowden claimed that the Labour Party’s plan to invest £28billion a year in green energy would add £1,000 a year ‘to everyone’s mortgage.’
For the Deputy PM to make such a bold statement, you would expect it to be firmly backed up.
However, the Treasury has since admitted that the £1,000 figure does not come from official government analysis, after being challenged by the UK’s statistics watchdog.
We would expect Dowden to either back up his statement, or correct the record.
After all, the ministerial code, which all ministers must abide, states:
‘It is of paramount importance that ministers give accurate and truthful information to Parliament, correcting any inadvertent error at the earliest opportunity.’
I attempted to ensure just that, when I raised a Point of Order on July 5, calling on the Deputy PM to return to the House and set the record straight, but he refused.
A week later, I gave him another chance to do so – again, he chose not to.
I didn’t let this go and wrote to the Prime Minister – the ultimate arbiter of the ministerial code – with three clear questions.
Where did the Deputy PM get the figure from? Would he instruct the Deputy PM to return to the House of Commons at the earliest opportunity to correct the record?
And if he refuses, would he initiate an official investigation into whether he has breached the ministerial code?
I knew the code calls on ministers who knowingly misled the House to resign, but I also knew weak Rishi Sunak would take no action, just like he did with Suella Braverman.
But I was surprised that what I got back was, in fact, a letter from the Deputy Prime Minister himself in which he doubled down on his mortgage claim and tried to move the goalposts by using a theoretical interest rate rise to try and justify his misleading statement.
The Deputy PM’s response was, in my view, full of ifs, buts and maybes, based on unproven assumptions and politically motivated ‘predictions’
What this episode demonstrates is that the system must change. Even the Speaker said: ‘I really think that the rules need to be looked at again so that Ministers — do not forget that elections change Ministers as well — ensure that this House hears the facts.’
I couldn’t agree more.
It is my view that this Government hasn’t changed and neither have the archaic parliamentary rules that allow them to keep lying to the country.
The Tories are destroying our democracy and I think my job is not to simply stand by and watch it happen, but to call them out – as I explain in my new book A Purposeful Life, I have always felt that, no matter how hard and uncomfortable it may be, it is my duty to speak truth to power.
And there are solutions to this epidemic of ministerial lying. My Early Day Motion 1345 would take the ministerial code out of the hands of the partisan Prime Minister and put it under the remit of the whole House of Commons. It would apply fair and necessary standards no matter who is in government.
There is no doubt our Parliament is ripe for reform, but not just because of lies. It is also in a state of paralysis.
That paralysis is not helped by a Tory Government that has given up – they barely bother to put through meaningful legislation anymore.
Even when they did so recently with the Public Bodies Bill, designed to prevent boycotts, I believe it was nothing more than a political stunt, which will never see the light of day in law.
The only reason Dowden was even in a position to mislead the House was down to Rishi Sunak’s dismal attendance record at PMQs.
He has the worst attendance record of any recent leader and seems to avoid accountability at every opportunity.
I will be honest and say the Government isn’t the only side that needs to change. At the top, Labour has become so focussed on appearing to be a sensible alternative that we barely even attack the Conservatives anymore.
We need to go back to doing what we are supposed to do, and hold this Government’s feet to the fire every chance we get.
Lying is, I believe, the defining characteristic of this Government, under successive prime ministers, and we must stop it.
Because if not, what state will our democracy be in when they hopefully leave office? And how are they going to leave trust in our Parliament?
Rishi Sunak has been in Downing Street since October last year and on his first day he promised integrity, professionalism and accountability.
From the Prime Minister down, his government has delivered the exact opposite, and it’s time for change.
Do you have a story you’d like to share? Get in touch by emailing jess.austin@metro.co.uk.
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