Sammy Wilson

Sammy Wilson

Democratic Unionist Party — East Antrim

Speaking in the House of Commons on 9 February 2026

Debate

Standards in Public Life

Contribution

Of course we need a commissioner who has the power and ability to expose corruption and deal with it, but today’s statement was not required. We already knew that the Prime Minister made a bad judgment. What the public want to know is how he will be held to account for the things that he knew but ignored. Will the Minister assure the House that when he looks at extra powers for commissioners, he will not go as far as was gone in Northern Ireland, where the discredited former standards commissioner used her powers to silence Members of the Northern Ireland Assembly who were questioning Ministers too vigorously, or who were not showing enough empathy when they made public statements about security situations in their constituency? I ask this particularly because when heckling fails, some Members of this House now threaten other Members by reporting them to the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards, to try to silence them that way.

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