Standards and Privileges
(12 years ago)
Commons ChamberRead Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Leader of the House of Commons (Mr Andrew Lansley)
I beg to move,
That this House
(1) approves the Second Report from the Committee on Standards and Privileges (House of Commons Paper No. 635);
(2) endorses the recommendation in paragraph 62; and
(3) notes that Mr Denis MacShane has been disqualified as a Member of this House.
The report by the Standards and Privileges Committee into Mr MacShane’s conduct describes it as
“the gravest case which has come to us for adjudication, rather than being dealt with under the criminal law”.
This was deeply reprehensible conduct, including, as the report says, actions “plainly intended to deceive.” That will have angered many of our constituents and Members of this House alike.
In this House, we are determined to meet the highest standards in public life. The events that were the subject of the complaint against Mr MacShane took place between 2005 and 2008. Since the expenses scandal three years ago, we have instituted measures to seek to rebuild trust in our procedures and in Members themselves. The Parliamentary Standards Act 2009 provides for an offence of providing false and misleading information to the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority. This is designed to ensure that anyone submitting false invoices now would be caught and could be prosecuted.
We are committed to ensuring that such behaviour could not take place now or in the future, but we must recognise that independent scrutiny and enforcement is not enough. We should expect Members of the House themselves to set and meet the highest standards of conduct. The fact they have not is a matter of deep regret, and in this House I know we will be determined to demonstrate that we will not tolerate such lamentable breaches of those standards. We must make it clear that such breaches will be dealt with seriously and proportionately. It is in pursuance of this that I have moved the motion.
Mr MacShane has sought and secured disqualification from the House. The motion notes this, but none the less approves the report by the Committee on Standards and Privileges and its recommendations. To do so will establish that the House will act against Members on the basis of the Committee’s report and the Commissioner’s inquiries and conclusions. It may be that Members will not wish to debate in detail the findings of the report and investigations by the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards, recognising that any possible further action now lies outside this place. None the less, in my view, it is important that we put the endorsement by the House of the Committee’s report on the record.
The Chair of the Committee will wish to explain its conclusions and recommendations in further detail, but I should like to put on record our thanks to him and his Committee, and to the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards, for their work in this case, and for their continued work in the House. It has been the practice of this House to endorse the findings of the Committee on Standards and Privileges, and I invite hon. Members to do so today.
Ms Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)
May I add my thanks to my right hon. Friend the Member for Rother Valley (Mr Barron), the Chair of the Standards and Privileges Committee, and to the other members of the Committee for the work that they have done on the report?
I rise following the speech made by the Leader of the House to support the suggestion in the motion before us today that:
“This House approves the Second Report of the Committee on Standards and Privileges…and endorses the recommendation in paragraph 62.”
The motion before us goes on to point out that the former Member of Parliament for Rotherham took the decision to resign his seat after he was made aware of the content of the Committee’s report on its publication last Friday. His own stated reason for doing that was that it was right that he should take responsibility for the mistakes that he has made and be accountable for them by leaving Parliament. We believe that in these circumstances he has done the right thing. His resignation emphasises the importance of respecting the rules for claiming reimbursement of expenses incurred by Members of the House in the performance of their parliamentary duties. It is crucial that the public have confidence in these arrangements, too.
The report deals with claims made between 2004 and 2008, which relate to the system that was in place prior to the creation of the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority. This has led, as the Leader of the House pointed out, to a much more robust and transparent system that minimises the chances of such abuses occurring in the future. This sorry episode will serve to reinforce both the importance of the rules and the gravity with which serious breaches are regarded by this House.
Mr Kevin Barron (Rother Valley) (Lab)
I will be very brief. The Committee’s report sets out the circumstances of the case clearly. The inquiry related to claims made between 2005 and 2008 under the old expenses system. I cannot be certain that this is the last of the expenses scandal, but I hope that it is.
