Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee
Debate between Paul Flynn and Bernard Jenkin(6 years, 9 months ago)
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Mr Jenkin
I welcome my hon. Friend back to the Front Bench in her new position at the Cabinet Office, to which she brings considerable experience, including of this issue. However, I have to express my disappointment at the Government’s response. Some minor amendments were accepted, but it regards the system as the highest example of regulation and openness when it simply does not deliver the public confidence that we want. I appreciate that this is a vexed issue and that we do not want to deter people from coming into the public service for fear of being treated unfairly on the way out, but the present arrangements are inadequate. The response even refused to put more explicitly into the ministerial code words such as
“You must… take decisions in the public interest alone”
and
“You must… never allow yourself to be influenced in contracting, procurement, regulation or the provision of policy advice, by your career expectations or prospects if you leave the public service”
and
“You must not… take up any post outside the public service in businesses or [commercial] organisations operating in areas where you have been directly responsible”.
I do not understand why those things cannot be put explicitly in the ministerial code so that they are talked about and understood, which would begin to change the attitudes that unfortunately pervade many of the Ministers, special advisers and civil servants in Whitehall.
Paul Flynn (Newport West) (Lab)
The Government’s conduct in responding to the report reinforces the public’s view that we here are acting in our own private interests, not in the public interest. Is it not significant that a Prime Minister who did not lift a finger during his period in office in answer to pleas for reforms to jam the revolving door has now taken advantage of that period of office to take a job in China, with which he worked when in Government? Will the Chair of the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee explain to us why George Osborne did not come to the Committee to explain why he had five meetings with BlackRock, why he altered the law in its favour and why, after losing office, he took a job with them on £650,000 a year for one day’s work a week? If that is not an egregious example of the abuse of the revolving door, it is hard to see what is. We have a shameful record, and perhaps the Chair will agree that the public will rightly regard us with contempt and as unfit to police our own affairs.
Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee
Debate between Paul Flynn and Bernard Jenkin
Mr Jenkin
I ask the hon. Gentleman: why stop at 16? Why not 14 or 12? These are subjective judgments made by different bodies in different parts of the constitution. That franchise is a devolved matter; it is a matter for the Scottish Parliament. Personally, I favour maintaining the status quo in the UK.
Paul Flynn (Newport West) (Lab)
Does not the hon. Gentleman agree that our system for referendums and elections is more vulnerable to invisible manipulation and corruption than at any time since 1880? The great weakness of the report is that it ignores the evidence provided, principally by the journalist Carole Cadwalladr, on the use of botnets, artificial intelligence and algorithms to influence millions of voters. The evidence is there from the United States and from this country. Under-the-counter systems are being used that we do not understand; they seek to trawl through websites to get information and subsequently influence voters. We are trying to deal with tomorrow’s systems and tomorrow’s high technology with regulations that are long out of date.
Is not it likely that in the coming election there will be more manipulation, that there could well be cyber-attacks, and that we cannot trust these results, because what is happening is under the counter and the Electoral Commission has no tools to deal with it in the way it should? We should not have a general election without finding out the truth about the manipulation that has taken place here, in the US and possibly in other countries that we do not know about. We have not heard about that from GCHQ; we should have heard from it. It has reported on what has happened in the US, where there were cyber-attacks and manipulation. That could well have happened here; we do not know because we have not asked.
Mr Jenkin
With respect, I have asked that question, and I feel I have been rather brushed off by Ministers, perhaps on the advice of officials who are perhaps not as knowledgeable as the Committee is about the technicalities, algorithms or indeed the cognitive approach taken by some of the countries with which the Committee has made itself familiar. I am always grateful for the hon. Gentleman’s contributions to the Committee—I think he is our longest-serving member—but personally I do not agree that this threatens the credibility of our elections. In 1880, one of my predecessors in North Essex conducted his election with his wife walking behind him down the high street handing out gold sovereigns. We have come a long way since that kind of corruption in elections, but we need to be alert to the things that the hon. Gentleman draws attention to, and to be ever more alert to the fake news that appears on the internet and is designed to manipulate people’s expectations.
Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee
Debate between Paul Flynn and Bernard Jenkin
Mr Jenkin
I think that is an accurate comment, and I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his contribution to the Committee and this report. It cuts both ways, because the Cabinet went along with being sidelined. Chilcot was clear that plenty of Cabinet Ministers were quite content to leave it to others to make the decisions when they had the right to insist on being consulted. Our report addresses how the legal advice was taken, explored and discussed by the Cabinet, and we make recommendations about that. Our proposals make clear what Cabinet Ministers are entitled to expect. It is not a favour to ask that of the Prime Minister; it is part of the proper procedure of Cabinet government. We do not have a superannuated presidency in this country. We have a constitutional Cabinet Government, which should be reinforced by these proposals.
Paul Flynn (Newport West) (Lab)
I am also a member of the Committee, but I do not support this report because I believe it has been interpreted by the press as an act of absolution for the Prime Minister involved and the other culpable people who were led by him, principally the three Select Committees of this House. Going to war was the worst blunder this House committed since sending troops to the Suez war. We should be objective in dealing with our blunders and, although this report has many merits, it does not address the truth that we were led into an avoidable war by a man of vanity who was in a messianic mood—he misled the House in a very serious way.
The hon. Gentleman’s report contains evidence from Dr Rangwala, who rightly says that there are two interpretations of the evidence before Chilcot. One interpretation, which the report suggests should be referred to the Privileges Committee, might lead us to conclude that we went to war in vain. We must remember the principal need to avoid sending soldiers to war in future because of the vanity or inflexibility of this House in making fair judgments. We have that responsibility. If we do not condemn the errors of the past, we are responsible for them.
Mr Jenkin
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his work on the Committee, and I respect that we differ on the report. I appreciate the emphasis he wants to make by declining to support the report, but it is open to the House at any time to refer any matter to the Committee of Privileges. There is a procedure for doing that, and he should try to implement it if he thinks there is a case for doing so.
The difficulty, as the Chilcot inquiry said, is that there are two interpretations of all this and that there is no definitive evidence to suggest culpability or that the former Prime Minister deliberately sought to mislead the House. There are lots of lessons to be learned. As an aside, for the House to be able to make an informed decision, it relies entirely on what the Government tell it. We are in a new era in which the House is consulted about such things, which never used to be the case. We used to have rather more retrospective accountability on such matters, rather than forward accountability, and I question whether such forward accountability works. I do not think the House of Commons is competent to make strategic judgments on the spur of the moment and in the heat of a crisis in the way that a Government should be.
Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee
Debate between Paul Flynn and Bernard Jenkin(8 years, 7 months ago)
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Mr Jenkin
I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman’s contribution. I thank him for the very diligent work that he puts in on the Committee. I do not think he will mind me putting on the record that in the discussions to which I referred he was one of those who expressed a strong reservation about this appointment, not least because no one could possibly describe Peter Riddell as an outsider to Westminster. Whether an outsider is appropriate for this particular role is debatable. We do not know who else was interviewed for the role, as that is not the job of a Select Committee. One of the frustrations of pre-appointment hearings is that we are not interviewing the person for the job but merely trying to establish in our own minds whether the proposed appointment is an appropriate one and the person has the necessary skills and experience. That is what we concluded, but with reservations. In his evidence, Mr Riddell confirmed his determination to make sure that a much wider pool of people are attracted to public appointments than currently appears to be the case. Certainly, we do not want to go back to the discreet tap on the shoulder—“Why don’t you apply for this job, old boy?”—that used to exist before the Nolan rules were brought into operation.
Paul Flynn (Newport West) (Lab)
Are we not going back to pre-Nolan days, which were rife with personal and political patronage? Is this not a case of the role of the commissioner being emasculated? Sir David Normington said that he managed to see off the monthly attempts by the Prime Minister and other Ministers to appoint Tory donors or former MPs to key roles. We will be back in that position. Will that emasculation not be very similar to what has happened with the Government’s adviser on ministerial conduct, where we have seen cases of the most egregious misconduct by Ministers that were not referred to the adviser? We are going back to the bad old days. We have lost so much trust in the parliamentary system in this country. Our reputation was at rock bottom after the great scandal of Members’ expenses; it is now subterranean or worse. Will the implementation of Grimstone’s changes not take us further down that road? How will the Committee make sure that those abuses of patronage do not return?
