Strengthening Standards in Public Life

Jacob Rees-Mogg Excerpts

Wednesday 17th November 2021 Commons Chamber

[The Leader of the House of Commons (Mr Jacob Rees- Mogg)]

I beg to move an amendment, to leave out from “House” to the end of the Question and add: “acknowledges recent concern over the outside interests of Members of Parliament; believes the rules which apply to MPs must be up to date, effective and appropriately rigorous; recalls the 2018 report by the Committee on Standards in Public Life into this matter; believes that recommendations 1 and 10 in that report form the basis of a viable approach which could command the confidence of parliamentarians and the public; believes that these recommendations should be taken forward; and supports cross-party work, including that being done by the House’s Committee on Standards, to bring forward recommendations to update the Code of Conduct for MPs by 31 January 2022.”

It is an honour to speak in this Opposition day debate today, and an honour indeed to follow the hon. Member for Bristol West (Thangam Debbonaire), who has been giving us an object lesson as to why people in glasshouses are best advised not to throw stones. It is always a privilege for any hon. or right hon. Member to speak in this House, at any time, on any day. We come here fully aware of the fundamental principle that lies at the heart of our parliamentary democracy: first and foremost, we work on behalf of our constituents. As Edmund Burke said in his address to the electors of Bristol in 1774, familiar territory to the hon. Lady—[Interruption.] No, I was not actually there, unfortunately: it would have a great pleasure to listen to Edmund Burke, such a distinguished figure in our history. He said that

“parliament is a deliberative assembly of one nation, with one interest, that of the whole; where, not local purposes, not local prejudices ought to guide, but the general good, resulting from the general reason of the whole.”

Our primary duty is to the electorate. It is their interests we are here to represent, and to them, also, that we must answer at the ballot box. But if being a champion of our constituents is critical to an MP’s role, it is also our innate duty to act in the interests of the nation as a whole.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

In Parliament we scrutinise legislation and hold the Executive to account, both in debates in the Chamber and in Westminster Hall, and through our work on a range of Committees. Speaking of Committees, I give way to the hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Angus Brendan MacNeil), a distinguished Committee Chairman.

[Angus Brendan MacNeil]

I am sorry myself that I missed that quote in Bristol in 1770-whatever it was. This is a good and well-intentioned debate on strengthening standards in public life, but Labour studiously avoids dealing with cash for honours. We should remember that the Prime Minister was interviewed under police caution on this matter back in 2006. I have tried with Labour and I will now try with the Conservatives: will the Tories rule out the practice of cash for honours—a very corrupt practice where high-value cash donors find themselves up in the House of Lords, buying their place in a Parliament in what is meant to be a western democracy, for goodness’ sake?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for raising this, because he knows a great deal about Maundy Gregory and the scandal that came about with Lloyd George, and indeed corresponded with my late father on this subject when cash for honours came up. Cash for honours is illegal and has been for the best part of 100 years. It is rightly illegal and is wholly improper. The hon. Gentleman has been right in his campaigns to ensure that that never tarnishes our way of life.

[Stephen Flynn (Aberdeen South) (SNP)]

rose—

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

Let me carry on at this stage.

The Government hold their position solely by virtue of their ability to command the confidence of the House of Commons, and it is primarily from the elected Chamber that Ministers are appointed. Given the spectrum of responsibilities, the Government believe it an historic strength of our system that MPs should have a wider focus than the Westminster bubble and that we should maintain connections to the world beyond, so that we may draw on the insights and expertise that this experience offers so that, rather than a Chamber replete with professional politicians with no previous career or future career other than to remain on the public payroll, we have a Parliament that benefits from MPs with a broader range of talents and professional backgrounds.

[Stewart Hosie (Dundee East) (SNP)]

I agree with the Leader of the House about Members having a wide range of backgrounds. I also agree with Burke that our first duty should be to serve our constituents, but hon. Members are picking up from their second job tens, scores or hundreds of thousands of pounds a year, and one cannot serve two paymasters. Has the time not come to, at the very least, agree to this modest motion today and ban at least certain categories of jobs to avoid the allegation that people are serving two paymasters?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I think it important that there should be some humble crofters in this House who can bring their experience and their wisdom, and not only humble crofters, but people who have experience of the City of London—sometimes, they happen to be one and the same person. I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman agrees that that brings distinction to the House, particularly on Wednesday afternoons.

