The Leader of the House of Commons (Mr Andrew Lansley)
I beg to move,
That this House:
(1) approves the Eleventh Report from the Committee on Standards, HC 1225;
(2) endorses the recommendation in paragraph 29; and
(3) notes that Patrick Mercer has been disqualified as a Member of this House.
The conclusions of the Standards Committee in this case make for grim reading. It found that Patrick Mercer deliberately evaded the rules about the registration and declaration of interests, that he inflicted
“significant reputational damage on the House and its Members”
and that by engaging in paid advocacy he brought the House into disrepute.
I deeply regret that one of our number should have failed so badly to meet the standards that we and the public rightly expect. In the event, the six-month suspension recommended by the Committee does not have to be enforced as Mr Mercer decided to vacate his seat in advance of publication of the Committee’s report. None the less, it is important that the House has the opportunity to endorse the Committee’s report, to note Mr Mercer’s resignation, in effect, and to thank the commissioner and the Standards Committee for their work in dealing with this case.
I will leave it to the Chair of the Committee to set out the rationale for the findings in its report, but I want to make one point relating to the use of the sanctions available to the House. The Committee draws attention in paragraph 28 to the further consideration it will give as to how best to balance the need to impose penalties of the right severity for breaches of the code of conduct with the position of the Member’s constituents, who elect them and, by extension, might expect to dismiss them. It goes on to say in paragraph 29 that in reaching a judgment in this case, it was
“mindful of the precedent in the Lords”
where the equivalent Committee had recommended suspension of between four and six months in similar cases.
I am not convinced that the analogy with the Lords works in this context. The tariff system is calibrated differently in that House, largely because it does not have the power to expel peers. Any suspension does not have the same impact because peers do not have constituents who might suffer as a result of a lengthy suspension. Although I do not dismiss the value of precedent, I think we can accept that the two Houses might operate entirely independently from each other on matters of conduct.
In this House, there may be circumstances in which it is desirable to marry the interests of the electorate with the ethical standards of this House through the use of a recall mechanism. We might thus retain the responsibility of the House to police adherence to its own code of conduct but leave the ultimate decision on the sanction, when it is warranted, with the electorate. The Government have given a commitment to pursuing a recall Bill, which I hope will usefully add to the menu of powers already available to them.
On the Mercer case, Members will be aware that his offences related in part to the establishment of an all-party parliamentary group in a way that breached the rules: it was done in return for financial reward. There have been long-standing concerns about the potential for abuse of what are generally valuable additions to our parliamentary work. Following a report by the Speaker’s working group in 2012, the Standards Committee embarked on an inquiry into these groups, which was still under way when the case of Patrick Mercer was referred to the commissioner. The Committee reported to the House on all-party parliamentary groups in November 2013. The Committee’s report made many sensible recommendations designed to improve the transparency, accountability and distinctiveness of all-party parliamentary groups. The whole House can be grateful for this valuable work by the Standards Committee. As I have just announced, there will be an opportunity for the House to consider the Committee’s report and to approve the changes it recommended next Tuesday. I hope that these changes will make it even less likely that we will ever have to consider a report and a motion of the sort the House is being asked to consider today.
In recent weeks, lay members of the Standards Committee have emphasised that more should be done in this House to ensure that Members know and fully understand the requirements of the code and make the principles of public life integral to our thinking and actions. I agree with them and I look forward to working with the Committee to promote that.
It has been the practice of this House to endorse the findings of the Committee on Standards and I invite hon. Members to do so today.