Public Institutions

Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town Excerpts

Thursday 30th June 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Fairfax of Cameron]

As I was saying, I, as a new Member of this House—albeit the second time round—was genuinely surprised when I received the letter of rejection from the committee, because I honestly thought that the arguments we had set out in our letter in this day and age were frankly unanswerable, and there are further reasons for so saying. This is of course now 2016, after the expenses scandal and the seven Nolan principles of public life. What once may have been acceptable, if it ever was, no longer is. This exemption, in my submission, is now out of date. To paraphrase my noble friend Lord Lexden, who spoke in the previous debate, it does not pass muster any longer.

Secondly, I refer to the Survey of Public Attitudes Towards Conduct in Public Life 2014 contained in the briefing pack provided by the Library for this debate. It contains two quite telling sentences:

“Overall, the survey suggests that the public continue to have a very poor valuation of the current standards in public life”;

and,

“Overall, the survey paints a fairly bleak picture of the public’s perceptions of standards in public life”.

In its April 2016 letter in reply to ours, the committee simply stated that it had previously considered this matter on three occasions and that it,

“could not identify a material development since it last considered the matter which should cause it to reconsider its position”.

There we have it: a particularly important committee of this House, comprised, as noble Lords will see when they look at its composition, of some very senior and distinguished Members, professes to respect openness and accountability while at the same time by some of its decisions apparently rejecting the principle of transparency. I am led to go on to say that it is no wonder that the public have the low regard for standards in public life that is noted in the briefing pack, as noble Lords have just heard.

As soon as I heard that this debate had come up in the ballot and I got the date for it, I gave notice to the chairman of the committee and implicitly invited him and any of his committee members to attend but, as far as I am aware, none of them is in the Chamber today.

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Lab)]

Will the noble Lord tell us whether he also notified about this debate all the people against whom certain aspersions are being cast?

[Lord Fairfax of Cameron]

If I heard that correctly, I think that this is a matter of public interest and I am simply ventilating a decision made by the committee.

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town]

Do I take that as a no?

[Lord Fairfax of Cameron]

Yes. I am obviously not casting personal aspersions. I think that the court of public opinion will judge this matter.

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town]

I am sorry to hassle the noble Lord. I am sure he heard that what I asked him was whether he had alerted the people who might be caught by this accusation to the nature of this debate. I think that most people thought it was about something quite different, and I am asking whether he had alerted the people who might have an interest in the case he is making to the content of this debate.

[Lord Fairfax of Cameron]

I had not alerted those people on all sides of the House who might be caught by this, but my comments are not directed at them; they are directed at the decisions of the committee.

Notwithstanding what the noble Baroness has just said and what other Members of this House who are listening may feel, I believe that this is a matter on which the court of public opinion will draw its own conclusions. As to the subject of this debate, I took advice about how to frame the ventilation of my concern on this topic, and I think it was the Table Office that advised me to address it in this way. While it is rather specific, I think that it raises general principles of transparency, openness and perhaps accountability.

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[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Lab)]

My Lords, first I thank the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Chelmsford for raising the standard of the debate, if I may say so, and also giving us an insight into why his sermons are so popular.

[A noble Lord]

It was not a sermon.

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town]

No, but he has good stories.

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Fairfax, for at least the subject of this debate, although his contribution did not bring much credit to the House. I regret that he did not notify people who would be affected by it. Let us name one of them, because we know who we are talking about. The idea that anyone does not know that my noble friend Lord Kinnock was a Commissioner seems to me extraordinary. I am going to put that subject to one side, because I think that the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, has said what needed to be said.

The title of the debate was beautifully written, and the issue is at the heart of our democracy—the openness of government and public institutions, whether those are elected bodies; the Civil Service or Parliament itself, as the noble Lord, Lord Norton, has said; that plethora of public bodies that contribute to civic society, including police, schools, regulators, the health service and social care; or, indeed, private bodies that receive public money, including landlords whose tenants are in receipt of housing benefit, and farmers, who get a lot of public subsidy. Some openness on those is equally important. Indeed, we might note that companies and banks are also active in the public arena, and society needs to know more about their shareholdings, tax payments—or non-payments—and payments to political parties, as well, perhaps, as their rates of pay. Some of those are public issues that go to the heart of trust.

