Committee on Standards
Oral evidence: House of Commons Standards Landscape, HC 247
Wednesday 24 January 2024
Ordered by the House of Commons to be published on 24 January 2024.
Members present: Ms Harriet Harman (Chair); Alberto Costa; Allan Dorans; Philip Dunne; Sir Michael Ellis; Sir Francis Habgood; Sir Bernard Jenkin; Mehmuda Mian; Dr Rose Marie Parr; Victoria Smith; Dr David Stirling; Carys Williams.
Questions 97-123
Witnesses
I: Daniel Bruce, Chief Executive Officer, Transparency International UK; Professor Robert Hazell CBE, Professor of Government and the Constitution, University College London Constitution Unit; Professor Meg Russell, Professor of British and Comparative Politics and Director, UCL Constitution Unit; and Dr Hannah White OBE, Director, Institute for Government.
Written evidence from witnesses:
– Transparency International UK
– Professor Robert Hazell, UCL Constitution Unit
Examination of witnesses
Witnesses: Daniel Bruce, Professor Robert Hazell CBE, Professor Meg Russell and Dr Hannah White OBE.
Q97 Chair: Good morning and welcome to the second day of our oral evidence sessions looking at the whole landscape of keeping the standards of MPs high. The Committee on Standards is half Members of Parliament and half lay members. We are very fortunate today to have a panel of experts to advise the Committee. We will very much take into account their evidence when we come to consider writing our report and making our proposals, which will go to the House of Commons.
This morning we have with us the chief executive of Transparency International, Daniel Bruce. We have Professor Robert Hazell and Professor Meg Russell from UCL, and we have Dr Hannah White from the Institute for Government. Welcome to all. Thank you for your written evidence as well. We will be able to continue discussions with you as we develop our proposals after this evidence session.
Perhaps I could start with Meg. I think everybody agrees—it is completely evident—that the system is very complex. There are a lot of different organisations and individuals with different roles and responsibilities in the standards landscape. That does make for complication and confusion, but does that matter? If all the bits are working properly, does it matter that to the outside world it is a bit opaque, or is that a problem? Should there be some amalgamations or consolidations to make it more streamlined?
Professor Russell: I was expecting you to open with a question about public opinion. I can tell you a bit about public opinion, which ties into that. I think the reason that was pointed at me was because the Constitution Unit has done a lot of work on public opinion and the state of our democracy in the last two or three years. Our “Democracy in the UK after Brexit” project has asked people a lot about how they want their democracy to function after Brexit. One of the things that has come out of that very clearly is a huge public interest in integrity and the importance of honesty and integrity in politics, and a belief among the public, which may or may not be justified, that that is not policed adequately.
On a range of issues, we had general responses. I think your Committee has heard some of the results before from my colleague Professor Alan Renwick who led the research. If you ask the public what attribute they most value in politicians and you offer them things like being clever, working hard and getting things done, the thing that comes top is honesty. If you ask them whether they think it is healthier for democracy if politicians get things done, even if that means sometimes bending the rules, or whether they should stick to the rules, only 6% of people think that getting things done should trump. More than 70%—up to 78% in our survey in 2022—said that sticking to the rules was important. However, if you ask people whether they think the system is working, again, it is 6% who agree that, “The system for dealing with politicians who do not act with integrity should stay as it is,” against 79% who said that, “Reform is needed so that politicians who do not act with integrity are punished.” That was before the Privileges Committee reported.
We explored that in our large surveys and in a citizens’ assembly on the state of democracy and one of the issues that came out very clearly was that of deliberately misleading Parliament. There was a very strong feeling that there ought to be more emphasis on that and more punishment. If you asked people what the single thing that would improve the quality of our democracy was, the thing that came top was if “politicians spoke more honestly”. Only a little below that was if “MPs were thrown out of parliament for lying”. Whether that language is quite correct, the former Prime Minister has left Parliament following that controversy, so I am not sure what people would say now. What we get is that there is not much faith in the system out there, but what we have not done is question people about the way the system works in detail.
Sorry, I will go back to your question. I am giving rather a politician’s answer—I should say that in inverted commas—by saying “Thank you for your question; let me answer a different one.” I think that if you were to ask people about their understanding of how the system actually works, understanding would be very low. In a sense, I would not blame people for that because I agree with you that the system is very complicated. We might come on later on to discuss whether that could be communicated more clearly. In fact, I think there are two separate questions: whether it should be streamlined and whether it could be communicated more clearly to people so they can navigate a complex system. I absolutely think the second, and having looked at the Parliament website, I have some thoughts about just how difficult it is to work out how the system works.
Some of my colleagues, in particular Hannah and Robert, probably have more to say about the possibilities for streamlining. My own instinct is that there is not a huge amount of overlap between what the bodies are doing. It is not that there is inefficiency in the system and duplication and so on; they do have their separate purposes and integrity, so it is not necessarily easy to merge things. But maybe I should let others pick up on that.
Chair: Thanks for that. That is a very useful exposition of public opinion. On the visibility of commitment to standards, can we go to the next question? We will return to the structural issues in a moment. We can go to Rose Marie about what people can see happening.
Q98 Dr Parr: I am Rose Marie Parr. I am a lay member of this Committee. Welcome. You touched on this already, but we are here to talk about the Nolan principles—the seven principles of public life. We have been discussing whether we can do more, and whether Parliament can do more to embed the seven principles in its work. For example, could the oath MPs take when they enter the House include swearing to abide by the Nolan principles? Would that be useful? Do you have anything else to add around how to embed the Nolan principles?
