Committee on Standards
Oral evidence: The Code of Conduct and Guide to the Rules, HC 817
Tuesday 15 March 2016
Ordered by the House of Commons to be published on 15 March 2016
Members present: Tom Blenkinsop (Chair), Sir Paul Beresford, Ms Sharon Darcy (Lay Member), Mr Dominic Grieve, Mr Peter Jinman (Lay Member) and Mr Walter Rader (Lay Member).
Questions [1-40]
Witness: Kathryn Hudson, Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards, gave evidence.
Q1 Chair: Good morning again, Kathryn. Thank you for returning. Welcome to the first session of our inquiry into the review of the code of conduct. Given that the current code and guide to the rules have only been in force since May 2015, why is another review needed now and how profound is this review going to be?
Kathryn Hudson: The first reason for the review is that there is a requirement on me once in every Parliament to review the code of conduct and the guide to the rules. The timing of that is left to the discretion of the commissioner and it works out that each commissioner probably reviews the code once. From my perspective, as for any commissioner considering undertaking this review, there was a need to consider first of all how well you know the rules yourself and to become used to working in Parliament. We then had a general election and a tremendous amount of work needed to be done around ensuring that Members were aware of the code of conduct and the rules—made their entries in the register and various other things.
We are now in a position where there is just under two years before I finish my term. This would seem an appropriate time at which to undertake a review. I am aware, however, that my predecessor undertook a review and the rules were not implemented until the beginning of this new Parliament. We now have had those rules in force for almost a year, but that is comparatively recent to undertake a new review of every single line of the rules. I am aware from conversations with Members and others that, for one or two of those rules, there is a need to look again at them to consider whether the wording is right—whether it needs any adjustment—but there are other things that you can do in undertaking a review of the code and the guide to the rules.
My predecessors separated the code and the guide, and undertook the reviews separately. On this occasion we would do well to stand back a bit from the code of conduct, to say that we have had this code for around 20 years, we have made adjustments to it and have altered it. Is it still fit for purpose in the current climate? There is a piece of work to do there. There is a piece of work to do in saying that if we still adhere to the seven principles of public life—I think the Committee has already agreed with me that it still wishes to maintain those seven principles—can we see that those principles are followed through into the code of conduct and then the guide to the rules? If not, are there additions, are there things that need moving or things that need changing? There is a piece of work to be done around the code of conduct and the guide to the rules in reviewing them, but not necessarily in the way that it has been done before.
Q2 Chair: When you say “not necessarily in the way that it has been done before”, would you say that it is more of an ad hoc approach rather than a fixed regular timetable where the rules are revisited on a regular basis?
Kathryn Hudson: Having already said that it needs doing once every five years, I would suggest that it is probably not appropriate to dictate to the commissioner exactly when it is done; you could be sure that it would end up, for some reason, being inappropriate. It would be better to leave them to judge the stage at which they feel the time is right.
Q3 Mr Grieve: How have you tried to engage with the public and individual organisations in your consultation, and is it working? Are you getting feedback or are you getting none?
Kathryn Hudson: This is quite a difficult issue. The code of conduct and the guide to the rules are—esoteric is probably not quite the right word—not the stuff of which daily conversations are had in people’s lives. For that reason, although people need to understand how they might complain about their Member in certain circumstances, it is not likely to attract a considerable amount of attention, particularly at this stage, while I am looking very generally at the background to the rules. I suspect that there may be more interest when we look at particular rules and consider whether those need changing.
So far, I have circulated information on the first stage of consultation, which we are undertaking at the moment, to all Members, to a number of organisations, to organisations that are linked with the House in some way or another and to a number of others who are interested in democracy. I have put the information about the review on the web pages, and at the beginning of the consultation I asked the House to put it in the news flashes on the front page of the House of Commons website—Parliament’s website. In addition, we issued a press release and I have done one interview, which attracted a tiny amount of attention. Today is the end of the consultation period. A couple of people phoned and asked whether I would mind if they submitted a day or two late and I said that would be fine as I do not have time at this precise moment to look at the submissions. The likely number of responses will be around 20, which sounds very low but is comparable to reviews that have been held in the other jurisdictions.
Q4 Mr Rader: Speaking of the other jurisdictions, can you help us to understand what discussions you have had with the devolved Administrations and what happened there—if they have indeed undertaken reviews? Were there any particular themes or issues that emerged for the devolved Administrations?
