The Government should introduce legislation to make lying in the House of Commons a criminal offence. This would mean that all MPs, including Ministers, would face a serious penalty for knowingly making false statements in the House of Commons, as is the case in a court of law.
Great idea. Won't happen though. The ministerial code already has something about this. The get out jail free card (literally) is that you have to prove intent of lying. Knowingly lied. That the key.
You saw how hard it was to get BoJo held to account. Imagine that shit show year round. Opposition will claim MP lied. MP will deny. "I didn't knowningly lie". "Yea you did". And so on and so forth.
The principle is sound. But I can't help thinking this is like a wrecking ammendment designed so that the sitting government (Tories in this case) say no because it will be deliberately unworkable and then for the opposition parties to go, "oh my days the Tories literally want to lie in parliament boo and hissssssss!!!".
Would love to see this done properly via independent parliament HR. The stress is on independent and with proper powers and fact checking.
You miss a very pertinent point that they must correct the record at the earliest possible time. The ministerial code is also under the discretion of the PM of the day, so will only be put to a committee for discussion if he deems it necessary. This falls short when the PM himself is habitually breaking the code. Sunak as well as his ministers are again following suite by making up figures for the dispatch box, and failing to correct the record when it is pointed out.
Yeah that's all good and everything. But when would they correct the record? Could they continue to delay by saying "well at the time I said what I said because I believed it to be the truth!".
Well it's not a proposed bill and so they'll do some hand wringing and say some platitudes but nothing will come of it because the government has other priorities.
Yes, I expect much change in the house of commons as a result if this debate... /s
What the fuck is the point of these petitions anyways, never seen a single one amount to anything, and the moment they removed the ability to no confidence the PM via the petition it lost all potency.
If you're gonna have petitions make them proper, direct democracy style.
This is a daft idea, it would basically stop any politican from saying anything or making any policy announcements. The people promoting this will be annoyed when MPs treat this deabate as a joke, but it's a completely unrealistic proposal.
The key word is "knowingly". Making a statement that is your best understanding of the situation but doesn't turn out to be true in the fullness of time is very different to lying.
It is against the rules of both houses to knowingly mislead the house, and Parliament is free to punish its members up to and including imprisoning them (until dissolution, anyway).
This is one of those things that seems so obvious. I wonder if many people already believe it's an offense.
Of course, it'll never happen. How many of those fuckers are likely to vote to be criminally penalised for their dishonesty? Not a lot, I'm thinking. Lying is how they make their money and consolidate their power. Wankers. It should be a criminal offense - the fact that they are allowed to lie without penalty undermines democracy. How are they supposed to make an informed and democratic vote if they're doing so based on mendacious info?
Also, I could be wrong about this but I have the idea in my head that the house is legally a court. And under certain circumstances, lying to a court is already criminal. So maybe this is already illegal? I'm probably wrong there, the people behind this petition surely know more than me.