On a personal note, I have known Denis MacShane since he was first selected to contest a by-election in Rotherham in 1994. I have worked with him as one of the three MPs in the borough since then and know he has always had the interests of his constituents, and the wider Rotherham borough, at heart. The events of the last three years will not totally overshadow my memory of the work that Denis has done in Rotherham.
The Committee, however, was united in its finding that this was the gravest case that has ever come before it. The absolute sums were not the issue; it was the manner in which they were claimed, the flagrant disregard for the rules of the House, and the failure to co-operate with the commissioner’s investigation that most concerned the Committee. We judged that to be a breach of the code of conduct. There may have been suggestions that hon. Members are above the criminal law. That is not true, and that needs to be addressed.
The commissioner’s investigations are into possible breaches of the code of conduct, not criminal matters. The procedures are fair, but the commissioner is not conducting a criminal investigation and neither is the Committee. As we said in the report:
“The decision as to whether conduct is criminal and as to whether proceedings should be brought is one for the police and the CPS.”
In 2008, the Committee, the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards and the police agreed that criminal investigations should take precedence over the House’s disciplinary proceedings. For that reason, we agreed in 2010 that the case should be referred to the police, and the commissioner referred it. After a long investigation, the police and the Crown Prosecution Service decided not to proceed. They doubtless considered that decision very carefully. They now have our report and may consider it again. That is their decision, not ours.
If our report contains new material, the police can use it to guide their investigations. Receipts, invoices and claims are not privileged, and do not become so simply because they are reproduced in a parliamentary report. It is true that the correspondence between the commissioner and those he investigates could not be used in court proceedings without impeaching and questioning proceedings in Parliament. It is our view that that would be a breach of article 9 of the Bill of Rights. In reality, however, that correspondence is likely to be inadmissible anyway. There are strict legal safeguards about the gathering and use of evidence in criminal proceedings. The House’s disciplinary procedures are scrupulously fair, but they are disciplinary processes, not criminal investigations. It would be most unwise of the House to speculate on the criminality of an hon. Member’s conduct.
The Committee has given its judgment on breaches of the code, and the House is invited to agree. Whether or not conduct such as that described in our report is criminal, it is clear that we will not tolerate it. I welcome that, and I hope that the House agrees.
Sir Paul Beresford (Mole Valley) (Con)
Clearly, as a member of the Committee I support the findings and I support the motion. I do not want to go through the report, but I just want to raise an issue that comes from it. The commissioner’s inquiry was in two parts. The first included a measure of co-operation from the Member in question combined with research into retained files. That evidence was sufficient for the Committee to decide to pass further inquiries to the police, which we have already had explained to us. The second half was subsequent to the police investigation. This time the Member refused to co-operate and a fuller investigation was partially blocked. It is a requirement of the House that Members co-operate with the commissioner. There is no fifth amendment; co-operation is expected. It is very often the core of the inquiry for the commissioner to have that response and co-operation.
I have not been a member of the Committee for very long, but I understand that there has been at least one case, and perhaps more prior cases, where a Member has refused to co-operate. In at least one case, the House imposed a suspension after which the Member returned to the House, leaving the Committee with an unsatisfactory report and no real resolution. This is a concern that the Committee and the House should look into, because I suspect that this will not be the last occasion when this type of reaction to the commissioner will happen.
Michael Connarty (Linlithgow and East Falkirk) (Lab)
It is with some regret that I raise, on behalf of my constituents who have raised it with me—this is not to mitigate anything in respect of the report and the actions of Denis MacShane—the question of why there seem to be double standards. The Minister for Schools, the right hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr Laws), was clearly guilty of falsely claiming £60,000 of House expenses and has been returned to the Cabinet, yet other Members have been recommended for expulsion from the House.
Mr Speaker
Order. I think the hon. Gentleman has concluded his remarks, but they were outside the terms of the motion. Of course, if he wanted to pursue the matter, it would require a substantive motion.
Question put and agreed to.