Professor Hazell: The Members of Parliament present will all know that you have to swear an oath. It is a statutory oath under the Promissory Oaths Act 1868, which prescribes the wording. The manner and form are set out in the Oaths Act 1978. Any amendment to that oath—
Q99 Chair: Which is allegiance to the King?
Professor Hazell: Yes, exactly. Forgive me. In essence, that is all it is. It is an oath of loyalty to the state, in effect, and to the constitution. To amend it would require further legislation. If you wanted to add some kind of obligation to abide by the Nolan principles and, perhaps, the House of Commons code of conduct, this House might look at the practice that has developed in the House of Lords, where, for the last 15 years or so, Members have been required to sign a written declaration to abide by the Lords code of conduct after taking the oath. Your own code of conduct includes the Nolan principles right at the top. It is perhaps worth mentioning that it was at an interesting juncture in the 2005 Parliament—right towards the end, in November 2009, just five months ahead of the election that took place in May 2010—that the House of Lords resolved to have a new code of conduct and to require its Members to sign a written declaration to abide by the code.
Q100 Chair: Can I just press you on this? You do not necessarily have to amend the oath of allegiance to the Crown that we swear in order to add a separate oath to the seven principles. The fact that you have one statutory oath does not mean that if you have an additional oath, declaration or affirmation—that could be in any form, couldn’t it? It could be done by Standing Orders—it does not have to be done by statute. The House just has to agree to do it. I just want to point that out.
Professor Hazell: It is a matter for your judgment and that of the Committee as to which might seem the more solemn undertaking in the mind of a Member or new Member—whether to say the words or sign a written declaration undertaking to abide by a code.
Q101 Chair: Yes, but Rose Marie was asking about actually saying the words. I am just trying to point out that you do not actually have to change the law to add some extra words. You said we would have to amend the oath statute, when in fact we do not. We could just have an additional one that we agree to say by Standing Order.
Professor Hazell: I am not sufficiently expert. I am sure your Clerks and the Clerk of the House will be as to whether it would require a formal amendment to the existing oath or some additional oath.
Chair: I am sufficiently expert, so that’s all right. We have another expert here.
Q102 Sir Michael Ellis: I agree with what Professor Hazell said. The Promissory Oaths Act stipulates the words precisely, but I think the Chair is indicating that you could have a second oath. Once you have said the first oath, you say the second oath—there is nothing to preclude that.
Professor Hazell: No, and that could be by resolution of the House, by Standing Orders, or whatever.
Chair: Exactly.
Dr White: I completely agree with that. It need not be an oath, as such, it could just be a statement that Members make before the House, which makes it a formal statement. There would probably be some complexity if you did indeed want to amend the statute, because then there would be a question about whether the Nolan principles became judiciable, and that sort of thing. I do not think anybody would want to do that.
Chair: I do not think anybody is suggesting replacing the King with the Nolan principles.
Dr White: Can I just wholeheartedly endorse this idea? I think it would be good on a number of fronts. The Lords, as you say, Robert, have adopted this practice; the Lords signed an undertaking to follow the code. Actually, some explicit reference to the Nolan principles would be a good thing, in whatever the wording was. The aspiration should be to put at the forefront of Members’ minds, at the point at which they take up their role in the House, that they are expected by their constituents to use their judgment. There may be a whole set of rules set out in the code, but the Nolan principles are about the fact that we elect the people who we elect to this House because we think that they have the judgment to do the role, and the principles are about reflecting on your behaviour and how those principles apply to it, so some explicit reference would be good.
I also think it would be really good—this refers to your first question, Chair—for the public to see Members doing that. Part of the problem, as you said at the very start, is that it might be that the system as it is—very complex at the moment—works in the judgment of the Committee, but it is not perceived to work. Actually showing at the start of a Parliament that Members come with all the right intentions and are reminding themselves of why they are here and how they should behave would be very important from a public point of view, as well as for Members.
Professor Russell: Can I endorse that and join it up to what I said at the start? We have obviously been through a period where public confidence is quite low, and I totally agree with what Hannah says about the importance of the act of bringing the principles to the front of the minds of Members when they join. It would become a solemn undertaking. It is a bit like why we get married in front of a room full of people—because everybody has seen us make that commitment, and it hardens our commitment to it. I think it would be important in itself, but symbolically it would also be enormously important after the period that we have been through. A report published by you suggesting that this should happen would immediately get public attention on the fact that there was a desire to turn a corner, and then when the oaths were taken it would reinforce that at the beginning of the new Parliament, so I think it would be very important. However, it also sets you a standard that you then need to keep. That is the risk, but it should be a risk worth taking.
Chair: I just remind everybody that the seven principles are selflessness, integrity, objectivity, accountability, openness, honesty and leadership. Can we go to David for our next question?
Q103 Dr Stirling: I am David Stirling, another of the lay members of the Committee. The former Chair of this Committee, Sir Chris Bryant, has proposed that the ministerial and House of Commons codes should be merged, with a single commissioner to investigate any breaches and refer them onwards to the Committee, the independent expert panel or the Government for further action. On the other hand, the Government have resisted that suggestion, as the merging of the codes may represent an infringement of the separation of powers between the Executive and the legislature. What are your thoughts on bringing the two codes together?
