Publication of Information about Complaints against Members

Debate between Kevin Barron and Tony Lloyd

Thursday 2nd December 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Barron]

I am grateful to the Backbench Business Committee for providing debating time for the three motions relating to the Committee on Standards and Privileges. It is right that they should be debated and I welcome the opportunity to answer any questions that hon. Members might have about them. All three motions relate to unfinished business from the last Parliament and, to that extent, they can be seen as a package. However, each is free-standing and I will speak to them in turn, in the order in which they appear on the Order Paper.

By agreeing to the first motion, the House will bring its publication policy on the complaints handling process into line with best practice. The current regime, which greatly limits what is published, no longer meets legitimate public expectations. Sections of the media have been able to portray the way in which less serious breaches of the rules are rectified as “secret deals”. There has also been inaccurate reporting of who is, and who is not, under inquiry, and what they might be under inquiry for. By enabling the commissioner to publish the information, the House will ensure that it is both accurate and complete. The alternative is to leave us exposed to unfair allegations of cover-ups and to allow the media to continue to set the agenda for us, often on the basis of inaccurate or incomplete information.

Under the new policy, each month the commissioner will publish on his web pages statistical information about the number of complaints and self-referrals he has received, the number he has accepted, and the number he has not accepted. He will not publish the names of Members who have been the subject of complaints that he has not accepted for inquiry or the details of those complaints. To do so would be unfair and would encourage malicious complaints and publicity seekers. To put this into perspective, if the new policy had been in place in 2009-10, no details of the 245 complaints that were not accepted for inquiry would have been published. All that would have been published would have been the information on the 72 complaints that were inquired into.

As for complaints that are accepted, each month the commissioner will list on his web pages inquiries that are under way, including in each case the name of the Member who is subject to the inquiry, with a brief description of the nature of the allegation and an indication of whether the inquiry is active or has for any reason been suspended. Other than in exceptional circumstances, which would have to be approved by the Committee, he will not publish other information about specific inquiries while they are under way. As our report makes clear, the commissioner already confirms or denies to inquirers that a complaint against a named Member is being investigated. The change will introduce consistency into a process that at the moment is random and largely media-driven.

The commissioner will also publish on his web pages his determination letters on specific complaints or allegations that, after inquiry, have either not been upheld or have been rectified as soon as possible after they are produced. He will also publish relevant evidence he has received about such cases. In the Committee’s view, it is in the best interests of the Member concerned and of the House that where evidence of a possible breach has been fully investigated but the allegation has not been upheld or the matter has been rectified with the commissioner’s agreement, both the decision and the reasons for it should be made public.

It is perhaps worth repeating that complainants—some of them politically motivated—have always been free to publicise the outcome of the commissioner’s inquiry into a complaint that is either rectified or not upheld, but at a time and in a manner of their own choosing. That unregulated state of affairs will be replaced by one that is consistent and, I believe, fair and that is under the authority of the House. Publishing the information will help Members to set the record straight publicly and will go some way to redressing the balance.

The motion also proposes that historical information going back to April 2008 should be published. I know that that has caused some concern, but the reason for backdating the information is to make it broadly consistent with other recent decisions of the House to introduce greater transparency. I remind the House that, contrary to what sections of the media have claimed, the commissioner’s determinations are not secret. Much of it is already out there, although often in incomplete form, because complainants have always been free to publicise the outcome of their complaint. By allowing the commissioner to publish his determinations and the relevant evidence, the House will ensure that what is published is both accurate and complete. If the House supports the Committee’s proposal, the commissioner will start to publish information on his web pages later this month.

[Tony Lloyd (Manchester Central) (Lab)]

For the record, is my right hon. Friend in a position to tell the House how many of the complaints that the commissioner accepted for investigation resulted in a finding against the Member and how many were dismissed at that stage?