Mr Jenkin
I am reminded by the hon. Gentleman’s stentorian warnings of the cries of St John the Baptist from the dungeon until his head was presented on a platter. Such warnings are important, and we have to have a system that we can defend against them. People are always going to be suspicious that there has been something of a fix about a public appointment. That is perfectly legitimate. Ultimately, the authority for such appointments rests with Ministers. We want a balanced and transparent approach, with safeguards. I repeat that if Ministers get a grip on the job specifications at the outset of such appointment processes, and have confidence in the independence of the interview panels, there should be no problem with the people of quality they want getting through the interviews. If that is not the case, we need to address that.
SELECT COMMITTEE ON PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION AND CONSTITUTIONAL AFFAIRS
Debate between Paul Flynn and Bernard Jenkin(8 years, 9 months ago)
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Mr Jenkin
In my speech in the Chamber on Second Reading of the Scotland Bill, I said that we might rue the day we passed the legislation. Even the then Prime Minister has rued the day that he passed it. Now is not the time for regrets, however; now is the time to learn from experience. There is some urgency to resolve the very serious anomalies that now exist in our constitutional arrangements—for example, they exploded during the general election, as we remark in our report, and perhaps even determined its outcome—in order to provide stability. We should tread carefully, but with some urgency.
Paul Flynn (Newport West) (Lab)
This is a worthwhile report. It identifies EVEL as a foolish piece of legislation that will, perversely, live up to its acronym and accelerate the process of the break-up of the United Kingdom by putting up barriers between the four countries. It has already created great resentment by creating four classes of MPs.
Does the hon. Gentleman rather regret following the addiction, which has become an incurable one in his party, of blaming Labour Governments for everything that has ever gone wrong? The suggestion is that the Labour Government of 1997 was remiss in not taking account of the West Lothian question—the expression was coined in 1977 by Enoch Powell, after a speech by Tam Dalyell—but no party has tried to come to grips with it. It really is an imaginative rewriting of history, trying to get some kind of retrospective justification, to suggest that it was a live issue in 1997, when it was not. Have we not followed a large number of ad hoc, piecemeal decisions by this House by making another, even more piecemeal, decision?
Mr Jenkin
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman and, indeed, to all members of the Committee who have contributed to the report. It is a pleasure to work with them. I do not entirely share his view that this is a “foolish piece of legislation”, because we do not use the word “foolish” in the report and it is not legislation. We do not blame the Labour Government for everything, but I did just point out that the former Labour Prime Minister has expressed such a regret.
The fundamental point is that we must end this ad hoc approach to constitutional reform. We must take a much more comprehensive approach. I agree with the hon. Gentleman on that point.
Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs committee
Debate between Paul Flynn and Bernard Jenkin(8 years, 9 months ago)
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Mr Jenkin
I have heard everything that my hon. Friend has said. The report speaks for itself. I hope very much that the Government will give a full and clear explanation in response to the report. I am sure that they will. I have never doubted the integrity of the two Ministers who signed the letter of direction at all. We must wait for the Government’s response. In the end, I am not responsible for the Government’s response.
Paul Flynn (Newport West) (Lab)
May I add the name of Harriet Sergeant to that of Miles Goslett as she, too, exposed this fraud? This was British journalism at its very best and the report shows our Select Committees at their very best in the way that it exposes the waste, extravagance and delusions of this sad episode, which robbed far better charities of vital funds to help children in distress.
Is it not vital that the conduct of the Ministers who ignored the advice and wrote the letter of direction is considered by the adviser on Ministers’ interests? Is it not crucial that we get to the nub of this terrible waste? The buck stops with the Prime Minister. We should have broken the taboo that exists—I would like the Chairman to make this suggestion. As this charity was linked in every way with the big society stunt that was being run by the Prime Minister at the time, the person who should have given evidence to us was the Prime Minister.
This matter will not be put to rest until the Prime Minister explains why he set up what was virtually a slush fund, by getting funds moved from the Department for Education, where Ministers might have stopped this, to the Cabinet Office, from where the money was going out. That was wrong, it was damaging to many of the children who were allegedly being helped by Kids Company and it was very damaging to those charities that could prove the worth of what they were doing through statements and evidence, which Kids Company never did. Should we not look forward to this never happening again and to moneys being moved out of the Cabinet Office’s control?
