Publication of Information about Complaints against Members

David Heath Excerpts

Thursday 2nd December 2010 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Secretary, Office of the Leader of the House of Commons (Mr David Heath)]

I am grateful, as I am sure the House is, to the Standards and Privileges Committee for its work in the last Parliament, to the Committee on Standards in Public Life, and to the current Chair and members of the Standards and Privileges Committee who have tabled the motions. I am grateful also to the Backbench Business Committee for providing this time today. These are the first substantive motions that have arisen from a Select Committee report to be considered on a Back-Bench day, and the Government are frankly delighted that the House can now make progress on House matters without first requiring a ministerial seal of approval. Should the motions be agreed to, they will prove that Parliament no longer needs to look to Government for help in putting its house in order, but has the independence, power and political will to do so of its own volition.

The Government fully support the three motions in the name of the right hon. Member for Rother Valley (Mr Barron). On the publication of information about complaints against Members, the failure to publish details of rectification has clearly led to some negative stories that have tarnished the House’s reputation. The lesson from the last Parliament is that openness is the only way to allay public unease and suspicion. The process of rectification is typically used when the commissioner is satisfied that the Member concerned has made an entirely honest mistake, acknowledged the mistake, apologised and repaid any money that was wrongly claimed. Publishing the information will briefly embarrass the Member concerned, but withholding it would be damaging for the whole House in the longer term.

I wish to make one point for the record that I hope the commissioner will bear in mind. As those who have been under investigation can testify, the knowledge that a Member is under investigation can itself damage their reputation. That can be exacerbated by the length of time that an inquiry can take—sometimes well over six months. That results in some people concluding that if it is taking that long, something must be up. To mitigate the problem, it would be sensible for the commissioner to be equally open about the process of investigation, for example by providing details of when it began and where the Member has reached in the queue for investigation. That would go some way to ensuring that while we create a more transparent approach, Members are not subjected to open season by political opponents.

[Mr Sheerman]

May I renew my plea that, after the reforms come in, we must not have a situation such as in the past, when some people have seemed to get a full investigation and some have been referred to the police? All of us who were in the House remember the cases of Ian Gibson and others whom we believed were not given real justice, either by the Standards and Privileges Committee or in what happened to them subsequently. Has anybody trawled back through what happened to those people, and assessed which parts were correct procedure and which were not?

[Mr Heath]

The hon. Gentleman has already intervened on the Chair of the Standards and Privileges Committee on that point, and I really do not think it is a matter for Government. It is most important that it should not be. We must have a process that is just to all concerned, but equally rigorous for all concerned. When there have been instances in which Members have sadly fallen far short of what is required not just by the rules of the House but by the rules that apply to any other citizen in the United Kingdom, it is right that investigations should take place elsewhere.

[Mr Sheerman]

I am not asking the Government to do anything; I am merely asking that we all reflect on the fact that those of us who were in the House before the election know that some cases were taken up and others, which we thought were even worse, were not taken up. That is the point—justice was not done on an even basis. If the three motions today will set that right, I will be happy with them. If they do not do that, I will be very unhappy.

[Mr Heath]

I do not think that I can add anything to what I have already said. This is a matter for the Standards and Privileges Committee and for the commissioner, and certainly not a matter for a Minister at the Dispatch Box to comment on, other than to say that I hope that justice will always be done in the most transparent way.

[Mr Barron]

I have two points to make in response to my hon. Friend the Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman). First, I do not believe that Ian Gibson ever went to the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards or in front of the Committee. Secondly, on a wider matter, discussions are currently taking place between the compliance officer, the commissioner and others on a memorandum of understanding about referrals, and whether cases will go to different organisations rather than to the commissioner and then on to the Committee.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Heath]

That is a very helpful intervention, and of course the landscape has changed since a year or so ago. We now have the compliance officer in the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority, who is responsible for investigating some matters. Having that memorandum of understanding seems to me a very positive way forward.

I mentioned the time that investigations sometimes take and the adverse effect that that may have on a Member’s reputation. As I said, it would be sensible for the commissioner to be open about the process of an investigation, such as when it began and where a Member had reached in the queue, to ensure that we have a more transparent approach. It is also important that Members know at the first opportunity that a matter relating to them is under investigation. It should never be the case that a Member hears that from the press or from a political opponent.

The Government support the move to give the commissioner a power to initiate investigations, which, to an extent, ties up a process started by the Parliamentary Standards Act 2009. Without that power, the commissioner would not be able to act on referrals from the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority compliance office. That would clearly be unsatisfactory, because the House would not be able to take action against a Member who had knowingly submitted an improper expenses claim. However, this issue goes wider than that; it is absurd that allegations about a Member’s conduct can be splashed all over the newspapers, yet the commissioner is powerless to investigate unless he receives a complaint from a member of the general public. That is an unnecessary hurdle. If we can trust the commissioner to use his good judgment to carry out investigations, we can trust him to decide when to initiate them.

