Oral evidence: Mr Marcus Fysh, HC 213
Tuesday 2 June 2020
Members present: Chris Bryant (Chair); Mrs Tammy Banks (Lay Member); Mrs Jane Burgess (Lay Member); Andy Carter; Alberto Costa; Mrs Rita Dexter (Lay Member); Chris Elmore; Mark Fletcher; Sir Bernard Jenkin; Anne McLaughlin; Dr Arun Midha (Lay Member); Mr Paul Thorogood (Lay Member).
Questions 1 - 50
Witness
I: Mr Marcus Fysh MP
Witness: Mr Marcus Fysh MP.
Q1 Chair: Mr Fysh, do you want to say anything before we start? We have obviously had the paper, and you have seen, I think, the note that the Commissioner sent.
Mr Fysh: I have. I was told that I might be able to make a brief opening statement.
Chair: That’s fine.
Mr Fysh: Thank you.
I thank the Committee for its time in considering the matter and the present case, and hope that my appearance in person may be helpful. I have always in good faith attempted to follow the letter and spirit of the Code of Conduct and the Guide to the rules, and I hope that I can be helpful to the Committee in its process of thinking how the rules and the Guide might need to be updated.
I consider and have always considered my unremunerated directorships not to be things that others might reasonably think could influence my actions or words as a Member, and this consideration has always been in my mind when I have considered that they do not, never have and never would influence or bias what I do or say as a Member. In that regard, there are no interests to be declared or registered. The financial interests I do have to declare have always been declared.
Arising in this case are three principal issues that the Committee, in my opinion, needs to resolve and which I hope the Committee will indulge me briefly in setting out. The first is whether it wishes the House of Commons standards system to be different from the House of Lords standards system in its definition and usage of the term “reasonably” when assessing whether a Member might properly have considered that others might reasonably think something might influence the words or actions of a Member. Were the Committee effectively to choose that the House of Commons system should be different, by agreeing with the Commissioner, it would be choosing not just a different usage from that found in the rest of Parliament, but one different from that found in common-law jurisprudence.
No doubt a feature of parliamentary privilege is that the two Houses of Parliament may regulate themselves, and I do not doubt that precedent in that respect may be recalled, but there would have to be very good reasons to depart from common-law jurisprudence in interpretation, which by its nature represents the common and evolving understanding of the terms used in the regulation of affairs between people. The House of Lords does not do so—no doubt mindful of its quasi-judicial, authoritative position in the regulation of standards—and I would be surprised if this Committee formed by the House of Commons did not also take its similar authority and context for the same seriously. In my view, the standards system of the House of Commons would benefit from being consistent with it, and with those things. I note and reiterate the House of Lords guidance, as set out in my response to the Commissioner’s memorandum. If not consistent with it, the House of Commons risks being seen as preferring arbitrary decision making to accepted methods of objective justification. This in turn would risk offending the wider public interest in, and legal principle of, manifestly even-handed administration of justice.
I would like to draw the Committee’s attention in particular to the so-called reasonable observer test, as settled in common law, outlined in Lord Hope’s judgment, with which their other lordships agreed, in Porter v. Magill, paragraphs 102 and 103, which established the test of whether a fair-minded and informed observer, having considered the facts, would conclude that there was a real possibility of bias when considering whether someone, in this case a judge, might be influenced or biased by something.
I quote: “The court must first ascertain all the circumstances which have a bearing on the suggestion that the judge was biased. It must then ask whether those circumstances would lead a fair-minded and informed observer to conclude that there was a real possibility…that the tribunal was biased.” Note the word “real”. Not imagined, or apprehended without a construct of how it might be real.
The position of the Commissioner in this case that only her assessment of what others might reasonably think about the degree to which words or actions might be influenced should matter—the non-sequitur that influence over a company should, of itself, lead to apprehension of influence over a Member’s words or action, and the inference that this might be in the same way as actually being paid, without demonstration or positing of how or in what circumstances or with respect to which or what kind of actions or words such bias or influence might actually occur or arise, and without adequate understanding or recognition of the circumstances—is inconsistent with the aforementioned reasonable observer test that is used on suggestions or apprehension of influence in other situations, on which the House of Lords concept of the term “reasonably” with respect to its test of relevance of interests in its standards system is built, and which the Commissioner seeks to dismiss.