Mr Jenkin
It is in the nature of politics that some people will always be readier to pin the blame and extract some action as a result. I hope that I am conducting the Committee in a way that all its members support. I think that we get so much more from witnesses and that our reports have more authority if we do not try to pin blame on individuals, but the House will have heard what the hon. Gentleman said.
The hon. Gentleman touched on the important issue of why youth funding was moved from the Department for Education to the Cabinet Office. We really did not get an explanation of that, except for a denial that it had anything to do with wanting to be able to continue funding Kids Company, which the Department for Education had clearly become reluctant to do. One of our conclusions is that Departments should be responsible for allocating funding to outside bodies, rather than the Cabinet Office, because it is, by its nature, too close to the political centre of power in Government and a suspicion can be created, at the least, that decisions are being influenced.
We made a recommendation about the LIBOR fund, which was set up by the Chancellor of the Exchequer to support military charities. It is clearly a very worthwhile initiative, but any possibility that it could be construed as a fund under the personal control of the Chancellor of the Exchequer should be very clearly checked.
Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe: UK Delegation
Debate between Paul Flynn and Bernard Jenkin(8 years, 10 months ago)
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Mr Jenkin
I can confirm that the report was agreed unanimously. The only evidence we have taken from the Government is the oral evidence from the Leader of the House. As we are learning, what a Minister’s private thoughts might be on certain matters might not reflect what they say as a Minister. I hope that the Government will reflect on the Wright Committee and the success of Select Committee elections and recognise that times are changing. The days when they could hand out delegation places to Members of Parliament on the basis of grace and favour are over. That does not win us respect in the Council of Europe or among other parliamentarians across Europe, to whom this House should be setting an example.
Paul Flynn (Newport West) (Lab)
As the longest-serving member of the UK delegation to the Council of Europe, I congratulate the Committee, and particularly its Chair, on the impartial way that this matter has been dealt with. Never in all the years that I have served in the Council of Europe did I envisage a day when one of its committees would tell the UK, which has been the gold standard for democratic integrity for the past 70 years, that we should bring our standards of democratic accountability up to those of Azerbaijan and Bulgaria. This has been a shameful period for the United Kingdom. It is not just the delegates who are not elected; neither is its leader. Neither Conservative delegates, nor those from other parties, have any role whatsoever in that. We will be going back on the spirit of the Wright reforms unless that is changed quickly.
Mr Jenkin
I pay tribute to the longest-serving member of PACAC, or whatever name it had in previous Parliaments. The hon. Gentleman has been an enormous fund of institutional memory on that Committee, and that is extremely useful. During our inquiry, he pointed out that his party already has a form of elections for its delegates that provides for the complexity of providing gender balance. Some of the objections that have been raised to say that we cannot do this are therefore clearly confounded by the experience of his party.
I think it would be a mistake to say that this episode has brought shame on our country. The hon. Gentleman is right to make comparisons with other countries that do things better. However, the Rules Committee made it clear that people might have misunderstood the confusion of roles that we have in this House whereby the Prime Minister is also leader of the governing party and sits as a parliamentarian. The more classical separation of powers that is expected does not exist in our constitution. That is not a matter of shame for us, but we are now a little behind the times. We should be demonstrating how, in our procedures, we expect the best, and the most open and democratic, practices to be adopted—not from the age of deference but the age of popular democracy.
Trident Renewal
Debate between Paul Flynn and Bernard Jenkin(9 years, 10 months ago)
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Ukraine, Middle East, North Africa and Security
Debate between Paul Flynn and Bernard Jenkin(10 years, 2 months ago)
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Mr Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)
Listening to the right hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd (Mr Llwyd) has underlined for me that we are in danger of having quite a serious debate in this House for a change. There have been a great many very thoughtful speeches, despite their enforced brevity, which I will seek to match.
My Committee, the Public Administration Committee, produced two reports about strategy early in this Parliament. I may be flattering myself, but strategy—and the word “strategy”—seem by osmosis to have got more into the currency of our thinking.
Before I talk about strategy, let me briefly address the question of the role of the House of Commons in the decision to go to war. It is an interesting debate, and I am intrigued that a former Lord Chancellor, my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke), should describe the royal prerogative as some kind of out-of-date relic given that most of the powers that Ministers continue to exercise—including the power to go to war, whether or not there has been a vote in this House—are in fact royal prerogative powers.
