Paid Directorships and Consultancies (MPs)

Edward Leigh Excerpts

Wednesday 17th July 2013 Commons Chamber

[Chris Williamson]

Here we go again. I was going to go on to say that the Leader of the House accused my hon. Friend the Member for Hemsworth (Jon Trickett) of putting up chaff, and here we have yet more chaff from the hon. Member for Beverley and Holderness (Mr Stuart). There is a clear legal definition of a consultant and if he needs to check that out, I suggest he look up the dictionary definition. I am not going to waste the limited amount of time I have explaining it to him. He knows very well what a consultant is.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Hemsworth pointed out, perception is key in this agenda. We know that Parliament and MPs are held in very low esteem by many of the electorate and it is our duty to try to repair the trust of the electorate. I say that because I have spoken to many constituents—people have also written to me—who have said, for example, that the top-down reorganisation of the national health service was done only because many senior Conservative MPs stood to benefit financially from the 49% privatisation. Surely none of us, on either side of the Chamber, can allow that sort of perception to persist among the wider electorate. People need to have trust in their Members of Parliament. The motion would go a long way towards re-establishing that trust with the electorate at large.

The Leader of the House implied that agreeing the motion would impose some terrible, onerous obligation on Members, as though this idea had somehow dropped from space, from Mars or somewhere. However, if we look around the world, it becomes clear that the restrictions imposed on fellow parliamentarians in other countries are much more stringent than the restrictions in the UK. Our friends in America have imposed strong, stringent restrictions on the elected representatives who serve in that country. This motion contains a reasonable and measured proposition that would put us on a par with many of our international colleagues.

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

I do not understand why, under the terms of the motion, the hon. Gentleman would be happy with me doing what I did a few years ago, when I spent five months doing a fraud trial as a barrister, but would apparently not be happy with me attending 12 board meetings a year, all properly declared. How can attending just 12 board meetings a year prevent me from doing my job in this place? I do not understand the terms of the motion.

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[Mr Robert Buckland (South Swindon) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Blaydon (Mr Anderson),who, I know, speaks from the heart on this and many other subjects. I agree with his analysis of the pressures faced by many working people who have one, two or even more jobs to do during the working week, but I must point out to him that the motion does not do what he wants. It is very narrowly defined. It deals with particular types of financial relationship, but it does not deal with partnerships or with contracts of employment. In his powerful speech, the right hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Mr Raynsford) demolished the basis for the motion.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

Apart from the obvious point that the motion is defective—it does not mention earnings from, for instance, rented property—it constitutes an attempt to create a political class. The only way in which such people can express themselves, earn more money, or gain more power or prestige is to become Ministers, and that plays into the hands of Front Benchers. It gives them more and more power, and puts us more and more in their pockets.

[Mr Buckland]

If we breed a political class that enters this place with a diminished and diminishing knowledge of the outside world, the walls of the Westminster bubble will become thicker and thicker and we will genuinely create two nations, one of which will be entirely ignorant of the other.

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[Paul Flynn]

The hon. Gentleman makes an interesting point, but it is part of a different argument.

The public will not see this subject in subtle tones or have regard to the lawyers’ arguments we are hearing. In 2009, after the great screaming nightmare of the expenses scandal, our reputation was at rock bottom, but now it is even worse—it is subterranean. We saw the reaction to the suggestion that MPs’ salaries should be increased: all the old resentment was churned up.

The Daily Telegraph did democracy a reasonable turn by submitting a freedom of information request that demanded to know the most popular book that wicked MPs were borrowing from the Commons Library. I am sure that its journalists were desperate for another negative story about MPs and that they prayed in their offices that that book would be “Fifty Shades of Gray”, “How to Keep a Moat”, or “Duck House Owning for Beginners”. However, the book in greatest demand at the Library was the improving tract that I wrote, which recommends that MPs live off their salary.

We must look at this from the perspective of outsiders, not by considering subtle points about what is unearned income and what is a salary. If Members want to get outside experience, there are splendid institutions in the House through which we can go off to join the Army, Navy or Air Force, or secure a fellowship with a commercial firm over many months. Those experiences are marvellous, but the important point is that they are not paid. The great resentment among the public arises because we receive a full-time wage and so we should be doing full-time work.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

The hon. Gentleman talks about resentment, but the public are angry about MPs’ expenses and salaries because they pay for them. Is he really suggesting that the public are furious that a Member of Parliament attends 12 board meetings a year? Does that really make them angry when they are not paying for it?