Kathryn Hudson: Yes. One thing that is interesting about the devolved Administrations is that, although their code of conduct and guide to the rules tend to be based on ours, they go in very different directions. You have, for example, a very lengthy code for Scotland and a much shorter one for Wales. It is not always possible to make direct comparisons. I have recently met the commissioners. We have a conference about every 18 months and there was an opportunity for some informal chat then. They have organised to contribute to the review I am undertaking and I have replies from most of them. Two of them recently conducted reviews—Scotland and Wales. The interesting thing is that the themes that tend to concern me are also themes that came out for them. They have been looking at lobbying. They have been looking at conduct in the Chamber, which is a matter not in my jurisdiction, and I do not think in theirs either, but nevertheless causes a lot of concern among the general public. They have been looking at the boundaries of private and public life and whether there should be rules; they vary in that Wales allows the commissioner to consider private life and we of course do not, so we do not always go in the same direction. They have been looking at issues of confidentiality and their own links to the ministerial code. That gives you a broad brush of where they are.
Q5 Mr Rader: Are those reviews now completed or are they ongoing?
Kathryn Hudson: I have to admit that I do not know exactly at which stage they are at the moment.
Q6 Mr Grieve: From your time and experience as a commissioner, are there some sort of general lessons that you have derived? Particularly, what have you picked up in terms of issues that are not necessarily breaches of the code or meet the criteria for full investigation but nevertheless come up with such regularity that they are issues that this Committee ought to consider as part of the review?
Kathryn Hudson: Yes. The interesting thing for me all the time is the need for great clarity about what I am able to do and able to look at. A very large number of the complaints that come to me, as Members know, are matters that I cannot look at. If I look at the last year in particular and ask what those particular complaints are about, they are, of course, about constituency matters, which I am not able to look at; where possible I refer them to other agencies, but sometimes there is nowhere else for them to go. More recently, there have been issues about Members’ behaviour—Members’ behaviour in the Chamber, which is not a matter for me, but also Members’ behaviour in individual contact with people in their communities and with other people in the Chamber. There is no rule that enables me to look at that.
Q7 Mr Grieve: When one is identifying the things that fall within your remit but are not really issues that amount to the need for a full investigation—just rectification of a complaint—what are the main ones that come up?
Kathryn Hudson: Of course, the main ones that come up from that are laid down for me in the Standing Order; I can look at inadvertent or minor breaches of the rules. They tend to be things like failing to register appropriately, failing to declare a particular interest in the Chamber—those sorts of things are fairly minor—or breaches of the stationery rules. The things that come up for me over and over again are about the culture of the organisation, which means that Members often are not fully aware of the rules by which they should abide and do not always realise that it would be helpful if they had a look at the rules before they did certain things. I say that it is about the culture because it is thinking about issues such as use of parliamentary facilities, a particular one being the use of stationery. Very often Members find that they have transgressed rules, used paper for political purposes, and have not realised that there were rules that they should have checked before they did certain things. In an effort to help with this, we pulled together a very large volume of all the rules of the House that we thought were relevant for Members, before they came back after the last election. While that may have gone some way, unless it is at the forefront of a Member’s mind to think about the culture of the organisation, the rules by which they are expected to abide and the ethical standards, it is not always going to be in their minds and I will continue to get these smaller transgressions.
Q8 Mr Jinman: Can I explore a little further the general climate in which codes operate? All professions have codes. There is a system of regulation, there is responsibility to the public, and there is usually cohesiveness within the profession. We have in our previous report looked at some aspects of self‑regulation, but generally what are the implications for the code of the climate in which we are operating?
Kathryn Hudson: It is quite difficult to know where to start on that one. The code of conduct, of course, is only part of the system within the House for maintaining the standard of Members’ behaviour. It has to fit into a culture within the wider set of rules of the House and within the beliefs and thoughts of Members about how they should undertake their roles. Within the House, the vast majority of Members observe the rules on a day‑to‑day basis and maintain high standards of ethical practice, but there will always be some for whom it is not at the forefront of their mind or—dare I say it?—who do not agree with some of the rules and therefore perhaps do not abide by them. That is set in a context where Members come under quite intense scrutiny. They are very busy people and are not always in a position to pay close attention to the rules, but they are also in a position where the press are likely to become aware of misdemeanours, or supposed misdemeanours, and where their own constituents are very quick to criticise.
