Members’ Paid Directorships and Consultancies

Lord Barker of Battle Excerpts

Wednesday 25th February 2015 Commons Chamber

[Ms Eagle]

Let me finish my first sentence. If our manuscript amendment is accepted, the motion would also ban paid trade union officials. The public deserve to be safe in the knowledge that every Member of Parliament works and acts in the interests of their local constituents, and not in the interests of anyone paying them.

[Gregory Barker (Bexhill and Battle) (Con)]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Ms Eagle]

Let me make a little bit of progress and then I will give way.

I note that, unusually, the Government have tabled an amendment that simply restates the status quo and would completely obliterate the Opposition motion. I intend to deal with all that, but first I want to take a few minutes to deal with the circumstances in which the House of Commons finds itself, and argue that the time has come to make a decisive break with the status quo on Members’ remunerated interests. I believe the current situation has become untenable.

I do not intend to talk about the detail of what was revealed in the “Dispatches” programme on Monday. I think we should concentrate in this debate on developing a solution to this recurring problem. Those events are being dealt with by the independent Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards, and that investigatory process must take its course, although that I note that the court of public opinion has already pretty firmly made up its mind. If the rules were clear and easy to follow, rather than riddled with grey areas and open to endless convenient interpretation, perhaps we would not find ourselves repeatedly having to deal with newspaper headlines such as the ones we have witnessed once more this week. It is undeniably true that these headlines bring this place into disrepute, as far as voters are concerned. Theirs is the opinion, I believe, that we must take the most seriously. They are, after all, the people we have been sent here to represent.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ms Eagle]

I am going to carry on and make some progress with my arguments. I hope that right hon. and hon. Members will do me the courtesy of listening to them as I try to set them out.

[Gregory Barker]

On that point, I do not think anybody in this House is condoning the breach of rules that exist for a very clear purpose. However, if we are talking about being good parliamentarians and representing our constituents, how much time over the last week, or in any week this month, have the hon. Lady and her shadow Cabinet colleagues spent away from this place, neither in their constituency nor performing their parliamentary duties, but instead campaigning on behalf of the Labour party in the country? How much time are they spending doing that, rather than pursuing their parliamentary duties?

[Ms Eagle]

The right hon. Gentleman has picked on the wrong person. I have to spend a lot of time in this building as shadow Leader of the House, and I do not see him here very often on Thursdays.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Speaker]

“Erskine May” does treat of this matter. The short answer to the hon. Lady is that, yes, it should be clear to the House what is constituted by the interest, because that makes the debate that much more intelligible. It is a straightforward point, and I am grateful to the hon. Lady for raising it, and I have ruled, on advice, accordingly.

[Gregory Barker]

Further to that point of order, Mr Speaker. Is it in order for Labour millionaires to give us the value of their freehold property in London when declaring their interests—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. Sit down. The right hon. Gentleman is an experienced ex-Minister, and that was a very poor attempt at a point of order—it did not even begin to get into the category of a point of order. [Interruption.] Order. The right hon. Gentleman should not be wittering irrelevantly from a sedentary position. I have ruled on the matter, and I have done with clarity and accuracy. Those hon. Members can accept it, and that is the end of it.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Hague]

The right hon. Gentleman is trying to make a distinction between different circumstances, as another Member did earlier, but that distinction is not made in the Opposition motion, and the debate is on the motion. That suggests that if he disagrees to some extent with the Opposition’s policy—

[Gregory Barker]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that he is exposing the fact that this is not a genuine, sincere motion addressing the governance of the House, but a cheap, opportunistic way of expressing the prejudice of Labour Members? They are anti-business, anti-enterprise and anti-aspiration, and they would trash the economy if they ever got their hands on it again.

[Mr Hague]

I agree with all of that; my right hon. Friend spoke extremely well.