It is noteworthy that this is not an administrative law case in which the mere presence of a rationale—any rationale—from the decision maker might be used to say that the decision has been made reasonably. This is a case demanding qualitative judgment before others should be impugned, with full knowledge and recognition of the circumstances. If the Commissioner’s position were adopted, a precedent would be set that these legal and standards consideration norms do not apply in the House of Commons, and that innuendo, rather than evidence and knowledge, is in fact what matters to it. Such a situation, I would say, would not be in the wider public interest, nor in the interest of MPs not having to spend time responding to politically motivated attacks such as this one all the time.
I will touch on the further issues very much more briefly. The second issue that I believe the Committee should consider is the degree to which the context that I have just outlined should allow the Registrar’s opinion effectively to remove the discretion explicitly and logically given to Members to interpret whether a registration under the “miscellaneous” category or a declaration of an interest should be made, and to require them retrospectively, and the extent to which in practice that would be unworkable and arbitrary, and so should not be allowed. A particularly unreasonable example of this might be to infer, as the Registrar does in this case, that just because someone has control or influence over a foreign asset, whatever it is or does, it might mean influence on, for example, what one might say in a Committee because it has the word “international” in its title.
The third issue, or set of issues, to consider is that, following on from this, there are many instances where such incredibly wide, loose and arbitrary interpretation of the requirement to register or declare under the miscellaneous category could, and perhaps would, have to be applied if the Commissioner’s position in this case were upheld. Should, for example, foreign homes be registered and declared if the cost of their upkeep is denominated in a non-UK currency? How many foreign homes of MPs or their relatives have been declared over the past four years? Should foreign or domestic currency bank balances controlled by Members of Parliament or their relatives be declared? How many are? Should MPs’ or their relatives’ pension entitlements in foreign currencies or from foreign entities be declared? How many of those are? If regular visits are made overseas, for whatever personal reason, is the potential for fluctuation in cost of these for the sterling earner to be declared? Should MPs’ understandable passions for European or, say, Asian languages, travel, institutions or persons be declared? How many of these sorts of interests are declared? All of these are infinitely more likely to influence what MPs might say or do than the subject matter of the case before you today.
Mr Chairman, I am at your service, and I hope I can be of assistance.
Q2 Chair: Thank you very much, Mr Fysh. Can I start by clearing up some of the little bits just for the record? Do you agree with the Commissioner’s conclusion that you were late in updating the Register entries for your shareholdings in the three companies? I think you made that clear in your written submission, but let’s just make that clear on the record here as well.
Mr Fysh: Yes.
Q3 Chair: And you are apologising?
Mr Fysh: Yes, definitely. I apologise to the Committee.
Chair: Fine. Dr Midha will take us on to the next bit of questioning.
Dr Midha: Good morning, Mr Fysh. I am Arun Midha, a lay member of the Committee.
Mr Fysh: Hello.
Dr Midha: Hello. How are you?
Q4 Dr Midha: The first point in dispute is whether you should have registered your five unpaid directorships. You alluded to it in your opening statement, but can you explain succinctly why you did not register your directorships?
Mr Fysh: Because I considered at all times that it was not possible for anyone, if they understood them, to think that there was anything within the fact of them that might have caused anyone to think it would influence what I said or did as an MP. And—[Interruption.]
Dr Midha: I apologise for interrupting you.
Mr Fysh: No, go on, please.
Q5 Dr Midha: On that, do you see a difference between an unremunerated directorship and a remunerated one in terms of registration?
Mr Fysh: Well, one is a financial interest; one is not a financial interest. Financial interests do have to be registered; non-financial interests do not necessarily have to be. So yes, there is a difference—a big difference.
Q6 Chair: Can I ask you what the companies do? I may be very ignorant, but that is the bit I have not managed to work out.
Mr Fysh: Sure. They exist because in my previous life I lived overseas and managed a group of international investment companies, which invested into India, the EU and Asia. That is why they are set up internationally, as opposed to anywhere else.
Q7 Chair: Why do they still exist?
Mr Fysh: Because they are the product of that, it would cost me a substantial amount of money to close them down, and I see no reason why I should have to dispose of all of my interests because I am an MP.
Q8 Chair: But would that not suggest that there is a financial interest, because there is a financial interest in keeping them alive?
Mr Fysh: It isn’t that there’s a financial interest in keeping them alive; they have nothing to do with what I do, or might say or do, as an MP. It’s of no connection whatsoever.
Chair: Okay. Anne McLaughlin will ask a couple of questions, unless you had anything else, Dr Midha.
Dr Midha: No, that’s kind, thank you.
Sir Bernard Jenkin: May I ask a supplementary before we move off that point?
Chair: Yes, go on.
