Standards: Code of Conduct and Guide to the Rules

Andy Carter Excerpts

Monday 12th December 2022 Commons Chamber

[Andy Carter (Warrington South) (Con)]

I am grateful for the way in which the Government have moved on many aspects of the report by the Committee on Standards, but I hope that the Leader of the House agrees that there is a problem with ministerial reporting. On many occasions, Departments fail to deliver their quarterly reports. I understand that the Government have some proposals and I am looking forward to hearing them, but will my right hon. Friend assure us, given that we will vote tonight, that the proposals will be delivered in a timely manner so that there is transparency about the way in which Ministers publicly report their receivables?

[Penny Mordaunt]

I thank my hon. Friend for his comments. He is right: the current situation is unacceptable and the Committee has a valid point. I hope that I will suggest a way in which we can address that. However, it is important to say that if we do it in the way that the Committee suggests, we will end up in some difficulty, which I shall explain.

First, we have extensively reviewed the existing guidance on transparency data. I have also audited each Department’s returns and sat down with the propriety and ethics team to look at ways in which we can improve the timeliness, quality and transparency of Ministers’ data and ease of access to it. The guidance, which we have reviewed, will be published online on GOV.UK for the first time. It commits Departments to publishing data within 90 days of the end of each quarterly reporting period. That is a modest, but necessary first step.

Our goal will be first to ensure that all Departments are complying with their current obligations consistently, as reflected in the new guidance as soon as it comes into effect. We will then look to move to a system of reporting that provides the parity that the Committee on Standards is seeking on transparency and timeliness. That means monthly reporting.

The Cabinet Office will also consider the alignment of ministerial returns with the House’s system and the frequency of publication, as part of the Government’s wider consideration of the Boardman and Committee on Standards in Public Life recommendations. It is reasonable to conclude that work by the start of the summer. My plan is therefore about three months’ adrift of that of the Committee on Standards.

The Government are fully committed to transparency and to ensuring that all Ministers are held to account for maintaining high standards of behaviour and upholding the highest standards of propriety, as the public rightly expect, but we need to avoid creating a system that delivers further confusion and unintended consequences. That is why I have outlined the alternative proposal from the Government today. I have worked closely with colleagues across Government to set out how we will improve our system, and if the Committee on Standards remains concerned, I commit to revisiting the issue and engaging with ministerial colleagues to drive further improvements.

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

I am really pleased that this debate has returned to the House. I refer to my submission to the Committee on Standards’ review of the code of conduct in February 2022; I had asked if I could give oral evidence to the Committee, but sadly that did not happen. I will refer to some of the points that I made, because I think they are important and I do not think that anyone else has mentioned them yet.

In short, we need a review far broader than the one before us tonight of how the standards processes work in Parliament. All our constituents want to be able to hold us all to account. Most importantly, we want to hold ourselves to account. Members across all parties have said that almost all of us are doing our best at all times, working with honour and integrity and doing the best job we can, yet somehow the drip, drip, drip of bad behaviour is destroying the reputation of this place on a constant and ongoing basis. The measures before the House this evening, which with one notable exception are frankly trivial, are just not going to change that.

As colleagues will know, I was closely involved in a cross-party attempt to create an Independent Complaints and Grievance Scheme. There are no other colleagues present who were closely involved, but all seven political parties in this place were represented. It was intended to create a change in the culture. What we always see when we come to this place is people pointing fingers—“The Government have done this, the Standards Committee has done that, the Opposition have done this”—and all we do is make it worse.

The ICGS was designed to change the culture by doing things like proper induction for new members of staff, so that people know what to expect; proper exit interviews, so that when a Member has a group of staffers leave every three months, something can be done about it; and proper training programmes for staff and Members. Sometimes people laugh and say, “I don’t need to do unconscious bias training.” Well, my challenge to them is: “Okay, define it, then. If you don’t need to do that training, you define it. Show me how good you are at that.”

The Independent Complaints and Grievance Scheme was set up to tackle those issues, but what we have now is a scheme that has sucked in every single complaint—“So-and-so won’t let me go for lunch on time,” or, “My holiday was cancelled.” Those frankly more trivial workplace grievances, which have nothing to do with the serious challenges, overload the system, so that when there is a serious complaint of serious bullying, sexual harassment or even worse, there is not time for it. The system is too slow. It delivers neither the confidentiality that it was supposed to deliver nor the speed of justice.

I am afraid that, in coming up with this review, the Committee on Standards is looking thoroughly only at non-ICGS complaints, although it has certainly indicated its interest in the ICGS. Since 2018, the ICGS, which is independent—the clue’s in the title—and non-ICGS complaints, which are presided over by the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards, have got sucked into one amorphous blob. It has become a punishment routine that embarrasses us all, drags us all down and is destroying our reputation.

[Andy Carter]

May I clarify a point that my right hon. Friend has just made? I think she said that the Standards Committee had not looked at the independent complaints system. That is because, as she probably knows, the Standards Committee has no remit to look at it.

[Dame Andrea Leadsom]

As a matter of fact, the Standards Committee can look at whatever it wants. It was not established to look at the Independent Complaints and Grievance Scheme. In a sense, however, my hon. Friend has made my point for me: the fact that the Standards Committee is looking at how we can improve the conduct and the reputation of Parliament without looking at the Independent Complaints and Grievance Scheme is a nonsense, and that is my thesis this evening. We need a much broader review.

I am sorry to say this, because I am extremely fond of the Speaker and all the Deputy Speakers, but the Committee concluded that the behaviour of the Speakers and the Deputy Speaker was untouchable. The fact that behaviour in the Chamber is a matter for the Chair and should be above investigation by the Standards Committee is extraordinary. In very recent history, someone in the Chair was the person who wound up the Chamber the most, making people miserable and bringing the whole House into disrepute, yet for some reason the Committee will not consider the behaviour of those in the Chair. Nor will it consider what is going badly or well in respect of the Independent Complaints and Grievance Scheme. If the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) wants to intervene, he is welcome to do so.

Now, under the Independent Complaints and Grievance Scheme, the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards has some sort of authority over that. It was intended that the investigation would be carried out independently and confidentially, but we are finding that investigations are now being presided over by the commissioner, who is requiring Members to stand up in the Chamber and apologise. That is outside the remit of the Independent Complaints and Grievance Scheme. Some may say, “Fine: if you have been rude to someone, you should stand here and apologise.” My response would be: “You try saying that to someone who works at John Lewis or McDonald’s. Are you seriously going to make them apologise to the entire firm, so that that will be on the record forever?”

There are serious issues involving the mental health of MPs and the way in which we behave in this place—the way in which we protect colleagues from the problems that occur and bring us all down. So many people say to me that they are sick and tired of the fact that we are all tarred with the same brush. It is very easy for people to be tribal and say, “It’s you”, “No it’s not, it’s you”, but actually it is all of us. We are all held in incredibly low esteem, and it is because we have not sorted this out.

While I am on the subject of big subjects, let me say that in my opinion—this is open to discussion and challenge; does anyone want to intervene?—it is all about the House of Commons Commission. Talk about a totally opaque organisation! It is chaired by the Speaker, it has appointments, and it is simply extraordinary. It is not accountable, and it makes financial decisions with very little transparency. Ultimately, all the authority in this place to establish Committees, to appoint Committees and so on, comes from the House of Commons Commission. In my opinion, we should have a fundamental review of that and then take it from there. The Standards Committee should look again at the Independent Complaints and Grievance Scheme and make sure it is doing what it was set up to do.