The debate threatens to be sterile, however, because it has never been the case in modern times that any Prime Minister would consider going to war unless they felt that they could command the confidence of the House of Commons, whether they took the decision before or after consulting it. Nothing has changed: whether there should be a debate is not a matter of religious or constitutional doctrine. The responsibility for taking such a decision and for providing leadership on whether to take the country to war and commit our armed forces to military action goes with the seals of office as Prime Minister. The idea that that can be subcontracted to the House of Commons, where all the armchair generals—well, we do not sit in armchairs—and amateur strategists can add their pennyworth and then decide the issue, is a great mistake. We do not want to lose sight of the fact that the Government propose; the House of Commons disposes.
Paul Flynn
Was the hon. Gentleman’s faith in the value of a grand strategy not dented by the right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke), who said that his experience of the National Security Council was of astonishing events that nobody expected and nobody had planned for? A grand strategy carved in stone would be useless.
Mr Jenkin
I must remind the hon. Gentleman, who has sat in Committee with me for many hours listening to evidence about this, that strategy is not the same as having a plan. Yes, a plan may be knocked off course by events, but that does not mean that we should relinquish all the means or methods of reformulating the plan. That is what strategic thinking is about, and I shall apply further thought to that in my speech.
Let us face it: if we sweat about whether to take military action and that dominates our entire debate, we are missing the point. I agree with my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Rushcliffe on that. Our debate should be about the context in which we are making that decision. The decision should flow out of that context, not be the subject of the debate itself.
The Foreign Secretary demonstrated a laudable strategic perspective after a period of reactive and short-term initiatives, such as the reversal of the policy on Syria after the vote last year, which have left our policy in disarray and, one might even say, paralysis. The period of complete neglect of the Syrian situation has resulted in the ISIS situation that we face. That has not been helped by perhaps the greatest and most silent strategic shock to hit the western world—the almost complete absence of the United States from an active role on the world stage.
The Foreign Secretary still gave us a lot of conflicts. We will consider air strikes in Iraq, but not in Syria, which is the home base of ISIS. We said that we would not provide arms to the Kurds, but now we are. We continue to expect President Assad to stand down, but we will not do anything to make that happen. That has brought about the situation that we are in. The Government’s approach is over-precious about who our friends should be and careless of the consequences of the restraints that that places on our policy. We have to treat President Putin as a pariah, but we might need to use him as an ally to defeat ISIS and stabilise the middle east.
Public Administration Select Committee
Debate between Paul Flynn and Bernard Jenkin(10 years, 7 months ago)
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Mr Jenkin
I am most grateful to my hon. Friend for his question. Sadly, I must tell him that there is not a single police officer on the streets or around the Palace who has expressed the least surprise about what we were told in evidence by PC Patrick and many other witnesses. They all knew that this was going on, and everybody has known that this has been going on in many police forces, possibly most police forces, for very many years. The fact that my hon. Friend has not been exposed to it is intriguing; I will say no more than that. Let me reassure him that I am immensely reassured that my hon. Friend the Minister is in the House today and has indeed participated in these proceedings. I have already had a meeting with the Home Secretary at which we have had a preliminary discussion about the report. My hon. Friend is tempting me to apply for a fuller debate on the report so that Ministers can give a fuller response. Perhaps that can happen after the Government have responded in full to our report.
Paul Flynn (Newport West) (Lab)
Is not the most egregious example of the waste and futility of target setting what happened in the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime? In seeking to set three targets for reducing crime, reducing costs and improving morale, it decided to have targets of 20%, 20% and 20% in what was an obvious way of headline chasing. Is the Chairman shocked by what we heard in evidence to his Committee and to the Home Affairs Committee? Although the Met has men and women of integrity in it who are entirely free of any corruption and are entirely honourable, the surprise is that, going back to the murder of Daniel Morgan 27 years ago, there are elements in the Met that are institutionally corrupt.
Mr Jenkin
Our recommendation is that MOPAC should abandon targets. If it has slogans, they should be aspirations, not targets. The hon. Gentleman, who is on the Committee and for whose work I am grateful, is right that there are aspects of this that raise very serious questions about the ethics and values of the leadership of the police, particularly the Metropolitan police.
