Privileges and Conduct Committee: 14th Report

Lord Sewel Excerpts

Tuesday 13th May 2014 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[The Chairman of Committees]

That the 14th Report from the Select Committee (The conduct of Lord Hanningfield) (HL Paper 181) be agreed to.

[The Chairman of Committees (Lord Sewel)]

My Lords, this is the second time that we have had to consider a Motion relating to the conduct of Lord Hanningfield. The House will recall agreeing to the ninth report of the Committee for Privileges and Conduct in the 2010-12 Session and suspending the noble Lord from the service of the House for nine months for wrongly claiming the old night subsistence allowance. Lord Hanningfield served a prison sentence for the same offence.

The report that we are now considering comes after Lord Hanningfield was investigated by the independent House of Lords Commissioner for Standards following newspaper articles alleging that in July 2013 he attended the House for very short periods of time, yet claimed the full daily allowance on each occasion. The commissioner found that Lord Hanningfield breached the Code of Conduct in claiming the daily allowance on 11 days in July 2013 when he had not undertaken any parliamentary work. The commissioner also found that, in doing so, Lord Hanningfield,

“failed to act on his personal honour”.

The Sub-Committee on Lords’ Conduct recommended that Lord Hanningfield be suspended until the end of the current Parliament and be required to repay the £3,300 that he wrongly claimed.

In his report, the House of Lords Commissioner for Standards, on the basis of the words used in the Guide to Financial Support for Members and the certification made by Members on the claim form for the daily allowance and travel expenses, identifies two conditions that have to be met if a valid claim is to be made. These are that the Member has to be present in the Chamber or at a committee and that the Member has done parliamentary work on the day for which the claim is made. The establishment of a presence does not in itself fulfil the conditions for making a valid claim. The House of Lords Commissioner for Standards does not seek to define what constitutes parliamentary work but recognises that it might take place other than on the Parliamentary Estate.

Lord Hanningfield appealed to the Committee for Privileges and Conduct and appeared before us last week. Having considered the points that he put to us, we did not uphold his appeal and did uphold the recommendations of the commissioner and the sub-committee.

Suspension until the end of this Parliament is the maximum sanction available to the House. We cannot suspend a Member for longer without interfering with their Writ of Summons. We believe that the maximum sanction is justified in this case, not least because this is not Lord Hanningfield’s first offence.

In January, the House introduced two new sanctions for breaches of the Code of Conduct: denial of access for a specified period to the system of financial support for Members and denial of access for a specified period to the facilities of the House. These penalties cannot be applied to breaches of the code that occurred prior to their introduction, including those that Lord Hanningfield has been found to have committed.

I do not believe that I need to say any more. I sincerely hope that the case before the House today will be the last case of its type. I beg to move that the 14th report from the Committee for Privileges and Conduct be agreed to.

Motion agreed.