One interesting issue for me over the last couple of years has been that the general public bring complaints to me that their Member has not done what they asked. I have begun to try to change the language that we use in respect of the code of conduct, to talk instead about allegations of breaches of the rules, because I do not investigate to find out whether a Member has not done something a constituent wanted and I cannot offer any redress to members of the public; those issues are dealt with through the ballot box. Dealing with transgressions of the rules themselves is a matter for me, and those come via my reports to the Committee and eventually to the Floor of the House, as the final decision maker, when there has been a complaint. We have independence built into that system, both through the nature of my role and through the nature of the role of lay members, which will be increasing and may change things again. It is a very difficult balance. It is also quite complex. The difficult thing is to make sure that there is clarity about how the arrangements work—so that, for example, I am not constantly being reported as the investigator and the person who imposes the sanctions when that is not the case—and the role of the Committee is appreciated more fully. Having said that, we have some complex rules and it is difficult for people to understand them, particularly when we need to look at the detail of whether or not there has been a breach. I do not know whether that fully addresses the question.
Mr Jinman: It is a very useful answer.
Q9 Ms Darcy: Are there any wider changes to the system itself that go beyond your consultation and that you think this Committee should be addressing?
Kathryn Hudson: The Committee considered very thoroughly last year the way in which the standards system worked, and came up with a number of recommendations, not all of which have been implemented. It would probably be worth going back to ask, “What else were you recommending at that time? Was that a recommendation only for that time or is it one that is still valid and which we might now want to go ahead and implement?” It is not my role in reviewing the code of conduct and the guide to the rules to make suggestions for wider changes to the system, but I would suggest that there are some in the report that would be worth revisiting to see whether there is something we can do about it.
Q10 Ms Darcy: From your experiences of cases to date, are there any instances or examples that you could share with us at this stage of where the system itself has prevented you from going down a particular line of evidence-gathering?
Kathryn Hudson: I must admit that I would rather leave that until the second stage of the review, when I would like to look again at some of the cases that I have resolved during my time here and consider what issues arise from them. There may be other issues that arise from matters that I have not taken on for investigation, but I think that comes at a later stage. At the moment I would not want to attempt to list them for you.
Q11 Ms Darcy: Thinking about the inquiry process, are there any changes you can think of that might make the process fairer, both to the subject of the complaint and to the person making the complaint?
Kathryn Hudson: I have talked a little about the need for clarity, and it would certainly make a difference to complainants if the rules themselves and the system we use were written in clearer language. That might help the Members as well. The difficulty is that when you try to put things in very clear, plain English you lose some of the nuances of the rules, which are quite important. Nevertheless, we need to be clearer. It should be possible for anyone fairly easily to find on Parliament’s website my pages and the information about how to make a complaint, and then to understand the rules about which they may wish to make that complaint. At the moment we still have a requirement that any complaint made to me must be in writing in hard copy and signed before I can accept it. I know that Members do not wish to change that. I know it causes great irritation to people who have sent me emails, or have spoken on the phone to one of my colleagues and then want to make a complaint, that they are told they must put it in writing, when most Government Departments and other organisations these days do not require that. We could look again at that as something that would make the matter easier for complainants.
With regard to Members, I go back to what I have already been saying about the importance of the culture and the ethical standards, and trying to get them across more strongly to Members. We had a very good go at the time of the election with our new Members, but when Members become busy with their day‑to‑day work it is difficult to engage them in still thinking about things that they hope they may never need to become involved in but that in the longer term might well help them.
Chair: Okay, Kathryn, thank you very much for giving evidence today. We will no doubt be in touch with you very shortly in the future. Thank you very much. We appreciate it.
Witnesses: Lord Bew, Chair, Committee on Standards in Public Life, Alexandra Runswick, Director, Unlock Democracy, and Dr Elizabeth David-Barrett, Lecturer in Politics, University of Sussex, gave evidence.
Chair: Good morning. Thank you for attending this session of our inquiry into the review of the code of conduct. I welcome Lord Bew, Chair of the Committee on Standards in Public Life, Alexandra Runswick, the director of Unlock Democracy, and Dr Elizabeth David‑Barrett, lecturer in politics at the University of Sussex. Thank you very much for coming this morning. Dominic has the first set of questions.
Q12 Mr Grieve: Thank you and welcome. Can I start with the code of conduct for MPs? In its widest sense, do you think it has had any impact and has it gone any way to solving the problems it was intended to address?
