I know that everyone is well aware of the confidence vote in the Prime Minister on Monday night and I’ve received very reasonable questions asking me how I voted.
I am a member of the Privileges Committee – a formal sounding title for the Parliamentary Standards Committee - which has been tasked with determining whether the Prime Minister knowingly mislead Parliament. As such, all the members of the Committee (which is cross-party) have undertaken not to comment after our previous Chair, Chris Bryant MP, had to recuse himself because of views he expressed on social media. I hope that my constituents will therefore understand why I shall refrain from doing the same to respect the integrity of the Parliamentary process.
Chris Bryant is to be replaced as Chair by another Labour MP, Harriet Harman, and our inquiry will start shortly.