This sort of experience, gained both prior to a Member’s election and once they have taken up their parliamentary seat, is beneficial. The profusion of perspectives, be they corporate, trade union or charitable, brings a welcome variety to this place, and enhances the quality of challenge we hear in debate and throughout the business of the House.

[Dr Huq]

The Leader of the House talks about the good and the humble. Would he agree with the sentiment that bad people will always find a way around rules? The point of rules is to draw them as tightly as possible so that that does not happen. Five living Cabinet Secretaries said so in The Times yesterday. If he does agree, what were the Government thinking of the other week? Does he realise how it looks?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I do not hold the Labour party responsible for the fact that six people, and one currently appealing, have been sentenced to jail terms or suspended jail terms as socialist Members. I do not hold that against the socialists because I understand that even well-intentioned parties with a high moral standard and an enormous amount of self-righteousness will occasionally have rotten apples within them.

We have seen in recent weeks growing and sincerely held concerns across the House about the outside interests of Members of Parliament, particularly where potential conflicts of interests may arise. Here, the Government are clear that the reputation of Parliament must come first—more than that, as my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister says, it is imperative that on a cross-party consensus we put beyond doubt the reputation of the House of Commons by having rules for MPs that are up-to-date, effective and appropriately rigorous so as to continue to command the confidence of the public, whom we are here to serve. That is why the Prime Minister has written to Mr Speaker to set out the Government’s advocacy of reforms to update the code of conduct that sets out the standards of behaviour for MPs as we carry out our work.

[Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)]

The Leader of the House is absolutely right, this debate and this motion are about the integrity of not just this House and this place, but our political system as a whole. So should the Prime Minister have corrected the record in January when he incorrectly said that PPE contracts had been published when the High Court ruled that they had not?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

The Government’s behaviour with PPE was the subject of the previous debate and was essential to ensure that, in very short order, a very large quantity was provided. What was done to provide the vaccine and sufficient quantities of PPE was absolutely right.

[Liz Saville Roberts (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)]

The Leader of the House mentioned cross-party working. On the theme of the previous intervention, the leader of Plaid Cymru, Adam Price, introduced a Bill when he was in this place 14 years ago that would have made the wilful misleading of this House by a politician an offence. Should we bring that Bill forward again?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

The right hon. Lady raises an interesting constitutional question, because misleading this House would arguably be a breach of the privileges of this House, and to take that to a court would be a breach of article 9 of the Bill of Rights. Although I think that misleading this House is a serious offence, it is an offence punishable within and by this House through our privileges processes, and it would be wrong to take the proceedings of this House to a court, which would take away one of our most fundamental constitutional protections of freedom of speech in this House. I hope, Madam Deputy Speaker, that you will forgive me that constitutional dilation in response to the right hon. Lady’s important point.

In a moment or two I will come to the details of the Prime Minister’s letter and how they relate to the motion before us, but I want first to address the substance of the issues that I know, from my recent conversations with hon. and right hon. Members, have been of particular concern. I have already emphasised the supremacy of an MP’s parliamentary and constituency work, but we also recognise that there are certain external roles that seem particularly at odds with the job of an MP—namely, those that would capitalise on an insider’s knowledge of Parliament and Government. I can confirm to the House that we believe the experience and expertise we accrue as part of our work as MPs should not be for sale. We are elected to Parliament on a promise to work for the greater good not of ourselves, but of our constituents and our country.

