Most of us are aware that MPs and Peers enjoy ‘Parliamentary privilege’: immunity from legal action so that they can speak freely in Westminster. For example, in February 2022, Layla Moran MP used Parliamentary privilege to name 35 people whom she claimed were Russian oligarchs, arguing that they should be sanctioned due to their closeness to Russia’s President during the Ukraine war. In May 2024, David Davis MP used it to highlight an article in a prominent U.S. magazine about the case of the former nurse Lucy Letby. The article could not be reported by the U.K. Media for legal reasons and was not available to U.K. readers – indeed, most people wouldn’t even have been aware of the article until David Davis mentioned it.
Those examples seem to me to be positive uses of Parliamentary privilege: freedom of speech for Parliamentarians, free from the threat of legal action, to bring important matters to the attention of all U.K. citizens.
But I’ve stumbled upon what seems to me an egregious use of Parliamentary privilege. I came across it recently in relation to the Covid Inquiry. It turns out that Parliamentary privilege doesn’t just bestow immunity from legal action but its also precludes what Ministers and MPs say in Parliament being examined, challenged or questioned in public inquiries (which can apportion blame and criticise individuals but absolutely do not constitute legal action). It is spelt out here:
The background is that Perseus Group, of which I am a member, had received a Rule 9 request to submit a written statement to the U.K. Covid Inquiry’s Module 4 (Covid vaccines and therapeutics). Some of our evidence referenced what Ministers had said in Parliament (as recorded in Hansard), in particular that:
- Ministers had ignored or been unaware of similarities between the Covid vaccines and ‘Pandemrix’, the Swine Flu vaccine authorised in 2009. We argued that the rushed trials of both had led to high rates of serious adverse events soon after authorisation. Pandemrix was withdrawn on safety grounds soon afterwards.
- Ministers cited the existence of the COVID-19 Vaccine Benefit/Risk Expert Working Group (EWG) as part of public reassurance about the Covid vaccines but said that EWG minutes are not published. Not that reassuring then. But Ministers were also contradicting what MHRA (for which they are responsible) was saying in FOI replies, namely that MHRA planned to publish the EWG minutes. The minutes still haven’t been published two years later but that’s another story.
- Ministers cited in debates the public health benefit of Covid vaccination but omitted to mention: the low Infection Fatality Rate (IFR) of Covid; the high average age of death; the very high Number Needed to Vaccinate (NNV) in younger age groups; that they knew the vaccine didn’t stop transmission; and that their own evidence showed that Covid infection rates were actually higher in most vaccinated age groups. So much for informed consent – not just for U.K. citizens but also, egregiously, for MPs and Peers whom the Government persuaded to vote for Covid vaccination being a condition of employment in care homes and, very nearly, in the NHS.
The Perseus Group was told that Parliamentary privilege meant that we had to remove all of those Hansard references from our evidence to the Covid Inquiry.
I’m still unhappy about that. Immunity from legal action is one thing. Parliamentarians avoiding accountability in a public inquiry for what they said in Parliament is quite another. So I’ve dug out a few more examples of key figures saying things in Westminster which the Covid Inquiry really should be challenging them about (instead of poking around who said what to whom in WhatsApp messages).
Who can forget the Covid vaccination slogan “we are not safe until we are all safe”. Well, Lord Bethell, the Health Minister, said it in February 2021. Indeed, he was emphatic that it was true – according to him it was an “absolute axiom”.
It was quite clear from the evidence that it was a load of rubbish then and it’s a load of rubbish now. Indeed, look what happened to the AstraZeneca vaccine – it immediately led to unexpected serious adverse events and deaths, and it was then quietly dropped (but only after MHRA had delayed action for two months after other national regulators). Yet that Hansard reference cannot be used in the Covid Inquiry to challenge Bethell about his statement.
Or Sir Keir Starmer, who said in the Commons on June 16th 2021: “Without global vaccine coverage, this virus will continue to boomerang, bringing more variants and more disruption to these shores.” The Covid Inquiry would do well to ask him if he still stands by that statement because a) the evidence was, even at the time but more so now, that Covid vaccination is (at best) limited and transient in its effectiveness, and b) he’s now Prime Minister and so he’s currently in charge of responses to future pandemics (Bird flu vaccine anyone?) Oops, the Inquiry can’t challenge him on his words in Parliament – he’s protected by Parliamentary privilege.
Who can forget Sunak and his team saying repeatedly in Parliament that the Covid vaccines are “safe and effective”? By January 2024, Sunak himself had walked back to just asserting that they were “safe”, quietly dropping the word “effective”. Actually, well before that, there was already a mountain of evidence that the Covid vaccines were neither safe nor effective. However, the Hansard references to his words in Parliament cannot be used to challenge him during the Covid Inquiry.
The same will be true of other scandals – Grenfell, Post Office, Infected Blood, Cumberlege. Ministers can say whatever they like in Parliament but not only can’t they be subject to legal action, but even the eventual public inquiry is unable to hold them accountable for what they said because Parliamentary privilege protects them in public inquiries, too.
I despair.
Until Nick retired a few years ago, he was a Senior Civil Servant in the Ministry of Defence responsible for the safety and effectiveness of ammunition used by the Armed Forces. He is co-author of the Perseus Group report on U.K. medicines regulator the MHRA.
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