House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill

Lord Brady of Altrincham Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 25th March 2025 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Trenchard (Con)]

I thank my noble friend for her clarification, but I wonder about the creation of yet another type of Peer. I wonder how many people would be happy to be created that kind of Peer, if others appointed as Ministers were created proper Peers for life. It might be a bit difficult.

I will comment on Amendment 90C, which my noble friend Lord Brady is going to move. He seeks to abolish the Lords Ministers altogether. Who would speak for the Government in your Lordships’ House? My noble friend clearly has in mind a very different role for the House, and I look forward to his elucidation of that.

[Lord Brady of Altrincham (Con)]

I am grateful to my noble friend for introducing my remarks so capably. I hate to disappoint him, but my intention is to speak briefly in support of my noble friend Lady Laing’s Amendment 67, not to move Amendment 90C in my name. I tabled it intending for it to sit with the earlier amendment that I proposed, which we debated at an earlier stage. My intention was to draw out a broader debate about the importance of a separation of powers. We heard earlier about the separation between the judiciary and the legislature, but we do not speak very often about the possible separation between the Executive and the legislature. That is the debate I was wishing to have, but it does not sit comfortably at this point in our proceedings.

I do, however, very strongly support my noble friend Lady Laing’s amendment, which serves quite an important purpose—and sits naturally with the avowed intention of the Bill. Most of us across the House recognise that the odd process of exempted hereditary Peers being chosen by by-election has become very difficult to justify. It has been widely said at previous stages that it had already really fallen into disuse and most people have been happy to see that there would not be future by-elections.

In dealing with what appeared to be an anomalous route for appointment to your Lordships’ House, it is very hard to see how the appointment of a Peer for life simply because they are being appointed to do a specific job for a specific period of time is not at least as anomalous.

I strongly support my noble friend in her intention. As she has said, it would increase the freedom of Prime Ministers to bring in people to act as Ministers from a much broader field or a much wider spectrum of life experience—and it would not have the unintended consequence of constantly swelling the ranks of your Lordships’ House.

[Viscount Hailsham (Con)]

My Lords, I wish to make two brief points. First, with regard to what has just been said by the noble Baroness, I strongly support the idea of time-limited persons in this House, whether they are Ministers, appointed for a particular short term or—my own favoured proposal—for fixed terms of, say, 10 years, which addresses some of my noble friend’s point.

Amendment 90C, which my noble friend Lord Brady does not intend to move, would be seriously bad news. If this House is to perform its function as a revising Chamber by scrutinising legislation, it is essential that the Government of the day are represented by competent Ministers who can answer questions from the Opposition or their own Benches. If my noble friend’s amendment, which he does not intend to move, was ever to find favour, the role of this House would be hugely diminished.

[Earl Attlee (Con)]

My Lords, I hold my noble friends proposing these amendments in high regard, but I am sorry to say that they display a misunderstanding of the relationship between a Lords Minister and other Members of your Lordships’ House. I do not understand how the House would work if my noble friend Lord Brady’s amendment were to be accepted. What would be the point of being in the House of Lords if we were unable to influence a Minister on a Peer-to-Peer basis?

[Lord Brady of Altrincham (Con)]

Had I intended to move my amendment, I would wonder whether it occurs to my noble friend that it would be possible to bring Ministers from another place to answer Questions here.

[Earl Attlee (Con)]

I could not resist having a pop at my noble friend.

My noble friend Lady Laing mentioned the 36th direct ministerial appointment, and the noble Lord, Lord Rennard, in his important contribution, said more about that. The underlying cause of that is that Prime Ministers have been offering peerages, rather than attractive salaries, to fill ministerial vacancies in your Lordships’ House.