It is the particular function of your Lordships’ House to hold the Government to account, and there are issues about the Government’s openness, whether about lobbying or public appointments, including to this House, in addition to the funding of the political party that forms the Government. Labour has a good record on increasing transparency, which is vital to accountability, as well as to fighting corruption. We implemented Nolan, and introduced transparency to party funding. Transparency is essential in a democracy, but I take very much the points made by the noble Baroness, Lady O’Neill. Some of those points are absolutely central, and we need to think again. Transparency of itself does not produce accountability; it may be a tool in accountability but, in the short term, it can actually undermine trust in democracy if it reveals scandals, given that the biggest factor that undermines trust in politics is corruption or the perception of corruption. However, tackling such behaviour, and having the right regulation in place, can both drive up standards and—although it may take some time—increase trust.

We have already heard some figures about the lack of trust. More than half the respondents to Transparency International’s Global Corruption Barometer said that our Government are “entirely” or “to a large extent” run by a few big entities acting in their own best interests. More than half feel that Parliament is “corrupt” or “extremely corrupt”. Given that the latter is, I believe, completely not the case, it demonstrates how perceptions are more important than fact—perhaps the one point on which I would agree with the noble Lord, Lord Fairfax. For this reason, each lobbying scandal further erodes public trust in decision-making. People are well aware that big money talks and has influence, and that decisions are likely to be taken that please people with big money rather than the public interest.

I think—and I think the public think—that vested interests enjoy easy access to government, while the views of the public and critical outsiders are often seen as views to be managed, rather than actively considered. The result is that too many decisions are based not on evidence but on the opinion of insiders with a private interest. Sadly, many politicians do not recognise this, which is why all lobbying should be open and declared.

We on this side were bitterly disappointed with the lobbying Act, which tied lobbying by charities up in red tape, while leaving big business free access to government and the Civil Service. I absolve the Minister completely from any involvement in that. Indeed, it was a Liberal Democrat Minister who took that ridiculous Bill through this House. Why was it ridiculous? It excludes the activities of in-house lobbying, so that big interests which are big enough to have their own public affairs teams—defence, the drinks industry, which has already been mentioned, construction, pharmaceuticals and health providers—do not have to go on to the statutory register of lobbyists. It is only consulting firms that have to register, and even then only if they lobby a Minister or a Permanent Secretary. We have ex-Permanent Secretaries in the House, but none of them is in his place today. They, and any civil servant, will know that you lobby not at Permanent Secretary level, but at senior civil servant level, and it is unlikely that most consultant lobbyists would see a Minister, because at that stage the client would front up the meeting. Even if a consultant lobbyist meets a Minister, they have to reveal only their list of clients, not the particular client on whose behalf they lobbied and not on what issue. Supposedly, Ministers should disclose meetings with lobbyists through their published diaries, but they are so opaque and so late that it is impossible to work out what issue was being discussed, and meetings here in Parliament, without civil servants present, do not even have to appear on that declaration.

Furthermore, business can lobby special advisers, chairs of Select Committees, Members of your Lordships’ House or MPs without anyone having to know. So will the Government fully support, not just at Second Reading, the Private Member’s Bill proposed by my noble friend Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe which, as he said, will have its Second Reading on 9 September? It would produce a serious register of all paid professional lobbying of politicians and senior civil servants. If the Government will not give it their full backing, why not? Without that, we can have no transparency in government decision-making. Otherwise, we have to ask how a Minister who received IEA funding could then make a policy decision—in this case, to reduce lobbying by charities—with the press release announcing it actually starting by quoting the very IEA which had funded his office.

One part of decision-making is public appointments, where the Government have decided to give more power to Ministers over outside independent judgment. Will the Minister explain how this meets any government desire for openness, transparency and fairness, given that it smacks of jobs for friends? How can someone known to be associated with the out campaign be appointed to the Charity Commission, be involved in its advice that charities should not campaign on the referendum—a move widely seen as stopping environmentalists supporting European action—and then be re-appointed despite this apparent conflict of interest? Incidentally, I believe that a registered charity sent all Members of your Lordships’ House a booklet advocating out, yet the Charity Commission, to which, needless to say, I wrote the next day, failed to respond to my query about whether it was in breach of its guideline.

On appointments closer to home, your Lordships’ House has raised on a number of occasions the extraordinary number of Peers appointed by the present Prime Minister, and I assume we are about to get some more with a resignation list. Those appointments are in the gift of the Government, but surely we need more openness and transparency about them. Separately, his Government sought to cut the private funding going to the Labour Party while leaving completely untouched the limitless money that individuals seem to be able to give to his party. The Government, who have extended the vote to Brits living abroad no matter how many decades it is since they last were last here, let alone when they last paid any tax here, continue to refuse to say whether those non-doms will be able to send as much of their largesse as they fancy to his political party. Surely it is in no one’s interest for our parties to be funded by secret, offshore individuals.

