UK Parliament / Open data

Conduct of the Right Hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip

It is indeed the case that facts have been laid out in courts of law; they stand for themselves.

I have to say that at a time when our national health service and our care workers and volunteers up and down the country are yet again supporting the covid effort, I think that it is incredibly important that this Government be transparent. [Hon. Members: �Withdraw!�] I will not withdraw what I have said, but I hope that the Conservative Government will withdraw what they have said about not being transparent�a point that I will come to in a moment.

The foreword written by the Prime Minister says that there will be

�no actual or perceived conflicts of interest�.

Sadly, we know that there have been so many. Peerages have apparently been handed out to anyone who can meet the �3 million entrance charge and agree to a stint as Conservative party treasurer. David Cameron and Lex Greensill were given the run of Whitehall to beg for access to hundreds of millions of pounds of taxpayers� money. More than half a billion pounds in testing contracts was handed over to a company advised by a Conservative former Minister, without competition and behind closed doors, with a second contract dished out to Randox Laboratories after it had failed to deliver on the first.

I am grateful to the right hon. Member for West Suffolk (Matt Hancock) for the comments that he has just made. If he believes in transparency�

Type
Proceeding contribution
Reference
704 cc851-2 
Session
2021-22
Chamber / Committee
House of Commons chamber
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