Conduct Of The Honourable Member For Dover And Westminster City Council

EDM number 902 in 1995-96, proposed by Hilary Armstrong on 16/05/1996.

That this House notes with serious concern the untrue allegations made by the honourable Member for Dover in the debate on Tuesday 14th May on the District Auditor's finding concerning Westminster City Council; further notes that, contrary to the allegation made by the honourable Member for Dover, only one of the original 13 objectors has withdrawn their objection, and that the honourable Member for Workington remains an objector; affirms that the allegations that companies owned by three of the objectors 'have earned ú1 million in fees for planning consultancy political work obtained through their membership of the Labour Party' are totally untrue, that neither of the companies are 'political consultancies', that the companies win virtually all their work in competition and that they work for many private sector organisations, non-political voluntary organisations, local authorities run by different political parties, institutions such as development corporations, HATS, TECs and Government departments; further acknowledges that all of the allegations made against the objectors are untrue and scurrilous, that the honourable Member for Dover must have known them to be untrue and that his speech was therefore a gross abuse of parliamentary privilege and entirely contrary to the Prime Minister's amendment stating 'that parliamentary privilege is a powerful weapon for the protection of individuals and should not be used to provide cover for party political attacks.'.

This motion has been signed by a total of 46 MPs.