Public Institutions

Lord Paddick Excerpts

Thursday 30th June 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Paddick (LD)]

My Lords, thankfully I got wind of what this debate was really about, as opposed to what is on the Order Paper. I do not know much about EU pensions. All I know is that the Privileges Committee of this House considered this issue in 2004, 2007, 2010 and again, it would appear, this year, and came up with the same conclusion. The other thing I would say on the subject is that we are a self-regulating House. I therefore suggest that the noble Baroness, Lady Chisholm of Owlpen, should say simply that it is not a matter for the Government, it is a matter for this House.

Taking it slightly wider on pensions, I remember signing my contract as a senior police officer, when I was appointed as a deputy assistant commissioner, where I had to undertake not to discuss anything that I learned during the course of my employment outside the police service for X years to come. As a consequence of having signed such a contract I, along with many other senior police officers, published my autobiography within months of leaving, on the word of the then chief executive of the Metropolitan Police Authority, who told me that the contract was not worth the paper it was written on.

More seriously, what I also did when I joined as a constable in 1976 and did again when I retired as a deputy assistant commissioner in 2007, was sign the Official Secrets Act, which again was an undertaking not to reveal sensitive issues that I had experienced during my service. I might be tempting fate, but so far I have not been arrested for revealing what might be considered sensitive things, not least in this House. To be honest, to suggest that Members of this House would not act on their honour and express their honest opinion in debates because they were in receipt of a pension from wherever it is I think is an absolute disgrace. The problem of trust is not—

[Lord Robathan]

I am grateful to the noble Lord. First, I think his analogy is stretching it a bit far. I am in receipt of an Army pension. Nobody can take it away from me, as it happens, any more than they can take away his police pension. But the point—surely he understands this—is about perception. I am sure that all the former Commissioners here are honourable people, but it is the perception that is left hanging there when they do not declare their interest.

[Lord Paddick]

I am grateful for the intervention. As a matter of fact, were I found guilty of a serious criminal offence, which breach of the Official Secrets Act is, I could quite easily have my pension withdrawn from me. I suggest that the problem of trust—

[Lord Pearson of Rannoch]

Would that make the noble Lord less likely to breach the Official Secrets Act? That is what we are saying; the fact is that these pensions are unique in that you can lose them if you do not go on upholding the interests of the European communities. That is what puts you at risk of losing this pension and that is why they should be declared in your Lordships’ House.

[Lord Paddick]

My Lords, I refer back to what the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter of Kentish Town, said—which was, in effect, “What is the problem that we are trying to solve here?”. Where is the evidence that people who are in receipt of these pensions have not spoken openly and honestly about their experiences because they are in receipt of that pension? Where is the evidence?

The problem, as I see it, with the public not trusting politicians—and we have had a very good example of it during the EU referendum campaign on both sides—is that politicians tend to express subjective and partisan views that quite clearly do not hold water. Perhaps we should be debating that issue rather than the one that the noble Lord is proposing today.