Parliamentary Standards

Debate between Peter Bottomley and Lord Lansley

Tuesday 8th April 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lansley]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman, the Chair of the Standards Committee. What he illustrates is, as I said at the conclusion of my response to the urgent question, that this is a matter for this House, and the House does look to the Standards Committee, not least to advise the House on how our system of regulation of Members’ conduct can be as robust as possible. I hope that, in consultation with the Standards Committee and in discussion among the parties, we can ensure that any views that come forward, not least from the lay members, are reflected in changes if necessary.

[Sir Peter Bottomley (Worthing West) (Con)]

May I first pay tribute to Andrew McDonald, who is retiring as the chief executive of IPSA? I send him my best wishes. I resigned from the Standards Committee when the House authorities and at least one party trashed Elizabeth Filkin, when she was the Commissioner for Standards. According to paragraph 156 of the recent report, the present Commissioner said that the Committee might not agree with one of her conclusions. That should not be a big surprise to anyone. Also, I hope that those who comment on the way in which we run our affairs will recognise that an hon. Member has, in two days, raised questions about what fellow MPs have done while saying that we should not have a running commentary on what we are doing, which is an odd thing for that hon. Member to do. Finally, it would be worth while for the media to read paragraph 14 of the recent report, which contains the accusation, along with paragraphs 28, 29, 32, 39, 49, 56 and 61, so that their reports can reflect what the Committee did, what Members of Parliament did and what the Commissioner actually said. That would help all our discussions.

[Mr Lansley]

My hon. Friend is quite right to draw the House’s attention to paragraph 156, in which, contrary to the impression that might have been received, the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards said that the Committee might not reach the same view as her on what she described as a “finely balanced” issue. I encourage Members, the press and others more widely to read the whole report. Only by reading the Commissioner’s report, the appendices and the Committee’s report does one gain a balanced view.

Transparency of Lobbying, Non-Party Campaigning and Trade Union Administration Bill

Debate between Peter Bottomley and Lord Lansley

Tuesday 3rd September 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lansley]

It promotes transparency because if a representative of Sky visits a Minister in order to discuss that business, it is transparent that they are doing so in order to represent the interests of Sky. However, if somebody from “XYZ Corporation”, a consultant lobbying firm, visits a Minister in order to discuss somebody else’s business but it is not transparent through the ministerial diary publication who they are representing, that is not transparent. We propose to remedy that by making it transparent.

[Sir Peter Bottomley (Worthing West) (Con)]

Following on from my right hon. Friend’s exchange with the Green party member, the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas), this morning I received a plea from a constituent to stop bullying charities. I asked which ones she was concerned about and she said, “The Green party.” I said it is already covered. She also mentioned 38 Degrees, to which I replied, “That is not a charity”—even though it has wiped from its Wiki-entry the Labour activism of many of its founders.

[Mr Lansley]

My hon. Friend makes a very good point. The public might well think that many of the organisations that registered for electoral purposes were charities, but in fact they registered because they were seeking to undertake expenditure which would not have been regarded as charitable and would not have been lawful from the point of view of the Charity Commission’s guidance. It is overwhelmingly the case that charitable activity by charities does not constitute expenditure for electoral purposes and therefore is not in any sense constrained by this legislation. There are, however, other organisations that people might think are charities but which are not charities, or charities that set up campaigning arms that expressly do not have charitable status in order for them to undertake that activity. The law is already clear that where they seek directly to influence electoral outcomes, they should register. The Labour party’s reasoned amendment accepts that that is right and there should be such regulation.