[Mr Barron]

I quoted the figures from the commissioner’s last annual report. During the time of the leaks, The Daily Telegraph and everything else, 245 complaints were never followed up whereas 72 were. My hon. Friend will know that they were not necessarily all upheld, and in such cases the commissioner wants to say that in terms so that there can be no equivocation.

The numbers that are investigated and the number of complaints that are not upheld are sometimes published by the commissioner, as my hon. Friend will know, through the commissioner giving a memorandum to the Committee and the Committee doing its own investigation on that basis and publishing it. All the information has been around in the House in one form or another for many years—since before I became a member of the Committee. I do not have the exact figure for the number of people among the 72 whose cases were followed up who were not found to have done anything wrong. If my hon. Friend is interested, I will try to get that figure from the commissioner, but we must recognise that the commissioner works independently from the Committee, although we have contact with him.

The second motion seeks to implement a recommendation of the Committee on Standards in Public Life—I think we used to call it the Kelly committee—that the commissioner should be able to carry out an inquiry without receiving a complaint. As my Committee’s seventh report points out, that would bring the House’s procedures into line with those of the House of Lords and of the compliance officer. It will also allow the commissioner to investigate a matter that has been reported on by the compliance officer and that raises code of conduct issues. For the first time, it makes proper provision for self-referrals, although they will continue to be subject to the Committee’s agreement.

There is a risk, as the report acknowledges, that giving the commissioner such a responsibility might raise public expectations that each and every allegation will be investigated or that the commissioner will turn into some kind of witchfinder-general. Let me make it clear that that is not going to happen. The Committee does not want it and the commissioner is not asking for it.

The amendment to the Standing Order provides for the commissioner to inquire into

“specific matters which have come to his attention”.

There is also a built-in requirement that there must be sufficient evidence of a possible breach of the code or rules to justify taking the matter further. In the 245 cases in the last annual report there was no evidence and they were not acted on. A lurid newspaper headline or unsubstantiated speculation will not lead to an inquiry. The process must be driven by the evidence and the evidence must come to the commissioner.

It is important, as my Committee’s report recognises, that the commissioner has the resources he needs to do his job. We supported the temporary expansion of his office to deal with the increase in the number of complaints over the past two years and, if necessary, we will do so again. However, there is no expectation that that will happen. The current work load is somewhat smaller than that of 12 months ago.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Barron]

The hon. Member for Worthing West (Peter Bottomley) spoke of media headlines serving as reasons for investigation. That is not the case now, and it will not be the case in future. Investigations are not made on the basis of media headlines; they are made when the commissioner is provided with evidence and he or she is satisfied that there are grounds for examining, for instance, a potential breach of the code of conduct.

My hon. Friend the Member for Warrington North (Helen Jones) discussed rectification, which involves two issues. Rectification sometimes takes place on the basis that the individual concerned has been found to have done no wrong, but, as I explained, it does not always take place in a right and proper way. It may take place in a very ill-informed way, and a complainant who has done no wrong can still go to the media and say “Yes, but…”. I think it eminently sensible to improve that process of rectification.

When people have done wrong and have admitted doing wrong, rectification has been the right and proper thing to do from the commissioner’s point of view. It is his decision and no one else’s to take the matter no further. Money is paid back, and matters are settled. However, the information is not published in a right and proper way at the moment. We need more transparency, so that people can understand exactly what is happening. I entirely accept that that involves the question of retrospection. We are trying to put the last 18 months behind us, and, as I said, in that context I think that retrospection is right and proper. I hope that the House will accept it on that ground.

I think it highly unlikely that there will be further complaints on the basis of these publications. Even if there were, evidence beyond that which had enabled the commissioner to reach the point at which he had arrived would presumably be required for any investigation to take place. I do not believe that cases that have been rectified will be reopened, whether they have been upheld or not.