Transparency of Lobbying, Non-Party Campaigning and Trade Union Administration Bill
Debate between Paul Flynn and Bernard Jenkin(11 years, 1 month ago)
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Mr Jenkin
I hear what my right hon. Friend says, but it is not generally asserted that, for example, correspondence between him representing his constituents and a Minister is privileged, because it would be difficult to prove that that constituted proceedings in Parliament. I do not think, therefore, that we can seek to extend parliamentary privilege in the Bill. What we do as our job to represent our constituents is clearly not intended to be included in the regulation of lobbying. It would be intolerable if Members of Parliament had to register as lobbyists in order to represent their constituents, or indeed represent any other interests. I will return to that point later, if my right hon. Friend will forgive me.
Paul Flynn (Newport West) (Lab)
The hon. Gentleman will recall that in the previous Parliament there was concern about the way that certain Members were behaving, and two were summoned to the Committee. One was receiving £75,000 to represent a company; the other was receiving £105,000. They received those sums entirely to lobby on behalf of a commercial organisation. One of their excuses was, “The organisation has employees in my constituency.” But surely it is the core job of an MP to lobby for his constituents, and if MPs are offered money to do it, that should be seen for what it is, which is a bung, an inducement or a bribe.
Mr Jenkin
I recognise the sentiment the hon. Gentleman expresses, and I share his outrage at any abuse that he suggests took place, but we have our own rules in this House. We adjudicate on these matters, and in fact we apply very harsh terms to people we believe to be guilty of paid advocacy. For many decades, since 1945 or even earlier, paid advocacy has been utterly abhorrent to this House. No longer do we have MPs sitting in the railway interest, as they did during the 19th century. The important distinction here is that we regulate that from within this House, as proceedings of this House. We do not need or require the courts to interfere in those matters. I do not think we are providing any leniency to Members that the courts would not also afford. Indeed, it might be far harder to obtain a prosecution in court for a matter such as that than to create in this House the right atmosphere of discipline and self-discipline that we expect from all hon. Members.
Public Administration Committee Report (Charity Commission)
Debate between Paul Flynn and Bernard Jenkin
Mr Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered the matter of the publication of the Third Report of the Public Administration Select Committee, The role of the Charity Commission and “public benefit”: Post-legislative scrutiny of the Charities Act 2006, HC 76.
I am grateful to the Backbench Business Committee for the opportunity to launch the Public Administration Committee’s third report of this Session. This is, in many ways, one of the Committee’s most important reports. The charitable sector is at the heart of British society, involving millions of people and with £9.3 billion received in donations last year. About 25 new applications for charitable status are received by the Charity Commission every working day.
The first UK charity was established in the year 597: the King's school, Canterbury, which still thrives today. The regulation of charities in England and Wales started under Queen Elizabeth I, with the 1601 Statute of Charitable Uses, which set out the first definition of a charity in English law and the purposes for which a charity could be established. The definition of a charity has remained largely unchanged from that time. Page 8 of our report carries a useful timeline of the development of charity law since then.
The subject of the Committee’s inquiry was the Charities Act 2006. Our inquiry followed the Government’s own review of the Act, carried out by Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts. I hope the House will join me in thanking my noble Friend for his valuable and meticulous work.
The Committee’s inquiry came at a challenging time for the Charity Commission. Its budget is being reduced by 33% in real terms over five years. The Charity Commission has also become involved in some protracted legal battles. It lost a case with the Independent Schools Council and its decision last year to decline an application for charitable status from the Preston Down Trust, part of what is called the Plymouth Brethren Christian Church or, formerly, the Exclusive Brethren—
Paul Flynn
On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. The hon. Gentleman said that he will give way at the end of his remarks. I understand that the debate is time limited, so can he give us some idea of when he is likely to finish? I am the only other member of the Committee in the Chamber and I profoundly disagree with this very poor report. If I am to be gagged and not allowed to speak by the Chair—
Mr Jenkin
The Cabinet Office must consider how to prioritise what is expected of the Charity Commission, so that it can function with its reduced budget. That must enable it to renew its focus on regulation as its core task. The commission is not resourced, for example,
“to promote the effective use of charitable resources”
or, for that matter, to oversee a reappraisal of what is meant by “public benefit”; nor is it ever likely to be.