Lord Bew: We are very aware from our polling, and from polling jointly with the Hansard Society, that, if you mean simple levels of trust, it has not really helped. We are living in a very difficult situation. Transparency in general has not brought the results that were hoped for. The expenses crisis is part of it and there are numerous other reasons: the problems of social mobility in this country, the fact that the nature of political parties has changed and mass membership has gone. Many things have been adduced. There is a whole combination of reasons why the public now tend to regard politics as a disreputable insiders’ game. This does not mean in any sense that actual levels of trustworthiness are lower. Lord Nolan, my predecessor on the Committee, did not believe actual levels of trustworthiness were lower. How can I possibly say, after 20 years of radically increased transparency and attempts by Parliament to meet the concerns of the public, that real levels of transparency and trustworthiness are lower? No, we have to concede that we have no alternative but to continue with this work. There is no question but that it would get even worse if we did not, but it is not going to take any benign tricks. When I first took over this job I thought that by the end of five years, with these sorts of initiatives and others I have been involved in, one thing that would happen, in the fading of the expenses scandal, was that the levels of trust as registered by this question would start to rise. I no longer expect that.
Alexandra Runswick: The short answer to your question is no. The public are very clear that there should be a code of conduct but they do not see it as something that is there for them to engage with. There are issues around the code of conduct and what is in it, but there are also more profound issues around public trust, for example about public understanding of what Parliament is and what MPs do. There are bigger issues around the public not understanding the job of an MP; in particular, the fact that different MPs choose to do that job in very different ways means that there is not something that the public can go to and say, “Okay, I can expect my MP to hold X number of surgeries in the constituency or I can expect them to balance their time in this particular way.” Before the code can even begin to address some of those trust issues, there has to be more understanding generally about Parliament and the job of Members of Parliament.
Dr David-Barrett: The impact on the public is one matter on which there is ambiguous evidence. Another issue is the impact on the behaviour of Members. Again, it is quite difficult to measure, but it has definitely provided a lot more guidance and a benchmark against which Members can at least judge what is expected of them, and that is useful for the public, too. The code has had an important impact on the reputation of the UK internationally—on its standard‑setting role internationally. Many Parliaments in Europe have adopted codes recently and they look to the UK as an example. The other impact is within the UK. The commissioner mentioned the fact that the devolved institutions look to the House of Commons as a model, as does local government. There is a developing apparatus all around the UK for standards, and the code of conduct of this House is one of the important standards that is looked at.
There are increasingly inconsistencies among the different codes. For example, I find it somewhat strange that in local government there is now a requirement to declare pecuniary interests. Potentially, there is a criminal offence for failure to declare, and there is a time limit—you have to declare your interest within 28 days. That seems inconsistent with a House that tends to look quite kindly and be quite soft on forgetting to declare. There is a danger that the House of Commons will lose that standard‑setting role if it does not keep ahead of the trend.
Q13 Mr Grieve: I was interested by the comment about the impact that our code was having elsewhere, that it was seen as being a good code. I find that quite interesting because, on the one hand, there seems to be a bit of negativity that it is really having any impact on changing people’s perceptions of MPs’ behaviour, yet the code itself appears to be seen as a very important document.
Dr David-Barrett: Absolutely. Partly people like the principles approach. Parliamentarians recognise that these are difficult issues that are not black and white, and they often welcome it. The issue of the impact on the public is difficult, but parliamentarians often welcome the clarity and guidance that is provided by a code.
Q14 Ms Darcy: One purpose of the code is to ensure that the public has confidence in the standards system and the standards expected of all Members, and that the House is committed to upholding the rules. Do you think the current code is fit for purpose and what do you think the purpose should be?
Lord Bew: There was a very interesting exchange this morning between Mr Rader and Kathryn Hudson. You were talking about devolved Assemblies, and Kathryn Hudson in her reply said that lobbying was something that they had taken up in their work on this issue. It is a real issue to think about. We produced a report in 2013. I would not fetishise the detail, timings or restrictions that are proposed in it. There was more debate in the House of Lords, because they changed the gift levels that Members could accept in line with our report, than there was in the House of Commons. It is an area for debate and proper discussion, rather than me saying any particular proposal is the right one. Probably currently, as things stand, what is there is a little weak.