[Hon. Members]

Yes!

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[Pat Glass]

If the hon. Gentleman had been present in the debate for more than three minutes, he would have understood it better.

The current system allows MPs to take additional jobs and to get paid for them so long as they declare them in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. I do not understand this. It seems to be completely within the rules and I am willing to accept that in the vast majority of cases MPs can operate without any conflict of interest in practice. However, we have to understand the perception outside this place. This is a Westminster bubble.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Pat Glass]

No, I will not.

Government Members have argued about the intricacies of the motion and the legal aspects, but this is about how it plays outside this place. The perception among the public is that MPs are getting kick-backs for services rendered, and that damages the reputation of politics—it damages the reputation of us all. I support a ban on remunerated directorships and paid consultancies and a cap on other forms of earned income. We have a cap on benefits, so why cannot we have a cap on MPs’ income?

Government Members have argued about this and confused the issue, but it is simple: it is an issue of access and of privileged access. It is about people outside this place paying for special access and privilege in a way that the vast majority of the people who vote for us and who pay their taxes and MPs’ salaries never can.

[Ian Lucas (Wrexham) (Lab)]

Before I was elected, I ran a solicitors practice as a sole practitioner. I gave up my business, which I had worked hard to build up, to become a Member of Parliament. I made a commitment at that time that I would work full time as a Member of Parliament. I think that was the right thing to do.

I do not believe that my giving up that business and stopping practising as a solicitor has prevented me from being a member of the local community, maintaining my relationship with the legal profession in my community or keeping in touch with the people I represent. Government Members are promulgating the extraordinary idea that to remain in touch with the outside world, we have to receive a salary. We do hundreds of things in our job as Members of Parliament which ensure that we have a connection with our constituents.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Ian Lucas]

I will make a little progress and if I have time, I will give way.

It has always amazed me that some Members of Parliament continue to do other jobs. Why would someone become a Member of Parliament if they wanted to be a company director or a consultant? They could be a company director or a consultant without being a Member of Parliament. Becoming an MP is not a route to becoming a company director or a consultant—or is it? I always ask myself why it is that companies want MPs as consultants or directors. Is it for their unique insights on the world? Even the cleverest of MPs—and there are some very self-regarding MPs on the Government Benches today—should not flatter themselves. It is clear why such posts are offered to Members of Parliament. It is not because of their unique intelligence, but because they are Members of Parliament. It is because of the influence that Members of Parliament have and the access that that buys.

[Ian Lucas]

As interesting as the hon. Gentleman thinks he is, I was not talking about him.

No one should have privileged access to an MP. Even more importantly, no one should be able to secure access to an MP by paying them. For that reason, I welcome the proposal of the Leader of the Opposition that MPs should be prevented from holding paid directorships and consultancies. Such arrangements give those who pay for it unique access to MPs.

It was interesting that the Leader of the House referred to a job offer that he received after he became a Member of Parliament. I would be interested to know why that company decided he was the person they wanted to give a job to. Does he know? Can he tell us? I would be delighted to take an intervention. Let me tell him the reason: it is because he is an MP and the company wanted access to him.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

I wonder whether we can get a bit of consensus across the Back Benches. Is not the real problem those second jobs that take MPs away from their constituencies, such as being a Minister? Can we agree that Ministers should not be paid any more than Back Benchers?

[Ian Lucas]

For far too short a time, I was a Minister. I got there in the end. I believe that being a Minister benefited my constituents. They understood that being a Minister was an important part of my job as a Member of Parliament. Ministers are also Members of Parliament, and I am sure that the hon. Gentleman is not suggesting that they in any way diminish themselves as MPs by being Ministers.

The key to the motion is access to MPs. I have not spoken about the hundreds of thousands of pounds that some Government Members earn. [Interruption.] I will not name them, because unlike the Leader of the House I have not given them notice. However, MPs should have a look at the Register of Members’ Financial Interests: a number of Members earn hundreds of thousands of pounds. This issue is about buying access. MPs should look at themselves in the mirror and ask whether they are really so clever that companies, which are engaged in business MPs have no experience in, really want them to join their boards for their personal knowledge and insight. The reality is that companies want privileged access to MPs and are prepared to pay for it.