My noble friend Lady Laing’s amendment would have a very serious and adverse effect on the culture of the House. In all my time in your Lordships’ House, I have looked decades ahead. I will give an example. In the 2001 Parliament, we had a perfectly decent, hard-working and effective Minister for Defence Procurement as our Lords Defence Minister. At the time, we were militarily overcommitted, and at Question Time I asked for how many years we had operated outside the defence planning assumptions. He misled the House by saying, “My Lords, none”, and sat down. Unfortunately, that was the wrong answer. I could have wickedly arranged for him to come to the Dispatch Box, immediately after Prayers, to apologise to the House for misleading it—but I did no such thing. Instead, I located the crestfallen Minister and said, “Don’t worry, Willy, just put a Ministerial Statement in the back of Hansard and it will be fine”. Nine years later, when I accidentally cut a £1.7 billion railway electrification scheme, it was my pals in the Labour Party, including the noble Lord on the Woolsack, who said, “Don’t worry, John, you have another Question tomorrow and you can clarify the situation then”.

In the past, I have worked very closely with parachuted-in Ministers, and I am doing so now. I am working very closely with the noble Lord, Lord Timpson —who is a parachuted-in Minister—on prison reform. This is the House of Lords, and our role is to revise legislation and to be an additional check on the Executive and a source of expertise. We cannot perform this role unless other Members of the House and Ministers work together collegiately, with mutual trust and in accordance with the Nolan principles.

House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill

Lord Brady of Altrincham Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 10th March 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Harries of Pentregarth (CB)]

My Lords, there is one assumption in the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Newby, that needs to be questioned, and that is the total identification of democracy with direct elections. There are other forms of democracy that include indirect elections. I was particularly glad to hear the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, bring this up. The debate has moved on since the time of a great standoff between those in favour of a totally elected House and those in favour of a totally appointed House. Ideas were floated by the former Prime Minister Gordon Brown, for example, about a House that truly represents the nations and the regions. You can imagine a House that was indirectly elected by the Scottish Parliament, the Senedd, the Northern Ireland Assembly and the English regions. I am not arguing for or against it at the moment; I am just questioning the assumption that the only form of democracy is direct elections. You could have a form of democracy with the indirect elections by the nations and the regions.

I have just one other small point in relation to the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra. He mentioned the royal commission chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Wakeham, which I had the great privilege to be a member of. The noble Lord suggested that we had recommended that the elected element would be only a third—150, I think. But, in fact, that commission recommended a series of stages in which the elected element would grow. I think on the commission’s recommendations, it would eventually grow to a majority. It is only a small point but that is what it envisaged.

[Lord Brady of Altrincham (Con)]

My Lords, in speaking to the amendment that stands in my name, I reassure your Lordships that I neither seek nor anticipate achieving consensus on this point but rather hope to stimulate the kind of debate and discussion that we are already starting to hear in the Chamber this afternoon.

To the noble Lord, Lord Newby, I say that my proposal of geographical constituencies would ensure the kind of geographical spread that he would like to see, possibly more effectively than a PR system would. I am not wedded to a membership of 200, although I think it is reasonable for the House to be smaller, and I suspect it could be a lot smaller.

Unsurprisingly, I agree with a great deal of what my noble friend Lord Blencathra had to say. Perhaps my concern comes down to his central point, which I think we usually fail to address and tackle sufficiently in this discussion: this House does a very limited and specific job and does it very well. The point I made at Second Reading is that the hereditaries are actually at the forefront of that and, on average, contribute more than life Peers do. But given that the Government are determined to change the composition of a House that works so well in that limited and specific function, should we not take a moment to reflect on wider questions, not just how the House should be composed but whether our function should be so tightly confined?

We might also pause to reflect for a moment on what the public think of this House. I note from a YouGov poll just a few months ago that 42% of the public have a negative view of the House of Lords and 49% think it is not useful. By a margin of 62% to 16%, there is support for having no hereditaries. But, also, interestingly, 50% of the public, compared with 22%, say that they oppose a wholly appointed Chamber.

We are moving the composition of the House—I have no doubt that the Bill will become an Act—but we are moving to something that is already disliked and disapproved of by the wider public, and to something that possibly has even less legitimacy than a House of Lords comprising jointly life Peers and elected hereditaries. The justification for the current composition, or indeed for moving to a wholly appointed House, is circular and, in many ways, peculiar. It is deemed essential that the House should lack legitimacy and that its composition should be hard to defend, precisely and deliberately to ensure the primacy of a House of Commons that does have legitimacy, derived from elections.