Dr White: I have some sympathy with the Government’s response. The ministerial code and Members’ code are quite different and apply to different things that elected people do.
Q104 Dr Stirling: If I may interrupt, I may have misspoken. I meant specifically bringing their registers of interests together.
Dr White: Oh, the registers—okay, fine. In which case, it remains anomalous—and Daniel can speak to this—that the requirements on Ministers and the requirements on MPs are different, and often people who have been Ministers who then return to the Back Benches discover that actually the requirements on them are more onerous than they were when they were Ministers. An MP and a Minister going to the same football match, or whatever it is that they have been given tickets to, are required to do different things. The Government have undertaken to ensure that ministerial interests are declared more rapidly, which is welcome, but on this it ought to be possible for us to decide what the standard that we want is and apply it universally, whether people are Ministers or MPs.
Q105 Dr Stirling: What about the suggestion of a single point through the Commissioner and then referring on to the Committee on Standards, the IEP or the Government?
Dr White: We would need to think about how it operated. If you had two different systems for operating the same set of rules, the danger would be that you would get different case law in different places. The sanctions would be different, because the sanctions that you might impose that were available to you in relation to the ministerial code and the sanctions under the MPs’ code would be different. But, ultimately, the implementation of the ministerial code is for the Prime Minister, and the administration of the MPs’ Code of Conduct is for the House—I know you know this, but just for the record. So I think you could get into a situation where there is dispute over how a complaint was being directed and which system it was being investigated under. That would need to be sorted out. I haven’t got an answer for you, but those are some of the considerations that would need to be taken into account.
Daniel Bruce: If we look at the evidence trail of the last couple of years, the Government is quite dogged on this point. Paragraph 13 of the Government’s submission to this inquiry makes very strongly the argument around the separation of the legislature and the Executive. I think we see a similar pattern in the Government’s response to the smörgåsbord of reviews from the Committee on Standards and your sister Committee, PACAC, suggesting that the ministerial code and the independent adviser, or similar function, is put on to a statutory footing. The same arguments are being made.
What is quite interesting in the arguments to this inquiry is that it fails to address the underlying point about the effectiveness of the oversight system for MPs who are Ministers in the Government, the Prime Minister included. It makes a slightly weaker argument than that that was made in response to CSPL. So it would be very constructive if this Committee could apply some scrutiny to the constitutional arguments that the Government is making on this point, whether it is about the suggestion of merging codes and registers or whether it is about putting the independent adviser and the ministerial code on to a statutory footing. It is our contention that they do not actually bear much scrutiny.
As this Committee is well aware, there is a statutory requirement for there to be a civil service code, and a code for special advisers and the diplomatic service. Parliament, of course, can and does enact laws that constrain or govern parts of the Executive—legislating for the Public Accounts Commission and the Electoral Commission, and with the NAO reporting directly into Parliament.
It is our view, on the basis of the evidence that we have observed over a number of years now under multiple Administrations, that we still have a pattern of political choices in Government Administrations, which choose to apply a lower standard of scrutiny to Ministers, up to the Prime Minister, when they join the Government, and I believe that that is the nub of this issue. Whatever recommendations you come out with on merging codes or regulators, I think it is going to run into that problem, which is why I think it is very important to unpack the constitutional arguments around it.
Q106 Chair: So you are saying that whatever the enforcement mechanisms are, the standards that are set should not be lower or laxer for MPs who are Ministers than for MPs who are not Ministers.
Daniel Bruce: Absolutely so. And our view would be that that is the case, robustly, at this moment in time.
Professor Hazell: May I add one thing? I don’t know whether it is still a proposition that the codes might be merged. I think that would be seriously difficult, and if anyone is still proposing it, the Committee secretariat—they are not going to thank me for this—should be asked to try and draft a merged document. I thought about it last night and I gave up.
But if the proposition is closer alignment between the registers, that is a much narrower proposition. I don’t know whether anyone has asked the two Commissioners about the feasibility of that. You have your own Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards. There is the independent adviser on Ministers’ interests, who is the custodian of the register of Ministers’ interests. If they could be asked to talk to each other about whether it might be more feasible to either combine the two registers or to align them, that is a practical proposition that I think is worth exploring.
Chair: If it is decided that we need to have common standards and not lower standards for Ministers, in terms of the actual code and leaving aside the enforcement, then that can be done. It might be difficult, but it still can be done. The question is whether we want it to be done, or whether we are happy for there to be lower standards for Ministers than there are for MPs who are not Ministers. I think we have to be clear on that.
Q107 Philip Dunne: Picking up Mr Bruce’s point, Ministers who are MPs remain subject to the House of Commons code, and the ministerial code sits on top of that. You said that there is evidence that the ministerial code applies a lower level of standards to MPs who are Ministers, but I do not quite understand how that follows. Can you give some examples?
Daniel Bruce: We monitored suspected breaches of the ministerial code over a five-year period up to the end of 2022, and we found that there were 40 incidents that, at face value, looked like a breach of the ministerial code—a lot of them around conflict of interest—which had not been investigated by the independent adviser on Ministers’ interests. Indeed, at this point—well, this was at the end of 2022, so, we assume, with the passage of time—the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards has not taken action in those cases either.