Q9 Sir Bernard Jenkin: Are you in fact saying that these companies are dormant, that they are not trading?
Mr Fysh: Yes. They are not doing anything right now. They have assets and money in them, but they are not doing anything—they are not making investments—
Q10 Sir Bernard Jenkin: How material are the assets and money in them? Those companies own those assets and money, but what sort of sums are we talking about?
Mr Fysh: We are talking in the small amounts of millions of total potential value.
Q11 Sir Bernard Jenkin: So these companies could be worth millions of pounds.
Mr Fysh: Well, yes, in theory. If I were to sell them, yes.
Q12 Sir Bernard Jenkin: But they’re not trading—
Mr Fysh: No—
Q13 Sir Bernard Jenkin: So are they only—
Mr Fysh: Yes, they aren’t doing anything at the moment.
Q14 Sir Bernard Jenkin: But they are earning interest—are they on deposit somewhere?
Mr Fysh: Yes.
Q15 Sir Bernard Jenkin: What happens to the accumulated interest? Is it distributed to the shareholders?
Mr Fysh: No, it is just rolling up in the companies.
Sir Bernard Jenkin: Thank you.
Chair: Right. Anne McLaughlin.
Q16 Anne McLaughlin: Good morning, Mr Fysh. You have answered some of the questions that I was going to ask about your historical involvement with each of the companies, and whether and how that had changed. Historically, these were your companies, from which you received remuneration, and that is how you made your living. Now, you make no money at all from them, but you are the sole director of some of them. They are gathering interest, and you can pick that up again if you were to stop being an MP.
Mr Fysh: It is true that they exist, and I would hope that they still exist when or if I stop being an MP, yes.
Q17 Anne McLaughlin: I want to go back to the argument that you make that, because the directorships are unremunerated and of no financial consequence—although I think we have to say, of no financial consequence at this moment in time, whilst you are serving as an MP—they have, as you said, never been “relevant to my words or actions as a Member”. I want to come back to future remuneration in a moment, but could you explain to me why the fact that they are unremunerated means, to your mind, that they are not relevant? Is it only relevant to the words and actions of an MP if there is financial remuneration at the time?
Mr Fysh: I cannot see any way in which anything that I might do or say as an MP could be affected by the fact of their existence. How is that different from the fact of the existence of ownership of any asset by an MP?
Q18 Anne McLaughlin: So unless there is financial remuneration while you are serving as an MP, you do not think that they could have any influence at all on your words or actions.
Mr Fysh: I absolutely do not think that they have any influence on me as an MP now, and I don’t think that it is reasonable for anyone else to say so without saying how that may arise. No one has said or even suggested anything like that.
Q19 Anne McLaughlin: I was going to ask whether you could guarantee that there would never be any remuneration from these companies for you, but clearly they are not dormant and you have said that they are gathering interest, so am I right in thinking that in the future these companies will, basically, make you money?
Mr Fysh: I would hope that they will be worth something, but the way that they are structured means that that would come through a payment of a dividend up into the top company, which has always been declared. That is how they are structured, and that is how it would occur, so the fact of the directorship makes absolutely no difference to any of that.
Q20 Anne McLaughlin: So you genuinely do not understand why anybody could possibly think that your words and actions as an MP might be influenced by the fact that at some stage in the future you will financially benefit from these companies.
Mr Fysh: Not in so far as I am a director of them, no. I can’t see how anybody would think that. Understanding what they are and do, there just isn’t any connection. What are people saying or apprehending that I might say or do that might be affected by such a thing, any more than, for example, the fact that someone had £100,000 in a bank account in London? What is the difference?
Anne McLaughlin: Right, thank you.
Chair: Mr Carter.
Q21 Andy Carter: Mr Fysh, can we move to Select Committees and the declaration you made there? The second point of dispute—correct me if I’m wrong—is whether you should have declared your unpaid directorships when you joined both the International Trade and the European Scrutiny Committees. Just for the record, can you confirm that you did not declare those directorships?
Mr Fysh: I didn’t declare those directorships, no.
Q22 Andy Carter: Thank you; that’s good. To what extent do you and other Members draw on expertise in other areas, such as former work, when you participate in Select Committee proceedings, and what is the value of having those interests on the record?
Mr Fysh: I’m not sure of the purpose of your question. If you are asking me whether I should have declared them, I say that I shouldn’t have, because my consideration was that they could not affect my words or actions as an MP when sitting in that Committee. I still don’t think that the fact of those directorships makes any difference to the work of those Committees.