Finally, the Government support the principle, first advocated by my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House, that the Standards and Privileges Committee should be strengthened by the presence of lay members. Although that is ultimately a matter for the House, the Government take an interest, given the commitment in the coalition agreement to establish a right to recall Members who have been found guilty of serious wrongdoing. There is obviously a potential role for that Committee in the process of adjudication on recall cases, and the presence of members from outside Parliament will help to build people’s confidence in our system of internal compliance. In supporting that, we note the concerns expressed by the Clerk of the House, to which the Chairman of the Committee referred, that if lay members are given full voting rights, they might not enjoy the protection of privilege or their presence might compromise the Committee’s position based on privilege in respect of judicial review. The Procedure Committee will want to look particularly closely at that, while the Government will be taking a close interest as part of the ongoing work on the draft parliamentary privilege Bill.

[Mr Jenkin]

I am very grateful that my hon. Friend has addressed the question of privilege and lay members, and I am grateful for the Government’s measured and sensible response to this approach. However, does it not begin to advance the argument in favour of having a standards committee that is separate from a privileges committee? If there really are two functions that require lay members to be involved in one function and not the other, should we not have two separate committees, permanently? I shall discuss that in my remarks later.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Heath]

The hon. Gentleman makes a very important point, and that is another matter that the Procedure Committee needs to examine carefully. I hope that it will take full account of the recommendations that the Standards and Privileges Committee has already made on this subject, particularly on the separation of standards cases, where lay members will have a role to play, and privilege cases, which should rightly remain the exclusive business of the House. The Procedure Committee will wish to examine whether that requires two committees or the Standards and Privileges Committee meeting in a different form, with different arrangements for the two classes of consideration.

The Chairman of the Standards and Privileges Committee makes the important point that lay members would not necessarily require full voting rights, as long as it clearly states in the Committee’s reports whether the lay members supported the conclusions and recommendations of the rest of the Committee. That imprimatur is the important aspect in determining whether the Committee’s response not only has credibility, but is seen to have credibility by all those who are interested in the matter.

[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—

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. We have to be very careful that we do not get into matters that are sub judice. I know that the hon. Gentleman was careful in what he said, but we are drifting into an area that we need to keep away from.

[Mr Heath]

I shall be equally careful not to enter that area, Mr Deputy Speaker. We have yet to introduce our proposals on the powers of recall; those will be in future legislation. Obviously this matter will be under consideration when we draw up the proposals for that Bill. Clearly, there is the potential for a trigger to reside with the consideration of the Standards and Privileges Committee or in a court decision. The House will have to determine that in due course. We also hope to introduce a Bill on the matter of privilege. Again, we will have to take great care to understand the points made by hon. Members in this debate and in others, and the response of the House in its decisions. We will have to ensure that we have covered, as far as is possible, any points raised on the matter of the draft legislation on privileges, which we anticipate introducing at a later stage.

[Mr Mark Field (Cities of London and Westminster) (Con)]

Will the Minister give an assurance on the Floor of the House today that, whatever the Government come up with on the recall of Members of the House of Commons, there will be a parallel process for those from the other House who offend? Clearly they cannot be recalled, because they are appointed through a process of patronage rather than elected by the public. Can he assure us that they will also be held to account, in a way that they palpably have not been on their expenses scandals, which I suspect are still at a relatively early stage?

[Mr Heath]

The hon. Gentleman raises an extremely important point. Again, I do not want to pre-empt draft legislation that has not yet been put before the House and is under consideration. As he knows, an all-party body is considering the matter of House of Lords reform, but I believe that I can, without betraying any confidences, say that it is very much in our thoughts that there has to be a process of recall for both Houses of Parliament, and for other senior elected offices, which is broadly compatible. What we should not have is a different regime in different circumstances where wholly different considerations apply. If the public are to have a power of recall, it must be applicable to senior decision-making positions in elected office across the piece. I believe that that would include the upper House but, as I say, it is not for me to pre-empt the draft Bill that I hope will be before the House early next year.

[Mr Sheerman]

On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. How can we make a decision about this important aspect today, given that the Minister has just told us that the Government have not even decided what they are going to do about recall, or whether recall can be sparked off through the Standards and Privileges Committee or through a criminal case? What sort of rule is this?

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

In fairness, the hon. Gentleman has raised a point, but it is not a point of order and the House is debating the issue .

[Mr Heath]

There is nothing about recall in the motions put before us by the right hon. Member for Rother Valley—

[Mr Sheerman]

You brought it up.

[Mr Heath]

I responded to a point raised in debate. I am attempting to help the right hon. Member for Rother Valley and his Committee put matters before the House and indicate that the Government support his view. I am very happy to rest my position on that point.

[Mr Sheerman]

Further to that point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. I think that, unintentionally, the Minister is misleading the House because—

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

That is not a point of order, but the hon. Gentleman has certainly got on the record the point that he wanted to make.

[Mr Heath]

Actually, I think the matter was referred to by the Chairman of the Standards and Privileges Committee.

[Mr Barron]

What I said in my speech was that we thought that the question of lay members serving on the Standards and Privileges Committee was being held up because of the likelihood of a recall Bill. The reason the motion is on the Order Paper today is that it is about having lay members on the Committee—certainly in respect of standards—so that people can have more confidence that the Committee is not about gentlemen or gentlewomen looking after other gentlemen and gentlewomen.

[Mr Heath]

I thank the Chairman of the Standards and Privileges Committee for making that clear. We have had enough of this House appearing to be a cosy club for its own benefit. The previous Parliament took steps towards improving the situation. What we are debating today is a continuation of that process, and I commend it to the House.