Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague.
My hon. colleague has another thoughtful question.
Is it a mistake, or is it an error? Could it be negligence? It could be all of the above.
We cannot set up a system where we insulate ourselves from very important issues and then try to use that as a shield to say, “I did not know, and I cannot be held accountable for that.” Westminster parliamentary democracy has a thing called “ministerial accountability”. I actually cannot remember the last time there has been a lot of ministerial accountability in this chamber. Apparently, all they have to do is stand up to say that they think what is happening in a relevant department is unacceptable and that they are working to change it.
Do we think that passports would have been issued quicker if ministers were losing their jobs? Maybe they would have. Do we think the backlog at immigration would get faster if ministers were held accountable for the performance of their departments? Maybe.
Can the Prime Minister stand in the House and say that it is reasonable that he did not know of the allegations? It is entirely possible that he is being truthful and he actually did not know until Monday, but is that an acceptable way to manage the affairs of government? We are setting ourselves up for a precedent to say, “If you shield yourself from information, you cannot be held accountable.” Surely, I do not think that is the road we want to go down.