Standards of Behaviour and Honesty in Political Life

Lord Cormack Excerpts

Thursday 23rd June 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, it is a very great pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher. We are all indebted to the noble Lord, Lord Morse, for giving us this opportunity.

I begin by referring to a character mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Anderson of Swansea, because it helps to put this all into context. The problems we are facing at the moment—I shall come on to these in more detail—are very real, but to have rogue politicians is not new. Most of your Lordships will know the famous story of Maundy Gregory. Sentenced to a prison term, he was sewing his mail bags when he was visited by one of his former colleagues, who asked, “Sewing, Gregory?” “No—reaping”, he replied.

Of course, there have been rogue politicians through the ages, but we are in a different context now, because until relatively recently, we all accepted the basic ground rules. The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Blackburn also referred to this. Whether believers or not, we had a fundamental Christian structure to our society, where almost everybody accepted that certain things were right and certain things were wrong—certain things were done, and certain things should not be done—although there were those who transgressed. We think perhaps of John Profumo, but what an extraordinary comeback he had by devoting his life to Toynbee Hall and being properly recognised—I think here of the Christian doctrine of redemption—by being given a CBE.

But we are in a different context today. Again, the right reverend Prelate referred to this when he talked about my truth and your truth, rather than the truth which we all held to and accepted. Almost every politician now seems to think that as long he thinks what he is doing is all right, it does not really matter— whether it is telling a fib on the Floor of the House of Commons or watching questionable material on an iPhone. But it does matter, and it is important that we recognise that. We must have a machinery, a structure, for supervising and, to a degree, policing that. I was taken by the very thoughtful speech and suggestion of my noble friend Lord Wolfson, whose dignified letter of resignation is, I hope, framed on the walls of 10 Downing Street.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

Not a chance.

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

I live in hope. My noble friend talked about the Lord Chancellor, and about having a Lord Chancellor who is in a destination office. He used the analogy of the station. We are shortly going to be saying goodbye to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay of Clashfern, one of the most distinguished and distinctive Lord Chancellors we have had. He was always in residence in King’s Cross or St Pancras, but his successors have all got off at Adlestrop. It is very important to recognise that a Lord Chancellor, in a high and exalted position, having taken the oaths to which my noble friend Lord Wolfson referred, can be in a position, to a degree, of moral guardian of the ethics of the Cabinet. Although he would never put it that way, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay of Clashfern, fulfilled that role to a degree. It is very important that we try to restore public confidence in those who hold high office. If we do not, our very democratic structures are at risk.

There has been a great change in the other place since I entered it 52 years ago last Saturday. There were not enough women then, but there were a number of colleagues who had fought in the last war with great distinction and had MCs, and almost everybody in the House had had a successful career somewhere. Even I, entering at the age of 31, had done 10 years in the real world as a schoolmaster, a deputy head and so on. There are far too many these days who come in without having had any experience at all of the real world. They come in very often at the first time of asking—their first election—and many have done nothing outside the party-political arena. They have been spads or assistants to MPs, but they do not properly understand the real world. Because of that, what was a vocation to public service has become a job and a career in itself.

That is really what is behind much of what we are talking of today, but it is not only that. They have dispensed—as I hope we will not in your Lordships’ House—with the hours that enabled the House of Commons to have a collegiate structure. I was sitting in my office last night and at five-something the House was up and they were gone. That did not use to happen and because of that, we were together, collegiately, talking and mixing, as we do in your Lordships’ House at the Long Table. A fortnight in advance of a very important debate, I urge your Lordships to remember what happened in the House of Commons when it lost its collegiate structure and gave up the scrutiny of legislation because of timetabling. All these things are enmeshed, but above all, we have to have standards in public life which enable the electorate to respect those whom they elect.