Q23 Andy Carter: So your experience, your knowledge and your understanding of trade, and the details that you explained earlier—investments into EU countries, Asia and India—have no bearing or influence on the questions that you might choose to ask at the International Trade Select Committee, for example? Your knowledge of that working bears no relevance to the questions and the experience that you bring to that Committee?
Mr Fysh: Are you saying that I might have asked questions that were slanted by the fact that I was a director of these companies?
Q24 Andy Carter: No, I am not. I am asking if you use the knowledge and experience that you gained from outside of this place in questions and Select Committees inside this place.
Mr Fysh: I am not aware of having brought any particular expertise or background experience into any particular questions or thoughts that we might have had. You know, I’ve been keen to try to make sure that the Committees do a good job of trying to ascertain the details of matters which are relevant to them, but that would be no different from the conscientiousness that I would expect any MP to bring to such a proceeding.
Chair: I think, Mr Fysh, unless I am wrong, Mr Carter is pushing in a different way to suggest that there is an advantage to MPs having experience from elsewhere, which they bring to bear in their work in Parliament. It’s just good to know where that comes from. Is that right, Mr Carter? Is that where you were going?
Q25 Andy Carter: That’s absolutely right. On my declaration of interests, I am a magistrate, and I feel that is incredibly valuable. I am not remunerated for it, and I know it is different from being a director, but I find that incredibly valuable, particularly when I am sitting in the Standards Select Committee. I declare that openly so that anybody can see that I have that experience. My question to you on those Select Committee is, is there a value in having those declarations?
Mr Fysh: If you look at my declarations for those Committees, what I did declare is that my investment company has interests in the EU, and that is on record. In that sense, that type of angle that you are asking about is, in fact, declared. But whether or not I am a director is of no material consequence to that consideration at all.
Andy Carter: Okay, thank you.
Q26 Chair: Can I ask one question, following up on that? Did you consider seeking the advice of the Registrar?
Mr Fysh: I did seek the advice of the Registrar on my interests when I first declared them, but I never—
Q27 Chair: But you didn’t ask her about the directorships.
Mr Fysh: No, it never occurred to me that they were in any sense a thing that anybody would consider as relevant or able to influence me.
Chair: Okay, I think Sir Bernard Jenkin wants to ask a question.
Q28 Sir Bernard Jenkin: Sorry, the name of the top company, is that London Wessex Ltd?
Mr Fysh: No, the top company is the Australian one. This was all set up from about 2004 onwards, when I was living in Australia, and that is why the top company is an Aussie company. Its name is now Samfire, and that is because we had to rename it. There was not a restructuring of the companies, as the Commissioner seems to think that there might have been. It was simply that we renamed them, because—
Q29 Sir Bernard Jenkin: So that’s the one that was called Wessex Investments Proprietary Ltd.
Mr Fysh: Wessex Investments, yes.
Q30 Sir Bernard Jenkin: Wessex Investments Proprietary Ltd, is that correct?
Mr Fysh: Yes.
Q31 Sir Bernard Jenkin: And it is now called Samfire, right?
Mr Fysh: Yes.
Q32 Sir Bernard Jenkin: And it was registered in Australia. In the entry, it referred to investment interests in other countries—other areas of the world—as well as Australia.
Mr Fysh: Yes.
Q33 Sir Bernard Jenkin: So in terms of any potential material benefits that might have arisen from this company or its subsidiaries, are you saying that you are confident that anybody wanting to make two and two equal six, or something, could have done so from what you had already declared and what was on the record? Did you declare Wessex Investments and subsequently Samfire to the Committees you were on?
Mr Fysh: Yes, indeed. That is where the interest arises.
Q34 Sir Bernard Jenkin: Your argument is that declaring the subsidiaries can add nothing material to what is already evident from what you put on the Register. That is your argument.
Mr Fysh: That is one aspect of my argument, yes—that those interests have always been declared. Those financial interests—that is where they would come through, and they have always been declared.
Q35 Sir Bernard Jenkin: Can you specifically outline why you deemed the two directorates of the Cyprus-registered companies not to be relevant to the European Scrutiny Committee? Cyprus is a rather contentious issue in the European Union. I do not know whether it has ever occurred to you that, if you were dealing with a matter about Cyprus, you would need to specifically draw attention to that interest. Had you ever thought about that?
Mr Fysh: I actually did mention that I had investments in the EU, which would be covered by that. I did not think to make particular comment on Cyprus as opposed to any other EU jurisdiction, but what those companies do in Cyprus has nothing to do with the sovereign bases or anything like that. They are just very straightforward investment companies that have invested in other parts of the world as well.
