Committee on Standards

Andrea Leadsom Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd November 2021 Commons Chamber

[Dame Andrea Leadsom (South Northamptonshire) (Con)]

I am very disappointed in the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart), because, in effect, he is accusing me, having worked with me over years on achieving justice for this place, of being completely disingenuous. I find that very personally disappointing.

Today is a day for serious consideration by all colleagues across this House. We must address the grave concerns about the way in which we are held to account under our own Standing Orders. My amendment is not about whether the findings of the third report of the Committee on Standards are correct or incorrect. It is not about whether Mr Owen Paterson is innocent or guilty under that report. It is not about letting anyone off, stitching anything up, or any of the other accusations flying around the Chamber. Today’s amendment is about the process of investigations into Members and the question of whether this process must now be reviewed by a politically balanced Select Committee that will consider some exceedingly serious questions. First, there is the question of whether our investigatory process should more closely reflect the laws of natural justice, where an accused Member can expect to have their own evidence taken into account, to put forward witnesses in their defence, to be interviewed early in the process and provide their own explanation and, vitally, to access an independent appeal process.

Secondly, there is the serious question of whether Standing Orders Nos. 149, 149A and 150 are entirely fit for purpose. Those are the Standing Orders that govern the make-up of the Committee on Standards and the powers of the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards.

I worked with Kathryn Stone when I was Leader of the House, and I know she takes her role seriously and strives to take a balanced view. However, the PCS does not have a legal background and is not required to by orders. She works as both sole investigator and judge. The Committee on Standards can change her recommendations, should it choose, but there is no clarity on when or why that would happen. The Committee will perfectly understandably tend to prefer to uphold the system over the individual. The PCS can decide to establish an investigatory panel to help her, and the Committee can even require her to establish such a panel, but again there is no clarity in Standing Orders on when that should be done, and it has never been done to date.

As Leader of the House between 2017 and 2019, a cross-party team of Members worked flat-out under my chairmanship—I pay tribute to them again today—to establish an independent complaints and grievance scheme. I know well that the scheme has its detractors and is still disappointingly slow to dispense justice. However, that cross-party team made great efforts to ensure that it followed the laws of natural justice—specifically that, first, both alleged perpetrator and alleged victim are very clearly able to give their side of the story to an independent case manager; secondly, witnesses can be presented in support of either side; thirdly, legal support can be provided; fourthly, there is a clear hierarchy where the investigator is not also the prosecutor, and fifthly, there is a clear appeals process. Furthermore, until found guilty, the alleged perpetrator is presumed innocent, and the investigation is confidential. Vitally, the whole scheme is reviewed on a regular and timetabled basis to ensure it continues to be fair and impartial.

[Yvette Cooper]

The right hon. Lady did important work on the independent complaints process, but she will recognise that, as Leader of the House, she had considerable time to propose reforms and amendments to the Committee on Standards process, should she have chosen to do so. Does she not recognise that proposing reforms now, in conjunction with this individual case—where an independent investigation and an independent cross-party Committee have come to very clear conclusions about paid advocacy—undermines the decisions and integrity of this House and any positive purpose to any reforms she might want for the future?

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[Dame Andrea Leadsom]

I am incredibly sympathetic to what the right hon. Lady says. In fact, I was about to come on to what many in the Chamber are asking, which is, “Why bring forward this review today, on the day we are being asked to consider one particular case?” She asks why I did not bring forward these changes when I was Leader of the House. The answer is that I was working flat-out, on a cross-party basis, doing 18-hour days—many Members would support that point—on the independent complaints and grievance scheme. Had I stayed in post longer, I absolutely would have looked at this review. I am frustrated that these two systems have not been brought into line with each other. I share her frustration. I would have strongly preferred for this review to have been kicked off on its own merits at a time when the waters would not be muddied by the inevitable party political point scoring.

[Simon Hoare (North Dorset) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend was a distinguished Leader of the House. She has set out in her amendment a view about how this system should work, which would be far more judicial and forensic. I am sure that many of us in this House on both sides find these whole processes very unedifying and somewhat embarrassing. We do not vote on our remuneration packages. In the scenario she is setting out, would it be appropriate for the House still to vote on these reports, or, given the beefed-up investigatory powers that she is setting out—looked at by the Standards Committee—should it not come for a vote of this House at all? It should be at the Standards Committee, which should then opine on what it hears.