House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill

Lord Brady of Altrincham Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 11th December 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Brady of Altrincham (Con) (Maiden Speech)]

My Lords, I am delighted to follow my noble friend and to have the opportunity to speak in this important debate. I am acutely conscious of how many noble Lords are due to speak, so I shall be brief.

First, I thank Black Rod, the clerks, the doorkeepers and all the staff of the House for their assistance and the warmth of their welcome. For those of us used to serving in the other place, perhaps the most novel experience is the warmth, courtesy and civility shown by noble Lords on other sides of the House, which is greatly appreciated. I am also grateful to those noble friends who supported my introduction: my noble friend Lord Howard, whom I was honoured to serve as Parliamentary Private Secretary when he was leader of Her Majesty’s Opposition, and my noble friend Lady Williams of Trafford, whom I encouraged to join the Conservative Party in Altrincham when I was canvassing as a candidate for the 1997 election—if I may say so, Susan, it is all going quite well. Most importantly, I express my gratitude to the people of Altrincham and Sale West, who allowed me the immense privilege of serving my home constituency for seven Parliaments over a period of 27 years. I am proud to have taken my title from the ancient town where I grew up and which I represented in the House of Commons.

When I gave my first maiden speech all those years ago, I spoke about grammar schools, opportunity and social mobility, highlighting the damage that would be done to the life chances of many children from less affluent backgrounds by the abolition of the assisted places scheme. I fear that the imposition of VAT on school fees from January will have a similar negative effect by making Britain’s independent schools more socially selective, not less. I hope to use my time here to say more about the importance of social mobility and spreading opportunity. This summer, I was honoured to be asked to be a trustee of the excellent Sutton Trust. I also hope to use my voice here to stand up for freedom of speech and for the liberties of British citizens. It is too often forgotten that the real purpose of this Parliament is to defend the liberties of the people, not just to deliberate on how and when those liberties should be constrained.

Having thanked all sides of the House for their courtesy and civility, I hope that I will not spoil it all now by pointing out that, when I was in the other place, I consistently voted for an elected upper House—although, I say to the noble Lord, Lord Newby, never for any kind of hybrid such as that proposed by the coalition Government. Indeed, the first time that I voted for an elected Senate, I was surprised to find myself in the Division Lobby with the noble Lord, Lord Clarke of Nottingham, and the late Tony Benn, whose son, the noble Viscount, Lord Stansgate, now sits here in an elected capacity.

Supporting an elected upper House may be a controversial position here but not one that relates to the Bill before us today, which touches on the composition of the House only in a way that avoids any consideration of what the proper function of the House should be. I am unafraid of radical reform of your Lordships’ House and am open to the idea of a fully elected bicameral Parliament such as those which function well in numerous other democracies. I think it is clear, though, that the settled will of this Parliament is to avoid creating a second elected House which might have equal democratic legitimacy alongside the first and therefore challenge its primacy.

So, if the settled view is that your Lordships’ House should serve only the important—but limited—function of a revising Chamber, should we not be more concerned with the efficacy of the House than with its composition? It is a privilege to sit here as an appointed Member and I hope that my contributions will justify that privilege, but it is not immediately obvious to me that our appointed status is inherently superior to the position of those who are elected to sit here—albeit by a very limited franchise.

As others have noted, the excepted hereditary Peers who sit here add greatly to the effectiveness of the House and contribute more than many who are appointed to sit here. It seems likely that this measure will reduce the efficacy of the House as a revising Chamber rather than improving it, while narrowing the expertise, experience and independence available to the House. Certainly, whatever this Bill may be, it does not constitute an enhancement of democracy. For those who think that the exercise of patronage is one of the things that diminishes the elected House, the move to an entirely appointed second Chamber can make that only worse.

For my part, I enjoyed an unusual Commons career in which I successfully avoided ministerial office for the whole of the past 14 years during which my party was in government. I chose instead to champion the Back Benches and play a role in scrutinising and holding government to account, and I hope to continue that role from these Benches.

I promised to be brief. Other noble Lords free of the constraints of a maiden speech will expand on the deficiencies of this Bill and the Government’s motivations in bringing it forward. I will conclude that I look forward to contributing to the scrutiny of this legislation and of many other Bills in need of improvement in future.