Q36 Chair: But the beneficial ownership structures in overseas territories and within the European Union has been a material point that has been discussed, hasn’t it?
Mr Fysh: No, not as far as I’m aware.
Q37 Chair: Right, okay. We have quite a few other questions, so we might need to move on a bit, but you have referred to the Lords—
Mr Fysh: Sorry, just before we move on, in my most recent declaration to the European Scrutiny Committee, I said that my wholly owned investment company, as mentioned in my register of interests and in which I have a financial interest, has EU subsidiaries in Cyprus, for investment into the EU and India.
Q38 Chair: And when was that declaration?
Mr Fysh: That was made at the first meeting of the new Parliament’s European Scrutiny Committee.
Q39 Chair: So this Parliament?
Mr Fysh: Yes.
Q40 Chair: That would seem to suggest that you accept that the Commissioner is right.
Mr Fysh: It isn’t that I accepted that the Commissioner was right back then, but I just thought that I should take a belt and braces approach. I have also declared that my parents own a house in France, which we visit. I studied French from the age of eight to 16. My wife grew up in Germany and is fluent in German. We have close German friends who we visit in Germany. My sister-in-law has become German, her fiancé is German, she lives in Germany, and we visit them there. My father-in-law is Swedish and visits Sweden. I have a bank account denominated in euros in an EU jurisdiction. Then there is the clause that I just mentioned. Then I have said that none of these matters could reasonably be said to in any way influence what I might say or do as an MP or as a member of the Committee. But I thought that, in view of the Registrar’s very wide approach to drawing anything that could possibly be said by anybody at any stage—
Q41 Chair: Okay, Mr Fysh, I get the point. You have relied quite substantially in your evidence—both today and in your written evidence—on the House of Lords guidance, and you effectively argued earlier that you think that the Commons should have the same system as the Lords, whereas traditionally the Committee here has held the view that the Lords should have the same system as the Commons, because it is fuller. Is that a fair characterisation of your view?
Mr Fysh: I actually don’t know the history of the House of Commons Committee’s views on that matter, so I cannot, I am afraid, comment on that. I am not an expert on the memorandums, the previous memorandums or the history of the Committee’s relationship with the Lords Committee on that. All I would say is that, in my view, it would need to have extremely good reasons for why it should be different, given the context that is there and the obvious care—and, it seems to me, the higher standard of care—that the House of Lords has exhibited in defining. Rather than not being fuller, it looks to me like it is fuller. It is evidently fuller, because it defines “reasonably” in a more detailed fashion, which enables an objective justification to be what is required, unlike, it seems, what the Commissioner has felt that she needs to have.
Chair: Okay. Mr Elmore has a couple of questions.
Q42 Chris Elmore: The second point of dispute, Mr Fysh, is whether you should have declared your unpaid directorships when you were on the International Trade and European Scrutiny Select Committees. Purely for the record, can you confirm that you did not declare these directorships?
Mr Fysh: I didn’t declare the directorships, no.
Q43 Chris Elmore: Thank you very much. The second part of that question is: to what extent do you—and, indeed, other Members—draw on your expertise in other areas, such as your formal work, when preparing or participating in Select Committee proceedings, and what do you feel is the value of having those interests on the record?
Mr Fysh: I think we’ve covered those questions to a certain degree. Forgive me if that is not the case.
Q44 Chris Elmore: I accept that to a point, but when you are sitting on a Select Committee you have particular experiences and backgrounds that you are not declaring, so I am just trying to press a little further on why you feel that it is not appropriate to declare them in those individual Select Committees or even on the basis of individual items. I accept that this is similar to a previous question, but why do you feel that it is not appropriate to declare them, particularly when there are certain items on an agenda that could link into what could potentially be declarations, so that the Committee is aware of your experience or past work or whatever it might be?
Mr Fysh: I don’t accept that there are things on these agendas that might be connected in such a way. The fact of a directorship doesn’t mean anything—it doesn’t add anything to the declaration of the investment interest, which was declared.
Chair: Rita Dexter, you have a couple of questions. Rita Dexter is one of our lay members.
Q45 Mrs Dexter: Hello, Mr Fysh. I want to ask you a couple of questions about your approach to the Commissioner’s findings. You say in your submission that the judgment is erroneous. I do not quarrel with your right to say that, and I can see, based on all the evidence before us, how you might feel moved to say that.
