Members’ Paid Directorships and Consultancies

Emily Thornberry Excerpts

Wednesday 25th February 2015 Commons Chamber

[Conor Burns]

May I use this intervention to do what I probably should have done when I intervened on the hon. Member for Wallasey (Ms Eagle), which is to draw the House’s attention to my declarations in the register? My right hon. Friend has written a couple of very successful and enjoyable books while serving in this House. Does he feel that he was not serving his constituents during that period? He probably spent less of his spare time with his wife when he was writing those books, but continued to serve his constituents very well.

[Emily Thornberry (Islington South and Finsbury) (Lab)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. As I understand the rules—perhaps I could get some guidance on this—a Member should declare what those interests are, as opposed simply to referring the House to the “register”.

[Mr Speaker]

“Erskine May” does treat of this matter. The short answer to the hon. Lady is that, yes, it should be clear to the House what is constituted by the interest, because that makes the debate that much more intelligible. It is a straightforward point, and I am grateful to the hon. Lady for raising it, and I have ruled, on advice, accordingly.

--- Later in debate ---

[Emily Thornberry]

That was a good joke, but may I bring the right hon. Gentleman back to the motion, which, whatever debate there may be about what may or may not be the policy of the next Labour Government, is what we ought to be looking at. It is narrowly about paid directorships or consultancies. Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that if the motion were passed, we would not have the enormous embarrassment of what has happened in the past few days? Surely, on the most minimal change to the status quo, this is a first step. Why are those on the Government Benches against it?

[Mr Hague]

I am discussing the motion and what it means or does not mean. It is difficult to speculate about what would happen or not happen in the future if we pass a motion, the meaning of which is not clear. In any case, the burden of the motion is one with which we disagree. It was not a joke about books. I was making, through a bit of humour, admittedly, a serious point: the Opposition do not know how they would apply a cap to somebody who writes a book, including a member of the shadow Cabinet, or to a farm.

One of my hon. Friends mentioned a farm. A distinguished Labour Prime Minister, Lord Callaghan, owned a farm. How is someone with a farm meant to restrict their income to a fixed percentage of their salary? Would Lord Callaghan have had to resign from the House every time there was a good harvest and then try to return to it when the crops failed?