A lot of it relates to Ministers’ activities on ministerial business—decisions and actions taken in the course of their duties as part of the Government—but that is a consequence of a conventions-based system for ministerial oversight that does not have the same independence and teeth as the oversight of the parliamentary code. That is a real point about the mechanisms that need to be effective, where we have got quite stuck in the last few years.
Q108 Philip Dunne: Those 40 instances were not breaches of the code applying to MPs.
Daniel Bruce: Hypothetically, they could have been.
Q109 Philip Dunne: Did you look at that? You have just stated that the ministerial code is laxer than the parliamentary code, but you only looked at the ministerial code and not at whether it conflicts with the parliamentary code.
Daniel Bruce: We did not look at whether there was a conflict. Our opening assumption in the monitoring was that these are members of the Government and therefore subject to the ministerial code when an issue comes along. For example, with the Westferry affair, involving the former Housing Secretary, an investigation was not initiated into what, at face value, appeared to be conflicts with the ministerial code in the course of that Minister’s actions as a Government Minister. One can assume, or would contend, that breaches of the parliamentary code could be sitting behind that, but because it was about their activities in their ministerial role, we looked at it through the ministerial code lens.
Q110 Sir Michael Ellis: May I follow up on that, Harriet? I should say, in the interests of being open, that I held eight ministerial positions under four Prime Ministers until relatively recently. The essence of the problem, and why any Prime Minister of any political hue is going to be extremely reluctant to follow this, is the potential sanctions thereafter. As soon as you talk about sanctions, you are basically saying that the Prime Minister of the day will not have the authority to have the Ministers that he wants. Any Prime Minister will be very reluctant to lose control over who his or her ministerial team should be. Isn’t the root of it down to controlling the ministerial team, without which no Government could function?
Daniel Bruce: That is one of the arguments we have heard a lot over the last few years. It is our view that there are some fairly elegant solutions that would merge the code and the independent adviser, or some other function that we may come to later, with them being on a statutory footing but still affording the Prime Minister his or her role as the ultimate arbiter of the code and the decision around what sanctions to apply in what cases. We have been a strong advocate for there to be a sensible ladder of sanctions, rather than everything needing to be a resigning matter, as it was in the past if, for example, there was a minor technical breach of the code.
I come back to the point about public opinion. Another data point, if I may briefly bring it in, is Transparency International’s corruption perceptions index. The last data set for 2022 came out just under a year ago. The UK is sitting at its lowest ever score and rank in that global index, which is a poll of polls of global business experts and leaders. Our score was 73 out of 100, where 100 is completely clean; we have slipped to 18th in the world.
Q111 Sir Michael Ellis: Sorry, but that is about perception, Mr Bruce, rather than reality. It does not mean that it is true. I am going to push a slight counter-narrative here: isn’t integrity and honesty sometimes questioned because of how things are perceived—how the media and academics talk about them—as opposed necessarily to the reality? If the scale has fallen, it does not mean there is any more of an issue. It just means that people may think there is.
Daniel Bruce: It is perception, and the underlying data to that score is the perception of global business leaders. There were two specific points that dramatically tumbled in the survey period to 2022. They were the perceptions that there were insufficient controls on the abuse of public office and that public money was not being awarded on merit. These are not my views or the views of Transparency International; they are the aggregated views of experts in this poll of polls. I accept absolutely that it is a perception, but I think one of the challenges that the Committee will need to address in its recommendations is that we are starting from a very low baseline, as Meg has already set out from UCL’s research. I could give you dozens of other polls, but we do not have time. There is a huge perception problem, so action to reform that needs to be bold and visible.
Dr White: Can I pick up on a couple of the points that have come up? To come back on the point you made, Mr Ellis, it is not just a matter of perception. If you look at the cases that have arisen in a recent period, which this Committee itself has overseen, and indeed cases that have been investigated under the ministerial code, there have been a number of breaches. It is not just about people like us talking about there being problems in standards in public life. The people whose job it is to adjudicate on these matters have decided that there have been some problems, so there is a factual basis to the perceptions that Daniel refers to.
In relation to the ministerial code and the MPs’ Code of Conduct, very many members of the public would assume that the same requirements were there for anyone who is an MP and an MP who is a Minister, just as the implication in Mr Dunne’s original question was that the ministerial code is layered on top, and if there was a perception that somebody had broken the ministerial code and that was not investigated, that could still be investigated under the MPs’ Code of Conduct. But that is not in fact the case. If there is no investigation under the ministerial code, a Minister may say, “But that was something I was doing in my ministerial capacity,” and therefore it is not something the parliamentary system can get a grip on.
I do not think that is what the public would expect. The public would expect Ministers, who have power, to observe higher standards of behaviour than MPs. They are the ones who, if they have a conflict of interest, are potentially making decisions using public funds in ways that could be influenced by that conflict of interest. Back Benchers may also have those opportunities, but those are more likely to be there for Ministers. If anything, the expectations are the wrong way around.
As Daniel says, it is not a question of infringing the Prime Minister’s ability to decide who is in his Cabinet, because there are very many sanctions now available under the ministerial code—an excellent innovation—short of saying, “This person may no longer serve.” I would have thought that most Prime Ministers would want to say to the public, “My Ministers are observing higher standards than MPs.” At a minimum, it should be the same.
Q112 Mehmuda Mian: Good morning. I am Mehmuda Mian, a lay member. What scope do you see for the political parties to work together to produce a common template for their internal standards processes?
