Committee on Standards

Huw Merriman Excerpts

Tuesday 10th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Valerie Vaz]

As my hon. Friend the Member for Stretford and Urmston said earlier, it was very clear that it was not in the criteria for disqualification, and it cannot be. It reminds me of when Brian Redhead was on the BBC. I think he was accused of voting in a certain way, and he said to the now Lord Tebbit, “How dare you know how I voted? Nobody knows how anyone votes when they go into that booth with that pencil. It is a private matter—nobody knows.”

Let me go back to the way interviews were done. I want to thank all the panel for finding these two excellent candidates. This came to the Commission for discussion, which I will not go into, but concerns were raised. I will not say who the concerns were raised by. The panel members were asked to go and ask questions of the candidates again, and so they did. They did the due diligence and they came back. That is the process.

If Members are asking about impartiality, let me just set out exactly what Melanie Carter is. Her current role is senior partner and head of the public and regulatory law department at Bates Wells solicitors. She is an independent adjudicator for the Marine Stewardship Council. She is a tribunal judge. She is a founder member of the Public Law Solicitors Association. She has previously worked as a partner at DMH Stallard and a solicitor with Bindmans, as director of standards and deputy registrar with the General Optical Council, and with Mayer, Brown, Rowe & Maw solicitors. She also worked for the Government Legal Service. Her previous public appointments were as an independent member of Brighton and Hove Council standards committee, as the legal chair of the Adjudication Panel for England and as a magistrate on the south-west Bench in London.

Melanie Carter qualified as a barrister and a solicitor. As solicitors, we owe a duty to the court first. We have to uphold the truth and the rule of law. She does all that, and she does it independently. That is why the panel recommended her. Let me tell hon. Members exactly what the report says, through the Commission:

“The two candidates represent a combination of experience and qualities which should reinforce public confidence in the independent element in the House’s disciplinary processes.”

This House is now saying to all those highly qualified people who sat on the panel, “You are talking rubbish. We don’t agree with you. We don’t agree with one part of what you say, but we agree with the other part.” That is absolutely outrageous.

[Huw Merriman (Bexhill and Battle) (Con)]

I cast no aspersions at all on the individual. She is clearly a very well qualified individual in her field. However, I take the point about the rules but, given that we have seven politicians who can be politically declared and seven lay members, surely we can accept that it makes sense for all those on the lay side of things to be completely beyond reproach, so that accusations cannot be made. I just wonder why we were unable to find people who were interested in being lay members but were not politically interested. I say that as, I hope, a very independent minded representative in this House.

[Valerie Vaz]

It is wonderful, isn’t it, when you know how someone is going to deal with a matter just on the basis of what their background is. With the greatest respect to the hon. Member, he does not know what is going to come before a Committee. The Leader of the House suggested that Melanie Carter might vote for an Opposition who were going to be good opposition for the current party, but actually, how does he know who is going to win the next the election? Nobody does, so he cannot say that she would vote for someone so that they would provide better opposition to the party that he represents.

[Valerie Vaz]

I saw no bar when Tim Davie, who is now Chairman of the BBC, stood as a Conservative councillor; no one saw a bar to that. So what happened in someone’s past—and this applies to numerous people. I spent last Thursday going through how contracts were handed out to friends of the current Government—but we digress; I apologise.

[Huw Merriman]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Valerie Vaz]

No.

I want to mention Professor Michael Maguire, because I do support the motion when it comes to appointing him. He was the Police Ombudsman for Northern Ireland and, among other things, he was a research officer at the University of Aston and he is currently the honorary professor of Senator George J Mitchell’s Institute for Global Peace, Security and Justice. So he, too, comes highly qualified, and we support his nomination.

To go back to some of the points that my hon. Friends have touched on, the Committee applied a selection criterion to all the candidates and the House should not derogate from that criterion, if that criterion was accepted by the panel and was accepted by the Commission—and it was.

I support the motion, and I intend to press the amendment in my name.

--- Later in debate ---

[Huw Merriman]

The hon. Gentleman and I have exchanged texts on this issue, and I always listen to what he has to say, but I rather think we are disappearing down rabbit holes. The objection I have—I have voted against House business before when it has been whipped by the Front Bench, so I hope there is some credence here—is that I expect lay members to be completely lay, particularly when there is an even split of 7:7. It really does not show this place in the best light if there is that little taint that can always be brought up. Surely he can see that point. Taking out all the rest, to me it just comes down to what looks to be fair and completely unbiased.

[Chris Bryant]

It would be perfectly legitimate for the House to decide that henceforward all lay members must be people who have never held a party political membership, and that would be one of the things that would be put out in the pack to all people who were thinking of applying, so it would be clear from the beginning. But that is the exact opposite of what the House did in this situation. Applicants were told, “Not only is it okay for you to have been a party political member, but it might indeed be an asset because you would understand the party political process better.”

[Huw Merriman]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Chris Bryant]

Yes.

[Chris Bryant]

Am I not allowed to give way then? Okay, I give way.

[Huw Merriman]

I was merely going to say, on that particular point, that surely every candidate who goes through this knows that this House has to be the ultimate decision maker. Otherwise it is just a rubber stamp and there is no point in having this Chamber and the Division Lobbies.

[Chris Bryant]

The thing is that thus far it always has been a rubber stamp. Nobody has ever voted on this, nor, for that matter, has there ever been a moment at which a Leader of the House has refused to bring to the House the motion that went through the House of Commons Commission, so this is in a different category.

I will now briefly conclude, Madam Deputy Speaker. Of course this will not, in the end, affect the long-term way in which the Committee seeks to do its business. I am very grateful to the Government for the report that was fed back to us on the basis of reports that we had done earlier this year. However, I think I preferred the Leader of the House as he was previously when he excoriated Governments for being over-mighty Executives. I find now that he rather likes being the over-mighty Executive, and I am not sure that is good for the job or good for the House.