Public Institutions
Debate between Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town and Lord Fairfax of Cameron
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 This exemption, in my submission, is now out of date.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.
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.