Dr White: I think it would be very desirable. The Government, in their response, are entirely right that political parties are voluntary membership organisations that operate under different rules, but they also have very similar objectives, apart from which party they think should be in government. They are operating in the same context and in relation to the same institutions. Logically speaking, you would think that the sorts of issues that would arise for politicians as members of parties would be similar.
Therefore, given that one of the key complaints we hear from people outside is that they do not understand how the systems used by political parties to investigate complaints work, that there is not enough transparency and that they do not understand the interaction between those systems and the wider systems in the House, I would have thought there would be a great benefit to parties, starting from the ground up, from a zero base, to think, “What can we agree on in terms of what the objectives of our systems should be and what they might look like? What can we agree on to say to the public that political parties in this country think are the basics of the process that we will all follow?” You might then want to put some different bells and whistles on them, according to the specifics of the way in which different parties work, but I think it would be beneficial for parties to see what they can agree on and potentially build up from there to try the solve the issue of the lack of transparency and the lack of understanding among the public about how that works.
Q113 Victoria Smith: Good morning. I am Victoria Smith, a lay member. My question is to Daniel. Your written evidence makes many recommendations about changes to the standards system. Which of those do you regard as, first, the most important and, secondly, the most achievable?
Daniel Bruce: I have laboured the point on standards oversight mechanisms, so I am going to move off that and suggest that one of the things that, ultimately, we need to tackle is the collection of underlying causes for failures of integrity or standards. We have spent quite a bit of time this morning on the cure mechanisms and the sanctions mechanisms for when things go wrong. However, if we look at the history of the last few years and the various scandals or concerns that we may have seen, they so often involved money in the political system—political donations and campaign financing.
There are three recommendations in our submission, at 3.24, 3.27 and 3.32, and for the purposes of answering your question, I would like to conceptually merge them into one, as they are generally about political finance reform. That is mainly because other forms of misconduct—sexual harassment, fraud and so on—have legal frameworks built around them to reinforce the codes, whereas the controlled environment on political donations and campaign spending, in our analysis, and again looking at other similar democracies around the world, is far too lax.
More broadly, in addition to the points around financial interest, paid foreign travel and donations from limited liability partnerships—all of which we think need tightening up—in our written recommendations, we would continue to align ourselves with the recommendations from the Committee on Standards in Public Life going way back to 2011, when it sought to unlock the difficult issue of big money in politics. There is not a cap on political donations at the minute, but the Committee recommended a strict £10,000 limit on political donations and a 15% reduction in campaign spending limits. Government have caught up with inflation recently and, in effect, increased the election campaign spending limit by 70%, so we are currently headed for the most expensive election in British democratic history, which increases the demand to bring big money into the system. We think the political financing reforms are absolutely essential to get at the preventative measures that need to be taken. Why have they not been addressed, despite many years of evidence pointing to the necessity of doing so? That often finds itself on the “too difficult” pile. Therefore, that is not the answer to the second part of your question, about the most achievable. I will leave that to rest with you.
The most achievable is lobbying transparency reform. We have not really gone far enough, since the reforms the Cameron Government originally brought in, I think, in 2014, with our lobbying transparency arrangements. The US, Canada, Ireland and the devolved Scottish lobbying register all have far more meaningful data about who is trying to influence Government policy for what and why. In practice—I can assure you that my colleagues have been banging their heads against a brick wall on this for a number of years—it is frankly a fiction that you can meaningfully triangulate quarterly ministerial meeting return data with the register of consultant lobbyists. It does not give you a full picture whatsoever. Nevertheless, the easy thing is that there are some great templates in other like-minded democracies, so Government could take their pick and secure an easy win there as part of building confidence again in the system.
Q114 Carys Williams: Good morning. I am Carys, one of the lay members. Thank you so much for your written evidence; I read it with great interest. You refer to the standards system having evolved in response to specific scandals, rather than being planned, and say that it may lack a certain coherence. If you were to hold the pen and design a parliamentary standards system, what are the key things you would put in place? Or if you prefer, how would it differ from what we have today?
Dr White: The standards system has in common with many other aspects of Parliament the fact that it has evolved. I would start from a user perspective: the point of view of the people who have to operate within the system.
It is really important that the system is clear and straightforward for Members because they are the ones seeking to making sure their behaviour adheres. We hear too many times people saying, “I didn’t understand the rules. They are too complicated.” I don’t think that is only an excuse; it is sometimes an excuse. It also needs to be clear from the public’s point of view because they are the people looking at elected politicians and thinking, “Are these people behaving as we would like them to?”
I would start with a common set of rules for the Commons and the Lords. I am not saying that is achievable, but we have evolved separate systems and that doesn’t make sense to people externally. I don’t see why they should be different.
I would start the system from the principle and the requirement that people should exercise their judgment in behaving the way that the public would expect people in this place to behave. Then I would think through the different sorts of activities that politicians engage in. There are the purely parliamentary activities—behaviour in the Chamber, what you do on a Committee and all the things that sit under the purview of the Speaker, the Privileges Committee and so on.
There are the administrative, managerial things that MPs do, which are very similar to what people do in other organisations and other walks of life. Then there are the things they do as party members, and so on. I would think, “How do these activities of politicians relate to these principles?” and then I would think, “Where is there a need for more detailed rules under each of those things?”