In 2011, the Government signed the Open Government Declaration, which states:

“We acknowledge that people all around the world are demanding more openness in government … and seeking ways to make their governments more transparent, responsive, accountable, and effective”,

and that:

“We uphold the value of openness in our engagement with citizens to improve services, manage public resources … and create safer communities”.

Can the Minister summarise what steps the Government have taken since 2011 to translate these fine words into actions?

This was not quite the debate that some of us envisaged when we saw its title, but I am glad that we have had this opportunity—and I am very glad that the noble Lord, Lord Fairfax, has given me the opportunity to put a couple of questions to the Minister.

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[Baroness Chisholm of Owlpen]

I certainly will.

On the point about lobbying raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, and the noble Lord, Lord Brooke, I will be interested in the noble Lord’s Private Member’s Bill when it appears on 9 September. I certainly cannot now say that we will agree with everything, but of course we will listen and take soundings, and we will be interested in what the noble Lord has to say. As he and the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, know, the register is designed to shine the light of transparency on those who seek to influence the Government and will complement the existing government transparency regime whereby Ministers and Permanent Secretaries proactively publish details of their meetings. The register requires people who are paid to lobby government on behalf of others to disclose their clients on a publicly available register. The register also enhances scrutiny by requiring them to declare whether they subscribe to the code of conduct. Both the register and published meeting information include names of the organisations in question and are published in open, searchable formats. It is also possible to search the register for specific organisations.

The noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, also mentioned public appointments. The Gerry Grimstone report put forward recommendations to strengthen the process. That will increase transparency, and it retains a critical role for the independent Commissioner for Public Appointments to make sure that public appointments are open and transparent.

The UK aspires to and can rightly claim to be the most open and transparent country in the world. Our democracy and governance is stable, robust and held to account by a strong, free press and an ever-growing range of ways to understand and scrutinise the decisions government makes and the way it operates.

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town]

I congratulate the noble Baroness on keeping a straight face at that moment.

[Baroness Chisholm of Owlpen]

I am not keeping a straight face. I am smiling—but I always smile.

The confidence with which our public institutions are held is the foundation that allows our great democracy to function. While government may have significant legal power to impose its will, it operates effectively with the people it serves with the consent borne of confidence and trust.

There are of course many examples of countries around the world where confidence in public institutions has been fatally eroded, often because of corruption or mismanagement, and where the ability to govern effectively is destroyed, hampering economic development and destroying prosperity. Confidence in public institutions is then precious, and the Government are committed to continually deepening openness and transparency to support it.

The noble Baroness, Lady O’Neill, talked about this. I suggest that transparency and openness are different but connected parts of how modern government and institutions should function. Transparency, where the workings of institutions can be seen and understood, underpins openness, where government and institutions work with and alongside the people they serve to deliver the best possible services and outcomes. However, I agree that transparency should be used as a tool, as the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, said, and we have to be careful to use it with other things as well.

The UK should, rightly, be proud of its status as a global leader on both transparency and openness. The Government continue to push at the boundaries of the information they publish and they strive to ensure that citizens can fully participate in making the decisions that affect them. For example, the UK leads the world in the release of open data and has recently been ranked number one in the World Wide Web Foundation’s Open Data Barometer for the third year running.

Open data—the release in a structured format of key government data licensed in such a way as to allow anyone to use them—allows the public meaningful, open access to important data about how our public institutions function. These data on how public money is spent and on how well key parts of government are performing, as well as, importantly, data of high value held by government about things such as the transport network, create significantly greater opportunities for government to be held to account and, crucially, allow others outside government to come forward to build new data-driven products and services using previously hidden government data. One example of that is the tool Citymapper, a smartphone application developed in the UK that takes into account a wealth of open transport data to help you get from A to B in the fastest possible time.

The economic benefits of transparency are clear but perhaps it is harder to measure the impact of greater transparency and openness on public confidence in institutions. What seems indisputable is that trust in public institutions is growing. Research by Edelman as part of its annual Trust Barometer shows that since 2012 trust in government has risen. More strikingly, research by Ipsos MORI shows that civil servants in particular have seen a large increase in trust since 1983: only 25% said they trusted civil servants to tell the truth in 1983 compared with 55% now.