[Dame Andrea Leadsom]

My hon. Friend raises an important point, which came up time and again during consideration of the independent complaints and grievance scheme. It was made very clear that, in a democratically elected system, ultimately, it has to be for elected colleagues to be able to make the final decision. That is an incredibly important point of principle. It was put to me that, if we ever reached a point where unelected people could remove elected people, we would put ourselves into the position of a dictatorship. But I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising that point.

[Aaron Bell (Newcastle-under-Lyme) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend is making a powerful case for reform, but as the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) said, that reform can only work if it comes from all parts of the House. By bringing her amendment today, it looks like we are moving the goalposts. For that reason, I cannot support her. What might she say about that?

[Dame Andrea Leadsom]

As I just said in response to the right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper), I share the concern that we are bringing this forward today. I sincerely hope that colleagues from all parts of the Chamber will be prepared to join together to review this system, which is so clearly flawed. I ask all colleagues to search their hearts carefully today. As MPs, there is no doubt we are our own harshest critics and judges. We spend so much of our lives trying to deliver justice to our constituents and fighting against unfairness wherever we see it. Today’s amendment is not about one judgment on one person. It is not about letting anyone off the hook, and it is not about rejecting the report of the Committee on Standards.

[Jess Phillips]

With much respect, and having worked with the right hon. Lady for many months on the ICGS process, it is only fair, in the light of that, that I raise that today two of the people who went through that process have contacted me. They are victims of sexual harassment or assault, and they say that what is happening in Parliament today is very unedifying and makes them certain that victims will find it difficult to understand that we will not just overturn things and make it very hard for anyone to come forward about anything.

[Dame Andrea Leadsom]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady. We have worked together on this for many years. I must make clear to her that the amendment is not looking at the independent complaints and grievance scheme. As I have set out, that was established under a cross-party review, and it had all the laws of natural justice taken carefully into account in its establishment.

Today’s amendment is an opportunity to review the process for fairness, natural justice and impartiality in the system that oversees Members of Parliament. The review is proposed to take place within three months from today, at which time the specific case can be brought back to the House for reconsideration.

[Michael Fabricant]

Will my right hon. Friend give way?

[Dame Andrea Leadsom]

I will just finish, because time is pressing. A colleague texted me today to say:

“Achieving change in this place is tough, but today’s amendment could lead to a standards system that is fairer for all. It is so sad that it takes a tragedy for the House to act.”

There is never a right time to act, but let us please do our best for fairness and support the amendment today.

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[Chris Bryant]

I think he got the easier job.

I have not done any radio or television interviews on this matter because, as Chair of the Committee, I am a servant of the House. I thank the Commissioner and the Committee. In particular, I wish the hon. Member for Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock (Allan Dorans) well, because he is very ill at the moment. I hope that he will be back with us soon. It is inappropriate for people to comment on absences from the Committee when they do not understand why members might be absent.

I am painfully conscious that the right hon. Member for North Shropshire (Mr Paterson) lost his wife in tragic circumstances in June 2020. I wish to express my sincere condolences to him. I have known suicide in my family, as he knows, and I have performed many funerals for suicides. I know the grief, the anguish, and often the guilt that is associated. The last year must have been very distressing for him, and the Committee took those circumstances fully into account when considering his conduct.

I will address the charges, the process, the sanction and the amendment. The charges are very serious. The Member repeatedly, over a sustained period, lobbied officials and Ministers on behalf of his paying clients, Randox and Lynn’s Country Foods, from whom he was receiving more than £9,000 a month, as he still is. He pursued their commercial interests. When they could not get meetings with officials and Ministers, he used his privileged position as a Member of Parliament to secure them. Providing privileged access is a valuable service.

The Member promoted what he called “Randox’s superior technology”. He wanted the Government to use Randox’s calibration system. He repeatedly used his taxpayer-funded parliamentary office for commercial meetings. That is paid lobbying. In some shape or form, it has been banned since 1695 and expressly so since cash for questions, which brought this House into terrible disrepute in the 1990s. One Conservative Member described it to me as a “catalogue of bad behaviour”. I have yet to meet a Conservative MP who has not said to me, “He clearly broke the rules.” I think that includes the Leader of the House.

The Member says that he was raising serious wrongs, but he did not say so at the time. If they were truly serious, one might have expected him to write articles or do media interviews, as he was perfectly entitled to do. He did not. He did the one thing that he was banned from doing: lobby Ministers time and again in a way that conferred a direct benefit on his paying clients. That is expressly forbidden. It is a corrupt practice.