Some of this already exists and maps. You can say that the managerial activities that Members undertake as employers—drawing their expenses and so on—are administered by IPSA, which has a set of rules, and that sits under there. I would want to map this whole picture and say, “There are these different activities, and different rules apply when you are behaving in these different capacities, doing these different things.”
Then there should be an overarching stronger sense that if something does not appear to fit under one of these rules or is not clear, the overarching set of principles—the Nolan principles—and the standards of behaviour are the default that apply, so there is a clear system whereby if something appears to slip through a gap because the right rule has not been formulated and people can say, “I didn’t think that rule applied in this circumstance,” there is still the backstop of saying, “Yes, but does that adhere to the principle of integrity, to which you said you would adhere?”
Q115 Carys Williams: So you are leaning a lot more into principles-based regulation with greater detail where necessary or where specific things could happen?
Dr White: I think that is what we should expect of our politicians. They are all very impressive people who want to work on behalf of the country, and are doing their best to do that, so they expect that of themselves. When we immediately dive into trying to fill holes and formulate rules to catch situations that weren’t previously covered, we do them a disservice.
MPs need to know how quickly they are expected to register an interest and those sorts of things, but ultimately they need to think, “Is this demonstrating integrity?” That is maybe my history as a secretary of the Committee on Standards in Public Life speaking, but I think we should not get drawn away from that principles-based approach in a rush to make sure stuff is legislated for, there are rules and all those sorts of thing.
Q116 Sir Bernard Jenkin: Can I press you on another matter? In your evidence, you suggest that the investigation of breaches of the code—I think you mean the adjudication, because the Committee does not do the investigations—should be taken away from the MPs altogether and handed over to something like the independent advisory panel. You said, as an example, that that is what happened with the ICGS, and therefore it should happen with standards.
Do you think that would lead to a reduction in the quality of decisions being made? If how Parliament works and how MPs in practice do our best to reconcile all our conflicts of interest, which are inevitably multifarious and numerous—if all that information was completely shorn of the system, would that lead to better decision making?
Dr White: I do not think you would need to remove that insight from MPs entirely. What you could do is look at the IEP and put on it some former MPs who had experience, just as IPSA has on its board a former MP who brings that insight. I think that the chair of the IEP, when determining how to put together a panel to look at different cases, could say, “This is a complicated one to do with how an MP would do their job. Let’s bring on X, a former MP, to make up the panel in this instance.”
The introduction of the ICGS was a good innovation, but it has made the system more complicated and difficult to understand why some things should be investigated in that way, and that other things should work their way through this Committee. I am not intending to flatter you all, but I think the introduction of lay members on to this Committee was a tremendous innovation. I was surprised that happened, because there was so much resistance and so many constitutional arguments put forward about why it could not possibly happen. It has actually been a great benefit.
That also demonstrated that there were lots of professional people from different walks of life who have to do things like manage conflicts of interest. There are a lot of similarities between how that is done in other walks of life and by MPs. On things like registration and conflicts of interest and such financial matters, it is my belief that MPs are not that different. You should, therefore, have a system where there are professional people who understand the principles of this, and could run the system.
Then this Committee could have oversight of the whole system—how it works, the principles. Maybe if we go back to the ideal world that I have constructed, where there are cases that do not seem to fit within any of the other systems, but there is still a sense that something has gone wrong, those could still come to this Committee for adjudication.
Q117 Sir Bernard Jenkin: May I follow up on that briefly? I confess my instinct was exactly the same as yours. When I first came on to the Standards Committee, I thought, “Why are there two systems? It was an accident. There should be one system.” But the ICGS investigates very much workplace, employment-related issues, which have nothing to do with how Parliament works, or the role of an MP. It is a much more objective test, if you like. I would say that makes a very strong distinction.
If MPs had anything to do with the ICGS, I think that would undermine its confidence, because nothing like the ICGS was happening when the Standards Committee was entirely in charge of the conduct of MPs. I do not want to go near the ICGS, or have even an ex-MP near the ICGS.
What other professions? In the medical profession, doctors adjudicate on doctors. Do you think civil servants should no longer adjudicate on the application of the civil service code? It seems a rather extreme position.
Dr White: I do not think it is an extreme position. Parliament is representative of the people. The jobs MPs do are on behalf of the public. MPs are asking everyone in every other profession to adhere to certain legal and other standards.
Q118 Sir Bernard Jenkin: Civil servants adjudicate on civil servants, and doctors adjudicate on doctors.
Dr White: Often with a high degree of an independent element brought in. It is rarely—
Sir Bernard Jenkin: I join you in serenading the lay members. I think they contribute a great deal, but babies and bathwater come to mind.
Q119 Philip Dunne: Partly because of the complexity of the system, a number of our witnesses have suggested that there should be a portal available to allow members of the public to lodge complaints. One issue about that is who manages the portal, who administrates it, who is the adjudicator. Does anybody have any comments on whether they think that is a good idea? Perhaps we can ask the academics first.
Professor Hazell: I think it is a really good idea. Together with Sir Peter Riddell I have been writing a report, which I hope will be published in the next month or so, entitled “Constitutional Watchdogs: Restoring the Role”. It is about the watchdogs that monitor and regulate the conduct of the Executive.
There are about half a dozen of them: bodies like the Independent Adviser, the House of Lords Appointments Commission, the Commissioner for Public Appointments and so on. We looked at all their websites with great care; it is a fragmented picture and also very varied in terms of the quality and accessibility of the websites. Three of the websites are particularly poor.
