Lobbying

Debate between Grahame Morris and Jacob Rees-Mogg

Tuesday 25th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Jacob Rees-Mogg (North East Somerset) (Con)]

It is a great pleasure, as always, to follow the hon. Member for Easington (Grahame M. Morris). I learned that the Morning Star still exists. I confess that I was unaware of that. I thought that it had gone with the Berlin wall and all that.

As so often in this Chamber, we are not discussing a new problem. The issue of lobbying and undue influence goes back into the mists of time. Delving back not too far, who can forget Sir John Trevor, a former Speaker of the House who was expelled both from the speakership and from Parliament for accepting a 1,000 guinea bribe from the City of London to promote a Bill on orphanages? Interestingly, the Chairman of the Bill Committee, Mr Hungerford, received only 20 guineas for his service. He, too, was expelled from the House. I reflect that the Speaker was worth almost 40 times as much as the Chairman of a Committee. I wonder whether the relativities have changed in this more modern age.

Sir John Trevor and Mr Hungerford were expelled by this House for being unduly lobbied. Interestingly, they were unduly lobbied by another arm of the state: the corporation of London. It is worth bearing it in mind that, contrary to what the hon. Member for Easington said, it is not only wicked businesses that are involved in lobbying; it is something that happens across society. Everyone has an axe to grind regarding the issues that face this House. They therefore come to us to lobby. In and of itself, that is a perfectly legitimate activity.

As my hon. Friend the Member for West Worcestershire (Harriett Baldwin) so rightly said, it is an historic right of every one of our constituents to come to Central Lobby, demand our presence and tell us their views on whatever subject is important to them. That is a wonderful historic right. It is a pity that people do not know about it and do not use it more. We ought to encourage our constituents to come and lobby us in that way. There is a nobility in lobbying that must not be lost in the midst of the discussion about what is, in effect, corruption. Let us try to use the terms differently and not allow lobbying to become a polite term for criminality, dishonesty and corruption.

Within British politics, there are essentially two types of lobbying. There is the lobbying of Members of Parliament, which is perhaps the triumph of hope over experience, whereby people come to see somebody such as myself, a junior Back-Bench MP, and say that they want me to do this, that and the next thing and to change legislation, thinking that the Prime Minister and the Leader of the House hang on my every word. Sadly, I have to tell such people that that is not quite how it works. MPs have the ability to debate and argue, but not necessarily to change the course of the world. Then there is the lobbying of Ministers, who have a much greater and more direct Executive power—a decision-making power, rather than merely an influencing power. The two types of lobbying need to be regulated differently and separately.

There is a difference between those on the Opposition Front Bench and the Government Front Bench. Opposition Front Benchers have the hope and possibly the expectation of power. Those on the Treasury Bench have the reality of power and lobbying them can have a direct influence on what is happening. They should therefore be subject to a higher standard of openness and transparency than Opposition Front Benchers, who ought to be entitled to their smoke-filled rooms, although as they are socialists, the rooms will have no smoke in them, because they do not approve of that sort of thing. You know what I mean, Mr Deputy Speaker.

Given the difference between Government and Parliament, we need to legislate only for Government. Parliament has all the powers that it needs to regulate its own affairs, if only we had the courage to use them. We have a Committee of Privileges and a Committee on Standards. We are entitled to expel Members who misbehave. We may do so not according to a detailed set of rules, but according to whether we believe, as a House, that they have undermined the reputation of the House and have not behaved like honourable Members. Such a decision is not justiciable in any court in the land because we are the High Court of Parliament. The regulation of our own affairs is not challengeable in the other House, as was established by the Bradlaugh case, when an atheist was refused the right to sit in Parliament.

We have the right as a Chamber to admit and expel Members. When Members abuse the rules, we ought to exercise that power and clear up politics directly ourselves. That does not require legislation to come through before the summer recess; it simply requires us to have the willpower and the backbone to do what we are able to do already.

[Grahame M. Morris]

I am sorry to interrupt the hon. Gentleman’s flow. I compliment him on his speech. Will he clarify what the consequence is in the other place when peers commit a similar offence?

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

The House of Lords, when considering what it could do about the expenses scandal, discovered that it had the right to imprison a peer for a Session. It decided that it must therefore also have the power to suspend a peer for a Session. However, it may only do that Session by Session. It cannot expel a peer because a peerage comes from the sovereign, whereas our position in this House comes from the people to whom we can be sent back. To get rid of a peerage requires primary legislation. That was done in 1917 to remove a group of peers who were fighting for the Germans and the Austrians during the first world war. It is open to this House to do that with the other place. We may pass an Act of Parliament to remove a category of peers who have committed offences. The House of Lords itself can suspend peers Session by Session. It can repeat such a suspension if it believes that the offence is egregious enough.

This House also has the power to punish individuals outside the House. If people are in contempt of Parliament, we have the ultimate power to imprison them. I am not proposing that we should use that power extensively, but if lobbyists try to bribe or corrupt Members of Parliament, it is not unreasonable that Parliament herself should impose the punishment on those lobbyists. That would be a matter of us regulating ourselves, using the power given to us by the British people, rather than farming it out, through legislation, to the courts to decide whether parliamentary privilege has been breached.

Finance Bill

Debate between Grahame Morris and Jacob Rees-Mogg

Tuesday 6th July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Grahame M. Morris]

If that is the case, why did the Conservatives support the Labour Government’s spending plans until 2008? In fact, my recollection is that there were demands for more spending—more police numbers, more support for carers, and so on.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

There were political reasons, I think it might be said, for supporting those spending plans. I was not a Member of the House at that time, and it is a bit harsh for me to be expected to take responsibility. I think a lot of people, not only in this House, held to the mistaken idea that the economy was going to carry on growing for ever. I have always thought that boom and bust is a fact of life. We always have booms and we always have busts, and we will have them again. One can look at studies of financial cycles going back to biblical times, so the thought that there would always be growth was simply wrong, and to try to match Labour’s spending programme was a mistake. However, even Homer nods. The point is that spending was out of control and had to be cut, and taxation is at its limit.