On the process, the Member has had a fair hearing. We had legal advice from Speaker’s Counsel throughout. As one former High Court judge said to me yesterday,

“the procedure is consistent with natural justice and similar or identical to workplaces up and down the country.”

We on the Committee spent many hours reviewing the evidence in this case without fear or favour. The Member had prior notice of the charges and the evidence against him at every stage. He had his legal advisers with him. The Committee invited him to make his appeal against the commissioner’s findings in writing and in person, and I hope he would confirm that we gave him every opportunity to make his case to us and that the session was conducted respectfully and fairly. I think he is nodding.

The Member has said that his witnesses should have been interviewed. Natural justice requires that witnesses be heard, but that does not necessarily mean that they must be heard orally or cross-examined. We did what many courts and tribunals do every day of the week: we reviewed all the witness statements, took them into consideration and published them in full.

The Member claims that the commissioner had made up her mind before she sent her memorandum. That is completely to misunderstand the process. As the commissioner has done in every other case, she started an investigation and invited the Member to meet her and/or to submit evidence. Once she had completed her investigation and, by definition, found on a preliminary basis that there had been a breach of the rules, she submitted a memorandum to him for his comments, and then to the Committee. That is when we heard his appeal, in writing and in person.

I turn to the sanction. As the Committee says in the report:

“Each of Mr Paterson’s several instances of paid advocacy would merit a suspension of several days, but the fact that he has repeatedly failed to perceive his conflict of interest and used his privileged position as a Member of Parliament to secure benefits for two companies for whom he was a paid consultant, is even more concerning. He has brought the House into disrepute.”

A Conservative colleague whom I respect a great deal said to me on Monday that justice should always be tempered by mercy. I agree. But justice also demands no special favours.

These are the precedents that we considered: Patrick Mercer was suspended for six months; the hon. Member for North Antrim (Ian Paisley) for 30 days; Jonathan Sayeed for 14 days; and George Galloway for 18 days. When Geoffrey Robinson failed to provide proper responses to the commissioner and Committee, he was suspended for a month. This case is just as serious because it involved at least 14 instances. It was a pattern of behaviour, and the Member has said time and again over the last week that he would do the same again tomorrow. If the House were therefore to vote down or water down the sanction, or to carry the amendment, it would be endorsing his action. We would be dismantling the rule on paid advocacy, which has been around in some shape or form since 1695. I am afraid that the public would think of us as the Parliament that licensed cash for questions.

Let me turn to the amendment. I have worked with the right hon. Member for South Northamptonshire (Dame Andrea Leadsom) on many things; I think she is very wrong today. It is the very definition of injustice that one should change the rules or the process at the very last moment, and to do so for a named individual. That is what the amendment does. Retrospective legislation to favour or damage an individual because they are a friend or a foe is immoral and the polar opposite of the rule of law. That is why, as the Leader of the House knows, I spoke and voted with Conservative Members when we were considering a retrospective motion to subject the hon. Member for Delyn (Rob Roberts) to a recall petition. The amendment should fail on that basis alone—it is the opposite of due process.

The amendment purports to set up an appeal process, but an appellate body must be independent and every single member of the body will be parti pris, by definition. They will have been whipped and taken a view today. They will almost certainly have voted. The proposed Chair, by agreeing to have his name put forward, is already not independent. I point out gently to the right hon. Member for South Northamptonshire that it was her motion as Leader of the House on 7 January 2019 that set up the Standards Committee in its present form. At that time, she said that

“a greater element of independence was required, and that having seven lay members and seven parliamentary Members on the Standards Committee…provides the right balance—having the memory and the corporate understanding of being in this place, while at the same time ensuring that we can benefit from the experience and knowledge of independent lay members.”—[Official Report, 7 January 2019; Vol. 652, c. 128.]

The body she proposes today will have no independent members—no independence.

[Dame Andrea Leadsom]

rose—

[Chris Bryant]

I will not take an intervention, if the right hon. Member does not mind. She must know that this is a retrograde step. She also said—I say this strongly to all hon. Members who have said many things about the parliamentary commissioner—that

“ensuring that the PCS can operate independently…is vital and will better enable justice for those seeking recourse.”—[Official Report, 7 January 2019; Vol. 652, c. 127.]

The amendment will drive a coach and horses through our standards system. We will have two rival Select Committees on standards at the same time, charged with the same piece of business. As many hon. Members may know, the Standards Committee is engaged in a review of the code of conduct, which we are required to do in every Parliament, and that will include review of the operation of the system. I am absolutely certain that there are things that we could do better. I am determined to make sure that we will do things better to ensure natural justice.