My hon. Friend also mentioned a spike in major complaints just before a general election. Political opponents often make complaints. That is a judgment to be taken not by the House or the Committee, but by the commissioner, who I hope would use common sense in those circumstances. I say that because it would be wrong—I am only one voice, but I chair the Committee—for us to define a code of conduct for the commissioner. The commissioner is independent of the Committee and must remain so. We cannot have a situation where someone investigates complaints against MPs, but works to a code of conduct written by a Committee of MPs.

[Tony Lloyd]

It would not necessarily be my right hon. Friend’s Committee that created the code of conduct. The commissioner could operate his own code of conduct. That might give the House the reassurance that it needs.

[Mr Barron]

That is entirely a matter for the commissioner. From what was said earlier, I gather that he is with us not just in spirit for the debate. I am sure he will read the report in Hansard tomorrow. The Committee should not be a party to drawing up a code of conduct for somebody who works independently of the Committee. That would be wholly wrong.

On the subject of lay members, we have said that that will be a matter for the Procedure Committee, and I hope the House will agree. I mentioned that I had been a lay member of the General Medical Council. The Procedure Committee may want to know something about my journey to that role. The first time I was appointed to it, I was the Labour appointee. There was also a Liberal Democrat and a Conservative appointee. They were appointed by the Leader of the House.

That is what used to happen under the old system. The GMC was a big body, consisting of 124 members and three MPs, one from each major party. The second time that I served as a lay member on it, I had to attend an appointments session up in Leeds. I was appointed by a panel who asked me questions about what I had to bring to the table.

I say to the hon. Member for Harwich and North Essex (Mr Jenkin) that I would hesitate to suggest to the Procedure Committee that it ought to have some form of permanent secretary. I had worked in industry as an electrician. I had been to see doctors, of course, because everyone gets ill from time to time. I used to sit on fitness to practice committees when a doctor had done wrong. Those were national cases. I was not qualified to take on the medical profession. I was there in a different role. My role was to bring to the committee what I thought ordinary people would think about the situation—to bring common sense to the issue.

That is what we ought to ask of the Procedure Committee. How it achieves that is entirely up to the Committee. I hesitate to go down the route suggested and lay any sort of guidelines whatever. If lay members come on to the Committee on Standards and Privileges, as I hope they will at some stage, it will be up to the Committee to decide whether they have anything to do with privilege. I agree with the hon. Gentleman that as soon as we get a privilege Bill, or a draft privilege Bill, as we are promised, we can see what that means. There has been a ruling of the Supreme Court on these matters in the past 24 hours. We should look at that in the context of what has come to light in the past few months. The Procedure Committee should get on with the job, if the House agrees to the motion.

I hope the House will accept all three motions without Division. As I said, they serve to clear up issues from before the general election and make sure that the workings of the House are as transparent as is humanly possible, so that people outside have more confidence in us than they have had in the recent past.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

(1) That this House approves the Sixth Report of the Standards and Privileges Committee, Session 2010-11, HC 577; and

(2) That accordingly—

a. The Commissioner may publish papers relating to complaints rectified or not upheld since the beginning of financial year 2008-09 and information about complaints received and matters under investigation since the beginning of financial year 2010-11.

b. Standing Order No. 150 be amended, by inserting the following new paragraph after paragraph 10.

“(10A) The Commissioner shall have leave to publish from time to time—

(a) information and papers relating to—

(i) matters resolved in accordance with paragraph (3) of this order;

and

(ii) complaints not upheld;

and

(b) information about complaints received and matters under investigation.”

power of the parliamentary commissioner for standards to initiate investigations

Resolved,

(1) That this House approves the Seventh Report of the Standards and Privileges Committee, Session 2010-11, HC 578; and

(2) That accordingly Standing Order No. 150 be amended, by leaving out paragraph (2)(e) and inserting in its place:

“(e) to investigate, if he thinks fit, specific matters which have come to his attention relating to the conduct of Members and to report to the Committee on Standards and Privileges or to an appropriate subcommittee thereof, unless the provisions of paragraph (3) apply.

