Sir Julian Smith

Humble Addresses are very difficult for the Government of the day and for Chief Whips. The Minister for the Cabinet Office, who has just left the Chamber, tabled many Humble Address motions that I dealt with. They are difficult from a legal point of view, and from the position of protecting the rights of the Executive to have independent advice. As the right hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Angela Rayner) said, sometimes those judgments are handled in a way that, retrospectively, might have been different. The national security element is obviously extremely important, and I pay tribute to all our intelligence services for the protection they give our country, but I believe that this Humble Address is quite different from any other that has been put before Parliament. This Humble Address is about corruption at the very heart of our democracy. In my view, the corruption does not relate to the current Government, although there are obviously differing views on their judgment and so forth. For me, this Humble Address is the route by which we will start to get to the bottom of what looks like a level of corruption that we have not seen in this Parliament in recent times. How we handle that and move forward is critical to all of us, and it is vital for public trust.