Sittings in Westminster Hall (Suspension) (No. 2)

Lord Brady of Altrincham Excerpts

Wednesday 13th January 2021 Commons Chamber

[Sir Graham Brady (Altrincham and Sale West) (Con)]

I will try to be even more succinct than I have to be. I have only three points to make. First, we should regard what we do here as critically important. Too often this House lacks self-confidence, and we undervalue what we do and the importance of our role in holding Governments to account.

The second point I wish to make is about staff. I think that all Members of this House value enormously the excellent staff and support that we have here. We want them, and Members participating here, to be as safe as it is possible to be, but it is also important to say that in my 23 years here I have always found that the staff of this House take as much pride in our democratic functions and the duty we have here, on behalf of the public, as Members do. So it is important that we recognise that. We are all part of the same critically important enterprise.

I close with a final point, which is to thank you, Mr Speaker, for the assurances you have given and the Leader of the House for those that he has given. I reiterate the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Sir Christopher Chope), which is the hope that when the Leader of the House stands up shortly to respond he will make it absolutely clear that there is a guarantee that we will see those days restored somehow for private Members’ Bills and that we will see Westminster Hall returning, wherever it may be and in whatever form.

Hybrid Proceedings (Extension of Temporary Orders)

Lord Brady of Altrincham Excerpts

Tuesday 12th May 2020 Commons Chamber

[Sir Graham Brady (Altrincham and Sale West) (Con)]

Along with others, I pay tribute to your efforts, Mr Speaker, and to those of the House staff and the Procedure Committee, in bringing in these temporary virtual arrangements and putting into place the practical measures here in the House of Commons to improve safety for those who are present in person.

The virtual proceedings have served a purpose during the most acute stage of the crisis, but as the nation gradually returns towards normal life, as the Leader of the House rightly said, it is important that this place moves back towards normality at least at the same pace. The amendment of my hon. Friend the Member for Hazel Grove (Mr Wragg), which was not selected for technical reasons, sought to bring in hybrid voting mechanisms, and I thought that it was also an important recognition that we ought to be able to return gradually. Not only is this about the leadership that this House owes to the country; it is also, as has been said by both the Leader of the House and the shadow Leader of the House, about the quality of scrutiny and the effectiveness of Parliament. So much of what we do here depends on personal contact—however socially distant—and on the ability of Ministers to sense the strength of feeling.

I strongly endorse the comments of the Leader of the House. I very much welcome his commitment to bringing this temporary measure to an end on 20 May. He may not know this, but I can tell him that that is my birthday. I am profoundly grateful for this early gift that he has promised me, and look forward to supporting it.

Proceedings during the Pandemic and Hybrid Scrutiny Proceedings

Lord Brady of Altrincham Excerpts

Tuesday 21st April 2020 Commons Chamber

[Sir Graham Brady (Altrincham and Sale West) (Con)]

The Leader of the House rightly says that these measures are only temporary, which I think we all welcome. Does he agree that the real spirit of this has to be that, as the restrictions on the country are lifted over the coming weeks, we should respond in kind, moving at least in step with the increasing freedom of citizens to go about their business and showing leadership in that respect too?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

As a general rule, it is wise to agree with the chairman of the 1922 Committee, and I am happy to say that on this occasion, I do agree with my hon. Friend. As the rest of the country sees its ability to do more become apparent, so we must go along with that. He kindly leads me perfectly to the point at which I want to end.

What we do in this House is not something that it is nice to do—a frippery or a bauble on the British constitution. It is the British constitution. It is the essence of how our governmental and constitutional system works. The ability to hold the Government to account, to seek redress of grievance and to take up those matters brought to us by our constituents so that they may be put right are best done when this House sits. In 1349, when the black death affected this country, Parliament could not and did not sit; the Session was cancelled. Thanks to modern technology, even I have moved on from 1349, and I am glad to say that we can sit to carry out these fundamental constitutional functions. I am enormously grateful to many who are just as traditionalist as I am but who have accepted these constraints. Mr Speaker, I sometimes think that you compete with me to be a traditionalist, but you have been at the forefront of getting this to happen, because Parliament—the House of Commons—is essential to how we are governed.