(2A) In determining whether to investigate a specific matter relating to the conduct of a Member the Commissioner shall have regard to whether in his view there is sufficient evidence that the Code of Conduct or the rules relating to registration or declaration of interests may have been breached to justify taking the matter further.”—(Mr Barron.)

lay membership of the committee on standards and privileges

Resolved,

That this House agrees with the principle as set out in the Twelfth Report from the Committee on Standards in Public Life that lay members should sit on the Committee on Standards and Privileges; and invites the Procedure Committee to bring forward proposals to implement it.—(Mr Barron.)

Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority

Debate between Kevin Barron and Tony Lloyd

Thursday 2nd December 2010 Commons Chamber

[Tony Lloyd]

Yes, it is odd. These issues are odd and arbitrary and IPSA must recognise that the system needs reform. It has begun to talk about the reform process so it is reasonable for the House to debate the kind of reform we need. If IPSA is engaged in a process, we should be part of the dialogue about how to move it on, and the experiences we have been hearing about show the direction that IPSA must take.

I want to mention one or two other areas where reform is needed. High on the list of priorities for all Members are matters relating to how people move through different lifestyles and ages. Some people will enter the House at a young age, perhaps with young families, while others will be older, but all will have different needs and different requirements. A proper Parliament should be geared up to accommodate Members of different backgrounds and needs at different stages of life. That ought to be automatic, but it is not so now. We need change there.

We need change in other areas that make it difficult for us to operate as Members of Parliament. For example, some of the arbitrary rules on the office cost ceiling might make sense in the lowest-cost parts of the country, but make no sense in large parts of London and even in constituencies such as mine. My constituency is actually one of the poorest in Britain, but its benchmark office costs are those for the city of Manchester. IPSA has to take those things seriously if it is to allow Members to do their jobs.

The issue of travel is fundamental. In virtually all the years I have been a Member, in all my different roles—whether on the Government Front Bench, the Opposition Front Bench or the Back Benches—it has been accepted that if a Member needs to travel on parliamentary business, their needs will be met, if the travel is legitimate. For Ministers that is automatic, and senior Opposition figures have it provided through Short money, but as we move down the political food chain—if that is the right terminology—that now ceases to be the case.

You know, Mr Deputy Speaker, that under the present rules, some travel outside a Member’s constituency will be paid for, while other things will be refused. My right hon. Friend the Member for Rother Valley (Mr Barron) pointed out to me that, as somebody who has spent the last 27 years in Parliament actively engaged on health matters, were he to travel from his south Yorkshire constituency to, for example, the Christie hospital in south Manchester, he would not necessarily be able to claim it as a legitimate cost, even though anybody with half a view of his work over the years would recognise it as important and fundamental to what he does.

[Mr Kevin Barron (Rother Valley) (Lab)]

I travelled from my home in south Yorkshire to Huddersfield university a few Fridays ago, as the chair of the all-party group on pharmacy, to talk to 300 pharmacy students about pharmacy and how Parliament operates. I thought that was a legitimate claim, but it has now been denied. IPSA needs to look at these things, although I agree that it is improving in respect of some expenses claims.

[Tony Lloyd]

The sad thing is that, in refusing what most people would consider a common-sense, legitimate claim, it will now show as one of those wicked claims that IPSA has refused. That is how ludicrous the situation has become.

We can, of course, spend a lot of time apologising for what happened in the past. Individuals, and the House as a whole, had to go through that painful process. Those of us who were here then definitely went through it, but a third of the House consists of new Members who have no reason to apologise. However, they do have a need to function as proper Members of Parliament. Those who come in new at the next general election will have the same need to operate as functioning Members whose legitimate expenses are paid. That is the big test not for the House, but for IPSA in its review process, which is about to take place. IPSA has to get this right, not for my sake or the sake of the shredder in my office—I will give it back and buy my own, if that is the test—but to ensure that we have a Parliament that can do the work that the public do not necessarily always expect us to do, but which they need us to do.