Parliamentary Standards

Thérèse Coffey Excerpts

Tuesday 8th April 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lansley]

I would reassure the public by saying that, yes, there is a small number of legacy cases, but we now have a fully independent system that has all the powers it needs to take the necessary steps when anything goes wrong, now and in the future. Echoing the comments made by my hon. Friend the Member for Worthing West (Sir Peter Bottomley) about the retiring chief executive of IPSA, Andrew McDonald, objectively speaking, IPSA has come a long way in creating a situation that should command greater confidence about expenses.

So far as the regulation of Members’ other conduct is concerned, the public have to look at individual cases—for example, those relating to the Register of Members’ Financial Interests and conflicts of interest, or to a Member behaving in a way that brings the House into disrepute—and decide whether the independent Commissioner for Standards has pursued the matter robustly. It is certainly her job to do so, and I hope that Members and the public will agree that she does. When we read the reports following her investigations, they are often very detailed and thorough. The public also have to decide whether the decisions are proportionate. That is a matter of judgment, but I believe that the Standards Committee has put in place robust sanctions in recent cases involving that kind of poor behaviour.

[Dr Thérèse Coffey (Suffolk Coastal) (Con)]

Two years ago, the Government introduced a Green Paper on parliamentary privilege, which was considered at length. It led to the introduction of lay members, and a lengthy discussion on whether or not voting rights should be granted to them. The Leader of the House has already explained the situation in that regard, but will he also recognise that it was the Standards Committee that reopened the investigation into a former Member, which led to that Member eventually being charged and sent to jail, therefore showing that the Standards Committee will, without fear or favour, continue to try to uphold the integrity of this House?

[Mr Lansley]

Yes, my hon. Friend is right on that latter point. The issue relating to the question of whether lay members should have voting rights on a Select Committee was recently considered and reported on by the Joint Committee on Parliamentary Privilege. We agreed with it when it said that to do that

“could have unintended consequences: principally that, by explicitly confirming that privilege extends to the Committee on Standards, it could be interpreted to mean that the same extension did not necessarily apply to other committees that include lay members.”

There is a risk that including lay members with voting rights on Select Committees could be held in the courts to have removed from that Committee its access to the exclusive cognisance and parliamentary privilege. That is a risk we do not need to run. The lay members on the Standards Committee have the power they need, but if they have any doubt about that, they should tell us and we should consider and perhaps strengthen their power. If, by offering a dissenting opinion, they have the power to act effectively as a veto on decisions made by the Standards Committee, then they have the power they require.