Baroness Donaghy
Main Page: Baroness Donaghy (Labour - Life peer)Conduct Committee
Baroness Donaghy Excerpts
Baroness Donaghy
That the Report from the Select Committee Registration of members’ foreign interests: follow-up (9th Report, HL Paper 255) be agreed to.
Baroness Donaghy (Lab)
My Lords, I am moving this Motion as a member of the Conduct Committee on behalf of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mance, because he has interests relating to the contents of the report and therefore recused himself from deliberations on it. I declare my interest as a former member and acting chair of the Committee on Standards in Public Life. The current chair of that committee, the noble Lord, Lord Evans of Weardale, regrets that he is unable to speak today but has confirmed that he is supportive of the committee’s proposals.
This report is the final piece in a jigsaw of changes that we have put to the House to increase transparency around Members’ overseas interests, reflecting considerable public concern about foreign state influence on our politics and the integrity of our political process. In December, the House approved our proposal that Members should be required to register work for, and earnings from,
“governments of foreign states (including departments and agencies), organisations which may be thought by a reasonable member of the public to be foreign state-owned or controlled, and individuals with official status (whether executive, legislative or judicial) in foreign states when acting in that capacity”.
This is now part of our code, so Members must register the existence of such relationships within one month of them starting, and the level of remuneration within the slightly longer timeline set out in the report.
The one remaining question was whether there should be any exemptions to these requirements on the grounds of professional confidentiality. We gathered evidence to help us make a decision by holding a consultation of all Members and inviting submissions from the professional bodies. Some of the responses did point to a professional duty of confidentiality, but all of them accepted that the information could be disclosed if the client agreed.
That is why we have said two things very clearly: first, any professional relationships with foreign Governments and associated organisations which existed on the date the report was agreed—2 December last year—will not be caught by the new requirements at this stage. Members in such a position will have the whole of 2021 to complete the work, reach an agreement with the client about disclosure, end the relationship, or take leave of absence.
Secondly, any new such professional relationship commencing after the report was agreed in December will be embarked upon in the full knowledge that it will need to be disclosed, along with the level of remuneration. This is a prospective rule, so Members should be telling potential clients that they will be obliged to make these disclosures if taken on. If the client accepts this, then no professional duty of confidentiality will be breached.
Some Members say that this will damage their chances of winning business. Even within each profession —in particular, the law—there are different views on whether this is really true. If some Members lose some work, that is regrettable, but these requirements apply to only a very narrow range of organisations and the committee has made it clear in its report that it has no intention of extending them to a broader range of organisations. This is in spite of the fact that Parliament’s Intelligence and Security Committee recommended that Members of this House should be required to disclose all earnings in the same way as Members of the other place, a position which is also espoused by the noble Lord, Lord Balfe, in his amendment to my Motion.
Our reason for restricting the reach of our proposals is that, in our view, foreign Governments and organisations under their control are qualitatively different from other types of organisation. For a legislator in the United Kingdom Parliament to be secretly working for a foreign power, whose interests may be diametrically opposed to the UK’s, is just unacceptable to the public in this day and age. It is not just about Russia, as some have implied; even close allies like France and the United States sometimes have an agenda which is at variance with the UK’s national interest.
Furthermore, it is not just about dodgy lobbyists. I accept that lawyers and arbitrators see no connection between their being paid by a foreign Government and what they might say in the House, and this may be accurate. Many people, however—perhaps most—would say that there is at least a suspicion that a Member being paid tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of pounds might be a little more kindly disposed to the organisation paying them than they would otherwise be. It is not just about being beyond reproach in practice; it is vital for our democracy that, wherever possible, Parliament is seen to be beyond reproach. Being a legislator is a privilege, and with that privilege comes an obligation to be transparent. In the view of the committee and many others besides, the public interest must trump Members’ private interests in this instance.
It may be helpful if I address at this stage the proposed amendments to my Motion. The first says that we are going too far, while the second says that we are not going far enough. This suggests that the committee, which has spent many hours deliberating on this issue over the past year, has struck the right balance. Unless, therefore, any new and compelling arguments are made today, I am not minded to accept either amendment. I do, however, wish to assure the House that, if the report is agreed today, the Conduct Committee will carefully monitor its implementation and be open to representations in the light of experience. As always, the Registrar of Lords’ Interests is available to advise Members on how to comply with the rules, and he will also be able to convey feedback to the committee. I look forward to hearing the views of noble Lords today. I beg to move.
