If Parliament is thinking of bringing in these powers for people giving testimony in select committee’s I also think these powers should be applied to lying bastard ministers who lie to the house (Chris Grayling Over Audio Recording of Atos Assessments)?
Lying or misleading MPs during parliamentary committees could become a criminal offence.
The American-style powers are being discussed by senior MPs following Bob Diamond‘s testimony to the Treasury Select Committee.
Some of the committee’s members were said to be less than impressed with the former chief executive of Barclays and he was accused by one of ‘calculatedly and deliberately’ misleading Parliament.
It also follows a report which accused three former News International executives, Les Hinton, former editor of the News of the World Colin Myler and ex-legal boss Tom Crone, of misleading a House of commons inquiry into the phone hacking at the News of the World.
Powers to imprison those in contempt was used by both the House of Commons and the House of Lords and between 1810 and 1880 there are 80 recorded cases.
However, in recent years, the powers have never been used and senior MPs are keen to consider whether prosecution might be a possibility in the future.
Parliament also has the power to impose fines and call miscreants before them but the last recorded incident of this was 1666.
In the U.S those found in contempt of a Senate or House Committee can be reported to the U.S Attorney for the District of Columbia for Grand Jury investigation.
It is believed certain committee members involved in the News International, Barclays and G4S inquiries are keen to follow this lead.
FB is not allowing me to share this (No change there then!). I agree with everything you say. To my mind, this should be made Law with immediate effect. (In other words: Get your idle arses bank to work MP’s, and PROVE, you CARE¬!).
Yes indeed- PRACTICE WHAT YOU PREACH PLEASE PARLIAMENT!
Good god, a law unto themselves these bastards are.
At least most people whom lie are little annoying liars, but, bankers, politicians etc are massive, people destroying liars!
I despise the ones within it all and i despise their audacity to preach what they have no intention of doing themselves
Agree totally Anne. They wouldn’t know the truth if it jumped up and bit them! Mxx
yes agree are they know going to call atos in aswell as this companys lies go goverment minister go each wk telling lies to our mps and nothing done there about time they did jeff3
My sentiments exactly Jeff.
The last time I recall an MP being caught out was John Perfumo when he lied to the House. MP’s are doing it all the time, not to the House but to us. If they fail to deliver, sack them just like a worker gets sacked if he doesn’t do his job. I would even go so far as when a PM makes a speech peppered with lies, or missleading statements. Graying might have lied, but to my mind it’s more a case of DWP/Atos failing to deliver. Where there is a priviledge, there’s no room for lies.
It’s at Grayling’s discretion, as a minister, to say whatever ‘truth’ comes into his mind at any given moment: to whatever audience he has at the time. Distorted to meet what they want to hear. It’s what ministers seem to be for these days, over-and-above the humdrum admin (or should that be ‘under’ the …..?) A few have fallen foul of hubris but these guys are seriously obsessive; IDS has been an abject failure on everything, and most especially on ‘Poverty’ so now he’s blaming the poor to save his last-chance-saloon face; The Quiet Man speaks: he needs a potent legacy to redress his feeble record to date. It just makes him a Neo-Con bully, actually. Grayling is just a vic tim of the kind of self-belief that the perverse tend to adopt in their bid for self-preservation: you can detect the dripping ectoplasm some nights. It seems to come from his eyes while his mouth does that lip service thing that they do (at their discretion) as Conservatives around Sir Mark Thatcher’s mum used to do so obligingly. Deliberations.
the government are dishonest so how do you implement such laws liars punishing liars mind you would go along with our hypocritical
so called politicians reasoning after all the biggest liars are sponsoring paralympics atos now thats a big lie
They post-date it. The laws as their legacy (but only after they’ve been-and-gone) with any luck!
rules of membership into camerons cowards gang (lie cheat blame all others for your wrong doings treat all with under a million in the bank with contempt and distain mock and sneer at the old sick injured and disabled)if you have these cowardly qualitys your on your way into top government
excuse my sarcasm but its all they warrant