Publication of Information about Complaints against Members

Debate between Barry Sheerman and Kevin Barron

Thursday 2nd December 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Barron]

It would do that. Self-referrals would carry on and, indeed, there has been one since the election. However, self-referrals will still have to come in front of the Committee and the commissioner will effectively ask permission, although we do not direct the commissioner by giving permission or telling him not to do things. He works independently of the Committee. Self-referrals will carry on in much the same way as they do at the moment.

Of course we can all help to ensure that the commissioner has the resources to do his job by acting at all times in full compliance with the code of conduct and the associated rules. Members of this House decide what workloads are and whether treatment is fair or unfair by what we do on a regular basis.

The third motion, tabled in the name of members of the Committee on Standards and Privileges, was not on our original shopping list, but we are grateful to the Backbench Business Committee for adding it to today’s business. It relates to a proposal that was put to Sir Christopher Kelly and the Committee on Standards in Public Life by our former Chair, now the Leader of the House, to add lay members to the Standards and Privileges Committee. The proposal was supported by the Kelly committee in its 12th report. Lay members already serve on the Members Estimate Audit Committee and they will soon sit on the Speaker’s Committee for the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority. Lay members provide the public with reassurance that the Committees are not cosy gentlemen’s clubs, where deals are stitched up and scandals are hushed up. They can also bring valuable outside experience and expertise with them. It is common practice for standards bodies dealing with the professions to have lay members, and in the view of the Committee on Standards and Privileges it should be the practice here too. I say that as a now former lay member of the General Medical Council; I spent nearly nine years in that role, sitting with various clinicians.

That said, adding lay members to one of the House’s senior Committees raises some important questions. For example, the Committee on Standards in Public Life recommended that the lay members should have full voting rights on the Standards and Privileges Committee. The question is whether that would mean that the lay members could vote on matters relating to privilege. I assume not. I know that the Clerk of the House has reservations about allowing lay members to vote at all, because he wrote to me about it following the publication of the motion. In practice, of course, we have to recognise that any decision of the Committee that was not supported by the lay members present would lack public credibility. It may be that the lay members will not need to have a formal vote to have a decisive influence.

The Procedure Committee might wish to consider other questions identified in my Committee’s report, such as how many lay members there should be and whether they should form part of the Committee’s quorum. The Kelly committee suggested there should be two lay members, but a case can be made for more than two. I hope that the Procedure Committee will wish to consider that. We also suggested that lay members should receive modest remuneration, directly related to the volume of work that they carry out. We felt strongly that to provide the public with the greatest possible confidence in their appointments, the lay members should be appointed to the Committee but not by the Committee. The Procedure Committee may wish to consider what would be the best way of making the appointments, what qualifications those appointed should have, what should be the term of the appointments, and who should be involved in making them.

My Committee’s understanding until recently was that progress on the issue was being held up by the Government’s work on their recall policy. However, a recent letter from the Leader of the House to Mr Speaker has put us right on that, and the House has now been given the green light to proceed. In the Committee’s view, the best way forward is to ask the Procedure Committee to come up with some workable proposals for putting the matter into practice. It is an important reform and it needs to be got right.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

Many of us are very concerned about whether these three proposals will improve the system’s ability to ensure that justice is done for people who are referred to my right hon. Friend’s Committee. We feel strongly that over the past two or three years, the way in which people have been referred to his Committee has been partial. Some have been referred and a report made, leading to a prosecution by the police. Others have never had the opportunity to put their case before the Committee. Will these three changes bring some sense of justice back to what goes on?

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Sheerman]

Is the hon. Gentleman absolutely sure about all this? This is a very important point, because in his earlier remarks he said that the Government should not be involved, but he subsequently said that the recall element meant that they should be involved. The recall element is very important. Can a Member be recalled only when they have been through the Committee and been found wanting? What about Members of this House who were prosecuted, never having had the opportunity to go through—

[Mr Barron]

indicated dissent.

[Mr Sheerman]

My right hon. Friend is shaking his head, but people were prosecuted, and people are being prosecuted, without having gone through the Standards and Privileges Committee process; they were just taken down to the police station and charged. Where is the equality there? Do we have recall in both Houses or both—