Amendment to the Motion
Baroness Donaghy (Lab)
My Lords, I am very glad that we have had this debate. I shall thank one or two people before I reply. First, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Stowell of Beeston. It is always very nice to have a former Leader of the House backing you up. I also thank the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, who hit the nail on the head about the decisions we are taking today. I thank the noble and learned Lord, Lord Garnier, for his collegiate approach, which is very much appreciated.
I am grateful to all noble Lords who have taken part in today’s important debate on what is a difficult issue. The views expressed are strongly and sincerely held. I cannot promise to address all the points made, but I will answer as many as I can, not necessarily in the order of those speaking.
The noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, raised points about his long and ongoing arbitration. I think the committee, in keeping all this under constant review, will also keep an eye on the grace period. If it becomes clear that there are a lot of difficulties like those that he outlined which cannot be resolved by the end of 2021, I am sure it would consider extending the period. I am rather sorry that one noble Lord criticised the grace period and said it did not mean anything, because the intention was to make life easier, particularly for the lawyers. On the noble and learned Lord’s point about arbitration, it needs to be registered in either category 1 or 2, not both. It will almost certainly be category 2 in his case, but we mentioned it in category 1 just in case an arbitrator set up an arbitration company of which he was a director, which would make it a category 1 entry.
I will deal with the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Vaux, echoed by the noble Viscount, Lord Waverley, in the previous speech. When we say “services”, we do not mean it in the sense of the services sector; we mean literally anything provided in return for money. A one-off sale of something might be caught if the Member worked on achieving the sale. We will keep things under close review and, if employed Members are suffering a detriment from their employer because of the new disclosure requirements, we will look to see whether we can address that. The noble Lord gave the example of software, and I think the noble Viscount did as well. There would have to be substantial and direct contact with the client to make it subject to these rules. It could be either the revenue received by the firm or the money received by the Member. If any clarification is required, I am sure that the registrar of interests would help out where there is any lack of certainty.
I turn to the issue on which some noble Lords felt very strongly: that we consulted Members and their professional bodies but then appeared to have ignored the results or gone against their advice. The response to our consultation covered the full spectrum of opinion, from wanting no exemptions whatever to objecting to the scheme on principle. There was no consensus on the right thing to do. With regard to the representations made by professional bodies, we gave those from the legal profession particular consideration. We recognise the duty of confidentiality that lawyers have to their clients, and have therefore proposed specific provisions to account for them. Not only will lawyers benefit from the grace period for existing clients and the prospective nature of the new requirements, they will also have a special provision allowing them to delay disclosure of clients until they have been paid.
I am the first to say that the UK is top of the tree when it comes to our legal expertise and arbitrators; I had experience of some of that when I was chair of ACAS. Preventing Members of this House, many of whom are leading members of the UK’s legal profession, from doing this would seriously undermine that reputation, they maintain. The Conduct Committee believes that the public interest requires absolute transparency when it comes to Members of the national legislature working with a foreign power. We do not dispute that many Members who are of great benefit to this House are also of great benefit to their professions and, by extension, the UK’s reputation in those areas. There are, however, very many more outstanding lawyers and arbitrators who are not Members of this House, and we doubt that the UK’s reputation in these fields will be seriously undermined.
I could try to pick up all the points made by noble Lords, but in view of the time I will not cover most of the points; I hope that I have done the ones that people were most concerned about. I reassure noble Lords of what I said in my introductory remarks: the Conduct Committee will keep this under review, and advice will be available from the registrar of interests. The House knows that the time is right for this reform. I have deliberately not mentioned all the headlines that have been in the papers for the last week or so; this is an issue affecting us, it is a recommendation from the Conduct Committee, and I am not getting involved in those areas. The time is right for this reform; I hope the noble and learned Lord, Lord Garnier, will feel able to withdraw his amendment in the light of some of the assurances that I have given.