Lord Adonis
Main Page: Lord Adonis (Labour - Life peer)
Lord Adonis (Lab)
My Lords, I come to this issue for the first time because of the controversy which it has aroused in the House. I have played no part in the previous discussions, but coming to this for the first time, reading the relevant reports and listening to the debate, the issue seems very simple. There is an overriding public interest at stake, and there are private interests which have been submitted to your Lordships, mostly—let us say this openly—by those who have private interests. They should not outweigh the public interest. It is as simple as that. As stated clearly in paragraph 8,
“the public interest requires absolute transparency when it comes to members of the national legislature working for a foreign power.”
The noble Lord, Lord Pannick, said that when he sits in Blackstone Chambers he is not working for a foreign power, but he is if he is paid by that power. He works professionally for it; he is not much use to the people paying his bills unless he gives them good professional advice. Any reasonable member of the public accepts, however, that the person who pays you is the person you are working for. That does not mean you do not act thoroughly professionally but it does mean you are working for them, and that should therefore be declared. If the act of declaring it causes embarrassment or—following the noble Lord, Lord Marks—means that a client would regard their right to confidentiality as being breached, then that work should not be taken on by a Member of the national legislature. That is the key point at stake here. The noble Lord, Lord Marks, said that the duty of confidentiality is breached because a client cannot choose a lawyer of their choice, but that is not correct. What we are saying here is that a client cannot choose a lawyer of their choice from the legislature of the United Kingdom.
The actual restriction that this measure would impose —let us be frank—is not great in terms of the range of lawyers who can be secured. But in so far as it imposes that restriction it is perfectly justified, for the reason given in paragraph 13 of the report, which quotes a
“former holder of high judicial office”
as saying
“the public interest ultimately must override the issue of client confidentiality”.
I believe that in the cases we are talking about, which involve foreign states and their agencies—let us be clear that in the states we are talking about, the boundaries between the state and its agencies are not always clear—the identity of the client should be revealed, as should the amount that they are paying.
The noble and learned Lord, Lord Garnier, for whom I have great respect, laid down four premises for the reference back that he moved, none of which actually hold. His first premise was that if we go down this road then we might restrict the capacity of people from a wide range of professions and activities to participate in this House. There is no such restriction. All we are saying is that the public, and other Members of this House, should be fully aware of the activities of those Members—not that they should be restricted, but that they should be transparent. That surely must be a principle at the heart of a modern Parliament. His second premise was that conduct should be regulated by legislation, not by order. He has been a Member of both Houses, so he knows that is palpably not the case. The conduct of both Houses of Parliament is regulated all the time by changes made by order; it is not regulated by changes made by statute.
Thirdly, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Garnier, says that we should postpone a decision because other committees are looking at whether we should go further. There is a case for going further and the noble Lord, Lord Balfe, made it, but that is not a reason for not doing this. It may be a reason for going further in due course, but we should definitely take this step at the moment because it has been so long under consideration by the responsible committee of this House, which, with one honourable exception, has recommended in favour of it. The fourth point that the noble and learned Lord made is that this restriction of the choice of barristers might not particularly affect or concern President Putin. I am not concerned about President Putin; I am concerned about your Lordships’ House and the way in which it conducts its affairs and is seen by the British public. What President Putin does is a matter for him.
The issues at stake here are simple and straightforward. There is an overriding public interest. Private interests have been asserted and our job, particularly those of us who do not have such private interests, is to uphold the public interest. Edmund Burke said:
“Liberty does not exist in the absence of morality.”
There is a straightforward moral issue here, which is that those who participate in the making of the law should not have private interests that are not declared, particularly those that may be antithetical to the interests of the state itself. That is a very straightforward interest and it is overriding in the case of the world as it is now, with the assembly of significant powers that are hostile to us. We should make this change, and we should make it today.