Council of Europe

Lord Brady of Altrincham Excerpts

Monday 16th November 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Graham Brady (Altrincham and Sale West) (Con)]

I beg to move manuscript amendment (b), leave out from “adopts” to end and add

“henceforth a system for nomination of its membership of the UK Delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe following a General Election reflecting that for nomination of membership of departmental select committees, namely that the House of Commons names be communicated to the Speaker following party elections involving a secret ballot (with each party to seek to reflect in its nominations the same gender representation as in its parliamentary membership, in order to comply with the rules of the Assembly), and for such names to be sent as now by the Speaker to the President of the Assembly; requires that the revised system be implemented in time for the delegation thus nominated to be able to attend the January 2016 part session of the Parliamentary Assembly; and in the interim authorises the Speaker to send now the names of the delegation as set out in the Written Statement of 3 November to the President of the Assembly in order to permit UK participation in the Assembly until then.”.

I am pleased to be able to move amendment (b), which stands in my name and that of the hon. Member for Nottingham North (Mr Allen). In 2009, he and I were elected by our respective parties to sit on what became known as the Wright Committee, the Committee on Reform of the House of Commons. That Committee recommended, among other things, the creation of the Backbench Business Committee—the body that enabled this debate to be tabled—and the election of the Chairs and members of Select Committees.

As has been alluded to by other hon. Members, the establishment of the Wright Committee and the election of Select Committees came about when Parliament was at perhaps its lowest ebb, held in deep disdain by the public and the media, and mired in the expenses scandal. I would venture to suggest that it is the election of Select Committees, perhaps more than anything else, that has begun the process of rebuilding the reputation of this House. Select Committees, with their elected Chairs and with members elected by the party groups, have grown in stature, and I think that the House itself has benefited as a result.

I will not concentrate in my brief remarks on why we are having this debate, because I do not want to build on the magisterial introduction given by my right hon. Friend the Member for North Shropshire (Mr Paterson), looking at the important work of the Council of Europe and the rules and precedents that surround it. Although I absolutely cleave to the belief that this House should regard itself as sufficiently important, capable and worthwhile to believe that it is obvious that it should choose its representatives, whether on Select Committees or important international bodies such as the Parliamentary Assembly, I tabled this amendment because I am also aware of the dilemma that colleagues might be placed in by the timetable envisaged in the motion. My amendment is an attempt to resolve that difficulty.

My amendment would preserve the principle of election — the principle that this House, rather than the Executive, should choose its representatives on the Parliamentary Assembly and that we should elect them in the same way that we elect Select Committees—but would also accommodate the needs of the timetable for appointment to the Parliamentary Assembly, as set out by my right hon. Friend the Member for North Shropshire.

Were the motion to be agreed unamended, we would be left with a very short window in which to organise elections and ensure that the right choices made by Members of this House are put forward for representation in the Parliamentary Assembly. Amendment (b) would therefore preserve the principle of election while recognising that we can have an interim period, so that those Members currently proposed by the Government to be members of the Parliamentary Assembly would still go forward. They would therefore meet comfortably the deadline of 27 November for the delegation to be in place, yet we would also have an expectation that elections would take place before the beginning of the January 2016 part-session. That would give us a reasonable timeframe within which to organise and hold those elections.

My hon. Friend the Member for Bury North (Mr Nuttall) kindly described my amendment as a fine British compromise, and I hope that my hon. Friend on the Front Bench will see it in that light. I hope that the Government will recognise that this amendment is an attempt to preserve an important principle that is held dear by many Members on both sides of this House, while ensuring that the practicalities of appointment to the Parliamentary Assembly can be accommodated.

As has been said already, election to Select Committees is a fairly new practice. There were calls for that for many years, but it began only at the beginning of the previous Parliament, in 2010. Few now would advocate returning to a patronage-based system for appointing Select Committees. Were the motion or the amendment to be agreed to, I suspect that the election of the UK delegation would quickly become the norm too.

This House is made up entirely of elected representatives. It would surely be odd if today it rejected the principle that representatives should be elected. Choosing to support the amendment would be the act of a legislature that is becoming more self-confident, more independent and better able to do its job.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)]

It is a real pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Nottingham North (Mr Allen), who has expressed exactly why this debate is so important and who has consistently put Parliament first.