Turning to the specifics of the motion, we can see from the Prime Minister’s letter to the Speaker that the Government are proposing to go beyond the terms set out for today’s debate. The Prime Minister made clear the Government’s view that the MPs’ code of conduct should be updated as a matter of urgency to reflect two key recommendations made by the Committee on Standards in Public Life in its 2018 report on MPs’ outside interests. We wish to endorse, first, the key recommendation of the Committee in relation to MPs’ outside interests. It is self-evident that being an MP is the greatest responsibility and, indeed, honour. Therefore, any undertaking of paid employment must remain within reasonable limits, and it should not prevent MPs from fully performing their range of duties whether in their constituency or in this place.

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

Of course, everybody agrees with that, but how does one determine realistically what is taking too much of one’s time on an outside interest? It should be common sense and it should be left to the judgment of the electorate. What worries me is that, if it is left to the commissioner for standards, however distinguished, that will give that official a degree of power never enjoyed by any official ever before over Members of Parliament. We are accountable not to officials, but to our electorate.

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. We are responsible and accountable to our voters. This is why the Chairman of the Standards Committee will be leading his distinguished Committee in looking into this and I hope will make recommendations to the House.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

I am grateful to the Leader of the House for giving way, and this is very naughty of me because I have only just walked in from the Liaison Committee; I am breaking all the standards of the House. The only point I want to make is that I think it would be very difficult for the commissioner to start investigating whether an MP was devoting enough of their time to their constituents. Of course, all our constituents want us to throw ourselves heart and soul into our work, and I think we all do. Many of us work many more hours than a normal working week—60, 70, 80 hours. But I am just very hesitant about going down this route of timesheets or something. She already gets thousands of requests every year saying that an MP has not replied to an email, he or she has voted the wrong way, or whatever. I just urge him, and I will urge my Committee very strongly, to think very carefully about this.

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

May I thank the hon. Gentleman, the parliamentary leader of Plaid Cymru, the right hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd (Liz Saville Roberts), and the hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar for their good temper and sense in this debate and for trying to bring a genuinely cross-party approach?

As the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) has pointed out, these issues are complex. They are not open to easy solutions; they need deliberation. How people lead their lives depends very much on them as individuals, and trying to work out how an MP fulfils his or her duties is not something that can easily be put down in a time and motion study. That is why we are hoping that his Committee will be able to consider it and then bring forward recommendations that, with support on a cross-party basis, may prove acceptable to the House as a whole.

If I may continue, we endorse the Committee on Standards in Public Life’s recommendation that MPs should be banned from accepting any paid work to provide services as a parliamentary strategist, adviser or consultant. It is, of course, the case that amending the code of conduct for MPs is a matter for Parliament, rather than for the Government—indeed, strictly speaking it is a matter for this House, the Commons, because of our exclusive cognisance of our own affairs. However, Her Majesty’s Government believe that those two recommendations form the basis of a viable approach that could command the confidence of both parliamentarians and the public, and would therefore like to see them adopted.

Coming to the final part of my remarks—this is the point at which normally, somebody says, “Hear, hear”—[Hon. Members: “Hear, hear!] Thank you. I know that some hon. Members like nothing more in debate than to start delving down the procedural rabbit holes of the merits or otherwise of Standing Orders and the like. I am not immune to that temptation myself, but I do not think it would be useful in this instance. It is an established convention—this is one problem with the Opposition motion—that the Government are able to transact their business in the House of Commons, and the House itself has long recognised that principle in Standing Order No. 14, which provides that Government business takes precedence.

To give this motion from the Standards Committee immediate precedence would be both impractical and unnecessary. Her Majesty’s Government support the amendment to

“bring forward recommendations to update the code of conduct for MPs by 31 January 2022”,

which sets a clear timeframe for progress on the issues discussed today. The Government therefore support a more practical amendment that acknowledges the concerns we have all been hearing in recent days, and positively proposes that the proportionate measures devised by the Committee on Standards in Public Life should be taken forward on a cross-party basis. That would include the work being done by this House’s Committee on Standards, in accordance with the timeframe suggested by Opposition Members. We have listened, and we have very much taken into account what they have proposed. It is important to note that on this matter, as on the other issues before us today relating to the code of conduct, the Government recognise that any changes are a matter for the House, and are looking ahead to the next steps being taken in a way that seeks consensus and respects the views of all sides of the House.