PASC’s report also makes recommendations on the issue of chugging—that is, the face-to-face fundraising whereby many feel pressured by chuggers.
Mr Jenkin
I will give way to the hon. Gentleman in a moment.
The chair of the Charity Commission, William Shawcross, described chugging as
“a blight on the charitable sector”.
Self-regulation has failed so far to address that. The case for statutory regulation of fundraising is compelling, but what about the cost, whether to the taxpayer or to charities themselves? Self-regulation has made some progress, but we recommend that it is placed on notice and reviewed in five years’ time.
Lord Hodgson proposed a rise in the threshold for compulsory registration with the Charity Commission to £25,000 a year to reduce red tape for smaller charities. We rejected that on the basis of the overwhelming majority of the evidence we received.
We also recommended against any relaxation of the rules on political campaigning by charities. Moreover, charities should publish their spending on campaigning and political activity to boost transparency. That is relevant to the question of lobbying, which Parliament is shortly to consider.
As for the question whether public funds should be used by charities involved with political campaigns, again transparency is the answer. Ministers should inform Parliament whenever a decision is made to provide Government support by direct grant to a charity that is involved in political campaigning.
Earlier this week, the Public Accounts Committee reported on the case of the Cup Trust and the specific issue of sham charities and tax avoidance. We welcome its report and the Charity Commission should learn from that scandal. We question whether the commission’s legal advice was too cautious and whether they should have acted more boldly. If the commission feels that it lacks necessary powers, it should tell us. Generally, however, the abuse of charitable status to obtain tax relief is intolerable and should be uncovered by Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs and the Charity Commission working more closely together.
Paul Flynn
The report does nothing to add to the reputation of this House. It is an atrocious report and it is a bad reflection on our systems that the Chairman of the Committee can take up the entire time devoted to its consideration.
Let me take the hon. Gentleman back to the point about the situation with independent public schools. It was hoped that the 2006 Act would change the unfairness whereby Eton and Harrow get a handout from taxpayers whereas ordinary schools in poor areas do not. The Act tried to change that, but a perverse decision taken by the law stated that the status of a charity depends on what it was established for, not on what it does. Two charities—one in Wales that exists to give petticoats to fallen women and another that exists to give education to the orphans of the Napoleonic wars—are more important than the fact that ordinary schools are deprived of charity status whereas public schools for the rich and privileged continue to enjoy that status and the related handouts.
Mr Jenkin
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his intervention, because he demonstrates the diversity of view on the question of the charitable status of independent schools. That shows why that matter should be decided by this House and Parliament, rather than simply being passed to the Charity Commission to determine. It is too controversial and we should not be delegating legislative functions to an executive body.
Mr Jenkin
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that question, because we were presented by my noble Friend Lord Hodgson with a recommendation that it should be made much easier for trustees to be paid officials. I have to say that there was a strong reaction against that proposal, which has a bearing on the point my hon. Friend raises because the whole point about charities is that trustees are not paid. There may be quite highly paid executives in charities, but the job of a trustee is not to benefit financially from being a trustee. There are exceptions, but the Charity Commission has to approve them. I believe my hon. Friend is suggesting that the commission should be prepared to withdraw that consent in the event of a person offering to do the job for nothing. I invite the commission to consider that matter, which we may revisit in a future inquiry.
Paul Flynn
Following the remark by the hon. Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone) that a number of Christian denominations have been under pressure from the Charity Commission, will the Chair of the Committee remind the House that 1,176 Christian and other religious associations were awarded charity status, but only one tiny and oppressive sect was turned down, and that was Hales Exclusive Brethren? Is it not appropriate to remind the House that we were subjected to the most intensive lobbying on this matter? Two million pounds was spent and I was personally approached—face to face—more than 50 times, including at my party conference. Around every corner in this House, there were members of that very unpleasant sect waiting to accost us. The Committee made a point about the control of bodies that lobby in that way. It was not about religion or charitable status; it was about money.
