Public Institutions

Lord Pearson of Rannoch Excerpts

Thursday 30th June 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Fairfax of Cameron]

Anyone who listened to that question will realise that I cannot say that there has been but, as the noble Lord heard, in the Code of Conduct the question is whether a reasonable member of the public might think that such was the case if they knew the facts.

[Lord Pearson of Rannoch (UKIP)]

My Lords, perhaps I can help the noble Lord on that question. There is no doubt that the European Commission has threatened people with the loss of their pension if they do not toe the EU line. One of those people is the redoubtable and wonderful Marta Andreasen, who noble Lords may remember was the chief accountant of the European Union and as such refused to sign its fraudulent accounts. She was threatened with the loss of her pension. Another is the former French Prime Minister, Madame Édith Cresson, who had an arrangement with her dentist which was less than wholly proper. When she came to trial in front of the Commission, it decided not to take her pension away because she had gone through enough suffering. I wanted to help the noble Lord with his interjection, which supports our side of the argument rather more than his.

[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 This exemption, in my submission, is now out of date.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.

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[Lord Pearson of Rannoch (UKIP)]

My Lords, briefly, I support what the noble Lords, Lord Fairfax and Lord Robathan, said about noble EU pensioners not declaring that interest in our debates about EU matters and in our register of interests.

I suppose that when the noble Baroness, Lady Chisholm, replies for the Government she will say that this is not the Government’s problem: that the decision about this disgraceful state of affairs is for our Committee for Privileges and Conduct to take. Indeed, she will be right if she says that. With regret, I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Fairfax, that it would have been helpful if the noble Lord, Lord Laming, the Chairman of Committees, could have joined this debate to explain to your Lordships’ House and the wider world why the Privileges Committee has yet again ruled that these pensions do not have to be declared, even if their beneficiaries can lose them if they fail,

“to respect certain obligations arising from the office that they held”.—[Official Report, 6/3/03; col. WA31.].

That was published in Hansard on 6 March 2003, so this question has been rumbling around for some time. If they fail to respect the obligations arising from the offices that they held, they can lose their pensions. That means if they fail to uphold the interests of the European Union in debate in your Lordships’ Chamber.

I will not name them, but one can think of one or two who take part in our debates and who never bother to mention this interest. In fact, they go out of their way not to mention it. If a noble EU pensioner were to get up in one of our debates and say, “Goodness me, it suddenly strikes me that Lord Stoddart of Swindon has been right all along. This European project has failed and should be wrapped up as soon as possible, and what’s more I could even tell you a little extra scandal about it here and there”, he would be in real danger of losing his pension, so he will not say that. He will not go anywhere near as far as that. He will not openly criticise the project of European integration on which his pension depends.

That is what makes these EU pensions so rare, perhaps unique, and this is why under our code of conduct it must be obvious to a normal member of the public that they should be declared. Nevertheless, I look forward, with patience, to the noble Baroness’s reply.

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[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.

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[Baroness Chisholm of Owlpen (Con)]

I would like to congratulate—I think—my noble friend Lord Fairfax on securing this debate and I am grateful to all noble Lords who have taken the time to attend and contribute to it today. I have listened with interest to all the comments and views and I will try to answer some of these first.

My noble friends Lord Fairfax and Lord Robathan and the noble Lord, Lord Pearson, all talked about EU pensions—I think that they know what I am going to say. The provisions of the code are a matter for the Committee for Privileges and Conduct and, ultimately, the House itself. As such, it is not the responsibility of the Cabinet Office. I would not want to pre-empt the Lord Chairman on this subject so I cannot really add much. However, the Committee for Privileges and Conduct has looked at this question on several occasions, as the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, mentioned, stretching back more than a decade. The committee has consistently maintained the position that is now set out in the code. I am well aware that my noble friend is already aware of this and I can only suggest that he takes up the subject again with the Lord Chairman.

The comments by the right reverend Prelate are why I enjoy these debates. Noble Lords can come in here and suddenly hear a speech of such interest, which is funny, amusing and intelligent, that they realise why they are in this House. That was certainly the case today. He mentioned that when someone is trusted, they are much more likely to trust others—I could not agree more, it is a very good statement. Everything that he said was thought-provoking and Auden’s poem hits the nail on the head. I also agree that I certainly use the marker of whether I would let somebody babysit—in my case, I am referring to my grandchildren now, but it used to be my children. It was an excellent speech.

My noble friend Lord Norton mentioned raising matters in both Houses. We certainly recognise that the Government have a critical role in leading by example and setting a high bar for others. This was also mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady O’Neill. We have to take steps to increase transparency around government activity, such as publishing ministerial meetings and interests, gifts and hospitality. We must remember the seven principles of public life, which are a very good bar to keep in mind. We cannot expect the public to have confidence in Parliament if we do not have confidence in ourselves. I happily agree that Ministers’ engagement in both Houses is vital in building public engagement.

The noble Baroness, Lady O’Neill, also mentioned UK-registered companies. They will indeed need to declare their interests and persons of significant control on the register, providing real transparency about who benefits from a business.

The noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, brought up several points, some of which I will have to write to her on. On party funding, the Government cannot impose consensus on the political parties but we are open to constructive debate and dialogue on how we can further strengthen confidence in our democratic process and increase transparency and accountability.

[Lord Pearson of Rannoch]

On the Minister’s answer to the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, if she writes to her about the Prime Minister’s use of his patronage to appoint Peers—far too many—to your Lordships’ House, could she copy me in on that? As I think she knows, my party has an interest in that matter.

[Baroness Chisholm of Owlpen]

I certainly will.

On the point about lobbying raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, and the noble Lord, Lord Brooke, I will be interested in the noble Lord’s Private Member’s Bill when it appears on 9 September. I certainly cannot now say that we will agree with everything, but of course we will listen and take soundings, and we will be interested in what the noble Lord has to say. As he and the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, know, the register is designed to shine the light of transparency on those who seek to influence the Government and will complement the existing government transparency regime whereby Ministers and Permanent Secretaries proactively publish details of their meetings. The register requires people who are paid to lobby government on behalf of others to disclose their clients on a publicly available register. The register also enhances scrutiny by requiring them to declare whether they subscribe to the code of conduct. Both the register and published meeting information include names of the organisations in question and are published in open, searchable formats. It is also possible to search the register for specific organisations.

The noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, also mentioned public appointments. The Gerry Grimstone report put forward recommendations to strengthen the process. That will increase transparency, and it retains a critical role for the independent Commissioner for Public Appointments to make sure that public appointments are open and transparent.

The UK aspires to and can rightly claim to be the most open and transparent country in the world. Our democracy and governance is stable, robust and held to account by a strong, free press and an ever-growing range of ways to understand and scrutinise the decisions government makes and the way it operates.