Quite separately from your inquiry, in our report we found ourselves coming to the conclusion that there badly needs to be a single website with an explanation for the public of all these different watchdogs and their separate roles and responsibilities, and then how to contact them. That comes to the idea of the single portal. I cannot speak so much about Parliament. I think my colleague Meg has looked in detail at the websites of the parliamentary watchdogs, so perhaps I could hand the baton on to her to talk about Parliament.
Professor Russell: In answer to your question about who owns the portal, this is difficult but not insuperable. I agree with Robert. He is looking at a number of bodies that are not part of the narrow parliamentary landscape: ACOBA, the Civil Service Commission and so on—not the kinds of bodies that we are necessarily talking about here. I think that needs to be managed either by Government or by an arm’s length agency, like maybe CSPL.
Professor Hazell: We thought CSPL or the Cabinet Office.
Professor Russell: It would have the overall oversight of all that. But I think it is inevitable that you would want to have something on the parliamentary website that deals with parliamentary standards. That is what I looked at. I guess that the mega-portal, or whatever you call it, would be pointing towards something that was parliamentary, to deal with the parliamentary stuff.
I expect that some of you have done the same exercise that I did. I did not spend very long, but I just had a look at what you find if you look for standards on the parliamentary website. There are a couple of webpages that look like landing pages.
I know that Google throws up different things for different people, but when we googled “Make a complaint against an MP”, we first found an IPSA page. That is perfectly appropriate: IPSA is explaining itself, and it has a link to the Parliamentary Commissioner, which again is entirely appropriate. But on the Parliament website, you come up with a page called “Allegations and complaints against MPs”, which if you click on it is actually blank. That is maybe supposed to be a list of allegations currently under investigation, but it is a bit perplexing that you arrive at a blank page. So that is not good.
We did find a better landing page on the MPs and peers page. There is a link to a page called “Standards and interests”, which is a sort of landing page. It points you to four different places: the Parliamentary Commissioner, House of Lords Standards and Interests, Parliament’s behaviour code and the Independent Expert Panel. But nowhere does it say, in precise terms, what these are, what they do or why you might want to go to them. There are a lot of lists. The Parliamentary Commissioner’s site is a bit like that too: it has lots of interesting information on it, but I would not say it was accessible. There are lots of lists: “click here for the code” and “click here” for various names that you will never have heard of.
I think you need something that says, “There are these bodies; this does this, and that does that.” And you maybe need something that tells you what the flowchart is if you want to bring a complaint. If you are a member of staff, or if you are a constituent, what are the things you can complain about, what is valid and acceptable, and where should you go with it? Hannah may have further thoughts on that. I do not think there is even a document. I was rather surprised: the House of Commons Library is such an excellent organisation, and I thought there would be a document, a PDF, that explained how the system worked, but I could not even find that. There is a lot of room for improvement.
Q120 Philip Dunne: I think that the opening page for our briefings is probably the most concise document setting out how the panoply sits. Hannah, do you want to come in?
Dr White: The staff of the different offices that deal with this—this Committee’s staff, and so on—probably spend quite a lot of their time directing people to other places, and playing that role of saying, “Actually, you don’t want us; you want them,” and so on. Therefore, I do think that there could be possibly even a role for a real person who could answer a phone and give advice to people.
I totally agree with Meg about some kind of flow chart that just says, “Was this in Parliament or outside Parliament?”, “Who are you?” and so on. You must be able to design a tool, even, that can enable you to click through and then says, “Well, you’re probably wanting this person or this person”. That would probably narrow the task for the person on the telephone, and the person on the telephone might perform the role that all the other offices are currently performing.
I do think that the parliamentary website is generally just not that easy to navigate—full stop—but that is not within the remit of this Committee. However, it does look odd that it is quite so hard to work these things out, even for people like us, because the system changes quite a lot.
I would say that the website is better at, in a very parliamentary way, describing how the standards system has evolved, with all the different versions of the code of conduct that you can inadvertently land on via Google, which might not be the most recent one. That is just an unnecessary degree of complexity, and it would be very sensible to try to rationalise it.
Q121 Philip Dunne: As MPs, we receive political complaints on a continuous basis. How would you avoid any portal system being overwhelmed by partisan political complaints?
Dr White: I think it might have some benefit to MPs in that your offices would be able to say, “Ah, there is a person who you can go to to determine how that complaint that you’re bringing to my office should best be dealt with”. Obviously, if it is a complaint against something that you have done personally, you are more likely to want to deal with it personally than to direct it, but having a central resource might be a benefit.
I think that there are plenty of people who get frustrated in some way with something that has happened in Parliament and contact Parliament already. I am not sure that having one portal that people were able to access this through would generate a lot more vexatious complaints.
Chair: Let’s move on to another substantive point from Francis.
Q122 Sir Francis Habgood: Hello, I am Francis Habgood, another of the lay members. I am going to ask about the Recall of MPs Act, and this will be to any of you. There is a general point about how well it is working, but then we have also had a number of proposals for changes.
First, obviously, when people go in to cast their vote, everybody knows what their intentions are because you are only asking for one response. Therefore, should there be a yes/no on the ballot paper as to whether there should be a recall?