I have come across the Council of Europe on only two occasions. One was early on when the deputy Chief Whip said to me, “Peter, we’d rather like you to go to the Council of Europe.” Then I found out why: it was not because I would be a star on the Council of Europe, but because I would be sent away from this House and not be aggravating the Whips. May I suggest that some of the Members who have now been removed were put there for that reason?

The principle is not the fact that three Members, who would by convention have been reappointed, have now been removed. That is not the reason why I am supporting the amendment so ably moved by my hon. Friend the Member for Altrincham and Sale West (Mr Brady)—not the original motion, although my name appears on it. I take the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for North Thanet (Sir Roger Gale) that, in practical terms, if the main motion were passed it would be difficult to get our delegation in place quickly enough, and there would be a gap. That is why we should all support our amendment.

The amendment is a sensible compromise—we would get our delegation appointed tomorrow, effectively, because Mr Speaker has said that he wants to know the will of the House before submitting the names, and then we would have elections next year. That would solve the problem.

I return to the simple point that we are talking about the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. It is not the Ministers who sit on it: it is parliamentarians. It represents this House, so this House must choose. The delegation should not be appointed by the Executive. This is clearly House business and not party political. I am sure that when we vote the Government will do what they have done with so many Backbench business motions and ask the payroll vote to abstain, letting Members who are not part of the Executive express their view on what is clearly a House matter.

[Mr Graham Brady]

Given that my hon. Friend has kindly indicated that he is transferring his support from the main motion to amendment (b), does he share my concern that the Minister only advanced reasons not to support the main motion? I have yet to hear an argument, from those on the Front Bench or elsewhere, why amendment (b) would be a problem.

[Mr Bone]

I am grateful for that intervention. The Minister rightly explained why the original motion would not work, but she did not want to express an opinion on the amendment because it is not something on which the Government should express an opinion. They will stay out of it and let Members, especially Conservatives, make up their own minds.

I pay tribute to the Council of Europe. When I was chairman of the all-party parliamentary group against human trafficking, it was not the European Union promoting reform: it was the Council of Europe. The original convention on the rights of people against human trafficking was a Council of Europe convention, representing 47 countries. I remember arguing from the Opposition Benches that the then Labour Government should ratify it.

This is not a minor matter: it is important. It is about parliamentary democracy, and is in line with what the Prime Minister said so eloquently in his fixing politics speech. The amendment is also in line with my party’s manifesto and, more importantly, supporting it is the right thing to do.

Backbench Business Committee

Lord Brady of Altrincham Excerpts

Monday 12th March 2012 Commons Chamber

[Natascha Engel]

That goes to the heart of the amendments. The minority parties are Back Benchers. They can never really be Front Benchers. It is very unlikely that we will ever see a member of one of the minority parties at the Dispatch Box.

Using the principle of proportionality is also wrong. The Committee has four members from the Conservative party, one from the Liberal Democrats and two from the Labour party, plus the Chair, who has a casting vote. An additional member from one of the minority parties would not automatically lose the Government their majority—certainly not during a coalition Government, and I see no reason why we should not consider expanding the number of members of the Committee if there were not a coalition.

The Backbench Business Committee is different from other Select Committees, in that it represents all Back Benchers of the House. At the moment, however, we do that very poorly by not having representation from the minority parties. The Procedure Committee’s report of October 2011 recommended that these changes be made, and that an additional place on the Backbench Business Committee be created in order that the minority parties be given representation. The right hon. Member for East Yorkshire has just made the point that, after the Procedure Committee had reported, we could table motions to amend what had been decided today. That is sort of true, but only the Government are able to table motions that affect the Backbench Business Committee. Quite rightly, we as a Backbench Business Committee cannot table motions that affect our own operation. What the right hon. Gentleman says is rather difficult unless it is within the Government’s agreement that the motions are tabled. That worries me. That brings me back to asking why the Government cannot simply wait until the Procedure Committee has produced its report and the Backbench Business Committee has told the House about its experiences in the one and a half years of its existence.