Mr Jenkin
That is certainly correct. There has been widespread fear among many colleagues that the case presages a crackdown on religious groups by the Charity Commission. I believe the consistent message in our report is that we believe that too much has been laid at the door of the commission to determine. If Parliament wishes to legislate to provide additional restrictions against religious organisations, it is for Parliament to do that, but there is established case law, which I quoted earlier, that should determine whether or not a religious organisation becomes a charity. It is unfortunate that that particular case became so adversarial. It has to be said that the charity tribunal has not reduced the costs of litigation as was hoped, and there is scope to improve the practices of the commission in handling such disputes, so that vast amounts of the time and resources of the commission and charities, or potential charities, is not absorbed in paying lawyers to argue about how many angels there are on the head of a pin.
Paul Flynn
Does the hon. Gentleman agree that that particular sect has been involved in lobbying in other countries—including paying politicians, although I am not saying that that has happened here—and that the resulting disquiet among other religious groups was entirely because of the propaganda of Hales Exclusive Brethren? This is not a religion; it is a very nasty sect that treats its members very badly. We had people giving evidence in this House that they were threatened with losing their job, their home or their mortgage because they bought the wrong computer—not the one that Exclusive Brethren have, which, rather like what happens in North Korea, can only pick up the group’s website. This is an exceptional group of people, and the Charity Commission took no action that was disreputable or wrong. The commission did the right thing in identifying that group and allowing 1,176 other religious groups to have charitable status.
Mr Jenkin
I am sure the whole House has heard the hon. Gentleman’s strong opinions on that matter. He will know that the Committee as a whole declined to express a definitive view on the matter on the advice of the Attorney-General. My understanding is that we all agreed that such matters would be best settled by Parliament laying down more clearly the meaning of public benefit or by returning to the previous position in which it was left to the courts to decide, rather than by requiring the Charity Commission to produce guidance on the meaning of public benefit, which has been the source of much dispute.
If there are no more interventions—I should be happy to give way to either Front Bencher—I will conclude by stating our belief that the implementation of our recommendations is essential to restore and to maintain public trust in charities and in the Charity Commission, which in turn is essential to promote the good work done by charitable organisations in communities across the country. I hope that the House will join me in thanking the charity commissioners and everyone who works for the commission. They are dealing with a vast work load with diminishing resources—like much of the public sector, they have had to suffer extensive redundancies, with more to come—and we rely on their devoted service. We should thank them for everything they do for charities in this country.
Question put and agreed to.
Ministerial Code (Culture Secretary)
Debate between Paul Flynn and Bernard Jenkin(12 years, 5 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mr Jenkin
I will come to that point. It is ironic that the hon. Member for Newport West describes Sir Alex Allan as a poodle. That is not what we said in our report, incidentally. We were concerned about the manner of his appointment, and about whether it was appropriate for a recently retired civil servant to take that role, because he would not be seen as independent. We did not say that he was not fit to fulfil the role.
Paul Flynn
May I recommend that the hon. Gentleman re-read the report, and especially the minority report that I wrote, which I commend to him for its literary qualities alone? The report that was agreed by the majority of the Committee stated that Sir Alex Allan
“was unsuited to this role because he did not convince us that he would be able to demonstrate the independence the post requires.”
In more vigorous language, that means that he is not a rottweiler but a poodle.
Mr Jenkin
Those are the hon. Gentleman’s words, but the Committee went on to say:
“In fairness, it is unlikely that many retiring civil servants will have had the opportunity to demonstrate the necessary independence from Government in their career to date.”
I think that that places the right emphasis on the matter. If the role is to be seen to be independent, the manner of the appointment needs to be different and it would help to have someone who had demonstrated independence in their career to date.
Publication Administration Committee Report (Smaller Government)
Debate between Paul Flynn and Bernard Jenkin(13 years, 8 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Paul Flynn
It was irresistible to conclude in this document that there should be a serious look at the position of Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. However, if this recommendation were to be accepted, there would be the possible consequence of having no representative of Wales, Scotland or Northern Ireland in the Cabinet, so should we not then look at their changed situation?
Mr Jenkin
Obviously any change in this regard would have to be ameliorated by other arrangements—perhaps a more open and direct negotiation between First Ministers and the Whitehall Government and other means of representation of these interests within Government. As well as the ministerial cadre, the Cabinet is attended by 28 people and it, too, is clearly too large.
Currently, a total of 141 MPs are on the payroll vote as Ministers or Parliamentary Private Secretaries. If this number remains static at the same time as the number of MPs is cut by 8%, the payroll vote as a proportion of MPs will increase from an already staggering 22% to 23.5%.