Secondly, once we have reached the 10%, should the ballot close, rather than keeping it going for the required six-week period? Thirdly, is the “10 sitting days” threshold to trigger a recall petition too low, or should it be changed in some other way? I am looking for any views on those specific proposals, but also more generally, and I am happy for any of you to start.
Daniel Bruce: I am happy to give it a stab. I think, generally, our view is that the recall system is actually working quite well as it is at the minute, and that it is an effective deterrent to impropriety—and it has been quite a busy mechanism in the last few years.
The anomalies that concern us are that, of course, we have had some cases where Members have resigned before a recall petition has been able to proceed, and others where Members have been found to have been in fairly egregious breach of the code of conduct, but they remain sitting in the House for a very long time while the process goes through. Therefore, there is a bit of a bit of asymmetry, which reveals some of the slightly challenging quirks of the system.
I think that our only recommendation on this would be for the Committee to consider whether there are some categories of breaches of the code that are so severe that they would warrant an immediate expulsion, rather than a recourse to recall petitions.
Dr White: I have sympathy with the point about how, if you are going to the place to sign the petition, it is pretty obvious what you think. I am not sure that giving you a “no” option totally works, in the sense that it is still the people who are more motivated to vote yes who are going to go. You might end up with something slightly odd. If the statistics were known, it would be rather unfair to the MP. People would say, “85% of people who signed the petition said they should go, and 15% that they shouldn’t,” but that would be a lot to do with the incentives for people to say anything at all. Another way to do it, which would obviously involve a cost, would be to have an option for some kind of postal system, so that people could apply for a postal vote on a petition.
Again, there is a logic to closing the ballot when the 10% is reached. That potentially speaks to Daniel’s point. If there was a very strong feeling in the constituency, that threshold might be reached quite quickly; at that point, why have the expense of continuing to administer the petition? On the 10 days, it is very much a case of, “How long is a piece of string?” The case law has developed around the point of 10 days, because that is what is in the Act.
Just as with the Ministerial Code, there could be a case for the Committee to think about other forms of sanction, short of suspension, that it wants to apply in cases in which it does not think recall is warranted but it wants to signal that the Committee has taken something seriously. At this point, changing the 10 days means that the case law will get messed up. It is difficult enough to look at the different offences and try to correlate them against what has been done in the past and how serious they are. It is all rather difficult, so that would just add complexity.
Generally speaking, post-legislative scrutiny is a really good idea. If the Committee wanted to recommend that its successor in the next Parliament undertook post-legislative of the recall Act, so that a wider set of people had an opportunity to express their views, that would generally be a good thing to do at this point.
Chair: I think we are doing a bit of post-legislative scrutiny right here, right now. For our final question, just before our hour is up, I call Michael.
Q123 Sir Michael Ellis: I am very conscious of the time, so could we keep the answers as brief as possible? Following on from your point, Dr White, and Sir Francis’s question, isn’t the 10% in the constituency too low? It is almost inevitable that 10% of the electorate will want to oust the current MP in any constituency, even in the safest seats.
Before you answer that, on the issue of the parliamentary standards regime generally, there is a call in some quarters for setting standards for MPs’ performance in constituency work, levels of attendance in the House and the like. Are you conscious of the fact that MPs consider themselves to be under a vast amount of scrutiny already? They receive an unconscionable amount of hate mail, many of them receive threats, there are politically motivated nuisance complaints, and MPs suffer from the fact that many people do not understand the nature of the work that they do. For example, they may be perceived as never being in the House of Commons, but they may be in Committee all day or in important meetings. Are you conscious in your deliberations of what MPs think about all that and those sorts of issues?
Chair: Should constituency work and attendance in the House be explicitly part of the code?
Dr White: I think that would be extremely difficult to do. MPs all choose to do their roles in different ways. I think there would be some value in doing for MPs what was done some time ago for Select Committees: articulating a list of the core tasks that an MP does. That would help with the public’s understanding of the role of an MP and all the different things that you have to manage. It should not have any sanction though; it is not to say that people must do all these things. It is the same with Select Committees: they do not have to fulfil all their core tasks. It is just something that says, “This is what we think of as the role of an MP.”
I completely accept what you say: there is a sense among MPs that they are very scrutinised. I do not think that that means that the conversation we have been having today about the need to tighten some of the rules and to do things differently does not apply. Look at the example of MPs’ expenses, and the amount of public attention, press attention and chastisement of MPs for how they were using their money before IPSA was set up. It has basically gone out of the news since then, apart from very occasional cases. The level of public scrutiny, attention and attacking of MPs that there was before IPSA existed and started to do a very systematic job that commanded public confidence was removed by making the system work and be perceived to work. That is why I think this inquiry is so important: if you can find ways to build confidence and to make the system work better, MPs will be able to set aside whole sets of things and say, “That is no longer a thing I can be attacked for, because I am confident and the public can be confident that this system is working.”
Chair: May I draw this session to a close and thank you very much indeed for giving evidence today? We await Professor Hazell’s report. I hope that it will be ready, even in draft, in time for us to look at it, so that we can have the benefit of your work. Could I also say personally that I think Parliament is very fortunate to have the work that you do? It has been and continues to be incredibly useful for us, who are trying to do our work in Parliament and wanting Parliament to be better and do better, to have experts such as you, with the work that you do, so thank you for the work not just that you have done for this inquiry but that you do all the time. Thank you very much indeed.