Let me briefly support the amendment tabled by the hon. Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone) that deals with the issue of the whole House participating in the elections. This goes back to the point that the Backbench Business Committee is somewhat different from other Select Committees, in that it represents all Back Benchers. Therefore, the whole House should have a say in who it wants on the Backbench Business Committee.

[Mr Graham Brady (Altrincham and Sale West) (Con)]

The hon. Lady and I both served on the Wright Committee, and I am sure that she remembers, as I do, that it was very much that Committee’s deliberate intention to achieve a cultural change in the House of Commons. Part of that was precisely the issue of the Backbench Business Committee being elected by and representing the whole House, not individual parties.

Code of Conduct

Lord Brady of Altrincham Excerpts

Monday 12th March 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Barron]

The hon. Lady makes an interesting point. I was about to move on to talk about the amendment, and we can look at that question in a moment.

The amendment is also in the name of the hon. Member for Broxbourne (Mr Walker), and I am sure that he will explain it later in the debate. It raises significant questions. As I understand it, the amendment would mean that matters relating to a Member’s private and personal life which damaged the reputation and integrity of the House or of Members generally would remain within the scope of the code, but that the commissioner would be precluded from investigating complaints about such matters.

That raises a number of difficult questions. How would the boundaries of private and personal lives be defined? Would a matter remain private and personal if, for example, it had led to criminal behaviour or a failure to comply with civil obligations? Does something remain purely private and personal when it has been running all over the press and the internet for six or seven days? What is an investigation? Would the commissioner be precluded from giving a Member the chance to put his or her side of the story in private, rather than before the Committee as a whole? If the commissioner were unable to investigate extreme cases involving a Member’s personal and private life, would the Committee be expected to investigate them? If so, the Member’s safeguards would be reduced, as the Committee would investigate and pronounce sentence. I would feel uncomfortable about that. We are an adjudication Committee; we do not carry out investigations. The amendment seems to suggest that we might do so, however.

I understand colleagues’ fears that complaints could flood in about private lives, and that the commissioner might have to investigate matters that were properly no one’s business but that of the Member concerned. That is not what is intended. The House should have trust in the commissioner, in the Committee and in itself. Serious cases of a fall in standards should be decided on the Floor of the House, and not by the commissioner or by the Committee.

I am confident that the commissioner will not investigate purely private matters. If some future commissioner did so, I am confident that the Committee would take a robust approach, and that any serious sanction recommended by the Committee would come to the House, which would decide whether it was merited. I ask Members to have faith that all those involved, including the House, would use common sense if these measures were ever applied. I, for one, hope that they never will be.

The new provision is intended only for extreme circumstances, described by the commissioner as those in which a Member’s conduct in certain extremely limited circumstances is so serious and so blatant that it causes significant damage to the reputation of the House. In my judgment, it would be even more damaging to the reputation of the House and to the public’s confidence in the code of conduct—which is one of its key purposes—if the House were unable to take action to express its disapproval and uphold its standards in such circumstances.

[Mr Graham Brady (Altrincham and Sale West) (Con)]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give an example of something “purely private and personal” that he believes would fall within the scope as he has just defined it?

[Mr Barron]

Yes. Let us say a Member had committed fraud, not against the public purse—

[Mr Brady]

rose—

[Mr Barron]

This is a hypothetical example, but let me carry on with it. Let us say that a Member committed fraud, not against the public purse but against a family member, and it was argued that this was a purely personal matter. Let us say that this Member was sentenced in a criminal court for six months; would that not be a matter for this House?

[Mr Brady]

I am grateful—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)]

Order. After putting a question to a Member, Mr Brady should wait for the answer before intervening again; otherwise, we lose the flow.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Brady]

I am grateful to you, Madam Deputy Speaker, and to the right hon. Gentleman for giving way again. He has answered my question in one sense, in that the only example he has adduced is one that is patently not “purely private and personal”, but criminal. By definition, then, it would not fall within the scope of the amendment.

[Mr Barron]

I have to say that I am not too sure about that, as I do not know the intent behind the amendment, which does not make things as clear as the change in the code does. It could be argued on a point of law that the action taken was not a matter for Parliament because it was a personal action. It might be a criminal action—