I did find it an unusually vigorous response, although I can well understand that somebody who felt that their integrity might be impugned by this would feel vigorously about it.
I want to ask you specifically, though, about your suggestion that the Commissioner appears not to have demonstrated objectivity. Could you expand on that? That is a rather serious claim to make about rather a special office holder—that is, the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards.
Mr Fysh: I would like to say at the outset that I don’t mean any disrespect by that, but we need to look at the facts of what has happened here. I have set out in detail why those statements are fair statements, and I have set out in detail the rationale for why I have said those things.
Yes, I regret that we were not able to agree, but I believe that I am correct in my assessment of these things and in law and in anything with a legal appreciation. For example, the Commissioner seems, to my mind, to always want to come back and give another gloss on what she has said in order to try to make it stand up. In the end, I don’t think it ever does when you look at it in detail. For example, in her latest letter to your Committee, on page 2, where she talks about the registration of the unpaid directorships, she talks about the discretion given to Members, saying, “Oh, well, that’s just in a footnote and it was just in category 1. I didn’t ever accuse of not registering under category 1. It’s under category 8.” Then, rather than quoting what category 8 guidance says about whether or not they need to be registered or declared—where it is absolutely explicit that it is “if the Member considers” that to be the fact—she then goes back to quoting, in line 31 on page 2 of her letter: “Paragraph 11 of my memorandum refers. I set out the test of relevance in full. ‘The test of relevance is whether those interests might reasonably be thought by others to influence his or her actions or words as a Member.’” She completely elides the point about Member discretion.
That has been my experience all along. She has never really been willing to hear the other side of this and has never, ever gone beyond apprehension of what she thinks things mean, rather than looking for an objective assessment of those things. I am sorry to have to say that, because my starting point is one of respect as well. I still respect her and the office—of course I do—but it is important we get these things right.
Chair: All right, Mr Fysh, I need to get us to a close fairly soon. I turn to Rita Dexter again.
Q46 Mrs Dexter: Thank you for that. It is helpful. You referred to the Commissioner overturning the discretion that allowed a Member to decide whether or not to register or declare an interest. Do you accept that, just as the Member has the opportunity to exercise discretion in these matters, the Commissioner has the right, if she receives the complaint, to take a view about whether the Member reached the correct view or not?
Mr Fysh: She has a right to say what she wants to say, but that does not mean that it is correct in either its appreciation of the legal and normative context or indeed the explicit guidance given in the rules. In this case, I think she is just not correct in making this assumption and she has not provided any objective justification for her position.
Q47 Chair: Mr Fysh, can I ask you a question? I have only just become Chair, but it seems odd to me that this has been hanging around for such a long time, and I think sometimes that has been because you have not been able to submit things on time. Would you like to put your case for why you think it has taken so long?
Mr Fysh: I think part of it is that it has been a very busy time and it has taken a little longer than I would have wanted or anyone else would have wanted. It is also because of the fact of the disagreements. There has been a lot of back and forth and, because they are particularly important legal questions and questions of interpretation, the right advice has needed to be sought, and that does take time.
Q48 Chair: But an alternative course of action to you 18 months or two years ago, or whenever this all started, would have been to say: “All right, fine, I’ll just register them”, but you did not go down that route.
Mr Fysh: Yes, true, and that is because I still think I should not have to register them because I do not think they are things that people looking reasonably at it could consider would influence my actions or words. Part of the problem—and this might be a thing for the Committee to consider in terms of how the guidance might be updated—is that, to a certain type of observer, the fact of having registered or declared a thing in a way that people might reasonably consider these things to have an influence is suggesting that they do have an influence, but they absolutely don’t and couldn’t and wouldn’t. It just isn’t right that outsiders should mistakenly see such a declaration as an actual influence.
Chair: Rita Dexter, do you want to ask another question?
Mrs Dexter: No, thank you.
Q49 Chair: The reason I am looking down, Mr Fysh, is so that people can tell me whether they have other questions to ask. I have a phone to consult.
I think that is everything. We will be considering our position. It is worth saying that, historically, the Commons has taken a different view from the Lords. Maybe that is for good reason, but the Committee will obviously be considering it. I do not want this to go on much longer—I don’t mean today’s session, but this whole process.
Mr Fysh: I agree. It is time to resolve things and move on.
Q50 Chair: Grand, Mr Fysh, thank you very much for your time today. I am glad we managed to get you in video as well as audio.
Mr Fysh: Pleasure.
Chair: Committee, we are ending this meeting and reconvening in another place as a Committee.