Again—it is implicit in what has been said before—there is a very difficult issue around double jobs. We are currently taking the line in the Committee on Standards that as long as Members explain in their campaigns what they are doing, and that maybe they have another area of work, that is fine and legitimate. That is our position, but the polling has changed dramatically, in terms of public expectation, since Lord Nolan’s day; 60% of the public are against. We have to take that into account. I am not sure how one deals with it. The public’s attitudes are often inconsistent. I have often drawn attention to the fact that 80% of the public do not believe in state funding of political parties, but 80% of the public also believe that people only give money to political parties because they expect to get a peerage or some other gain. There is a problem in public attitudes. The public want, in this case, MPs to have broader experience and do not like the idea that people have had solely political careers. Again, there is inconsistency. All I am saying is that these are areas of work, and, as a Committee generally, the Committee on Standards has laid a lot of emphasis on induction. The House has moved radically in this respect towards induction for new Members, but there are even questions, now that you are changing your Committee’s membership, about induction for new Members. There is probably a greater role for induction. Things have greatly improved in what is available for new Members, but there is an issue about what we currently have and whether or not there is a case, in view of some of the things that Kathryn Hudson said are going wrong, for reminder sessions during the life of a Parliament, rather than a short, sharp blast at the beginning, especially on some of the matters of detail she mentioned.
Q15 Ms Darcy: Can I pick you up on the inconsistency that you can get with public opinion polling? What do you think the purpose of the code should be, given that inconsistency and the difficulty in commanding public confidence?
Lord Bew: These things are very difficult, because the fundamental problem is that nobody goes into public life with unalloyed motives: it is not possible and human beings are such as they are. Secondly, we have a party system. At some level that is fundamental to our freedoms. At another level, parties are vehicles for ambition, and sometimes not very good behaviour, in terms of ethical behaviour or even the very fine Nolan principles. The job of satisfying the public as such is inevitably going to be somewhat imperfect, even in things that are fundamental to our freedoms. I do not want to overstress this point, but what has not happened so far is that we have moved from quite widespread disdain for individual Members of Parliament to any public belief that the democratic system is fundamentally flawed. The fundamental premise of a code is not to hope that suddenly 80% of the public are going to turn around and say, “I trust my MP,” or whatever, but actually to put in place all the things, particularly in terms of transparency, which will not take dramatic tricks but are a deterrent to bad behaviour, to prevent us from reaching that tipping point. In other words, I have a cautious negative assessment, the tipping point being when people start to think that the system itself is more deeply flawed. That has not happened. The people who work in it regard it as deeply flawed. That is what we should be trying to deal with.
Alexandra Runswick: I agree with a lot of what Lord Bew said. Bearing in mind everything that has been said, the public know very little about the code of conduct. They have a general sense that one should exist but probably have virtually no interaction with it at all. The public have very clear views that they do not trust MPs or public authorities to regulate themselves. They believe very firmly that it should be independent bodies that do the investigation. If you look at the opinion polling that the Hansard Society did for the Committee on Standards in Public Life, the responses were very clear: the public did not trust authorities to uncover wrongdoing or to punish it if they found it, particularly where you have two bodies investigating the same incident. For example, with the allegations against Malcolm Rifkind and Jack Straw, this Committee and Ofcom came to very different conclusions. The public perception, regardless of the rights and wrongs of the issue, was that MPs were looking after themselves, and Ofcom was independent and came to a different conclusion. I agree that you cannot fundamentally change that with one code, but there are some core issues that need to be addressed with the code. For me, they would be a transfer of power from MPs to independent lay members; they would be around whether or not the code should cover public and private life, because for most members of the public there is no meaningful distinction between an MP’s public and private life when they are voting on issues that could cross both. You could have financial interests in a company that could be considered to be your private life, but at the same time you might be voting on regulating them. The very complicated system we have for registering interest draws attention to the fact that it is very difficult to draw a meaningful line between public and private.
The other issue is the one Lord Bew mentioned around second jobs. I accept that the public are contrary on this issue: they want broader experience but they do not want second jobs. There has to be some way of having that debate and involving the public in it. I disagree with what the commissioner said about involving the public at this stage of the consultation. I think it is possible to do. It is very resource-intensive and quite difficult, but it is absolutely possible to do. Depending on how you ask the question, you get different responses and there are different options that may be acceptable to both Members and the public, but Parliament itself needs to address that issue.
Dr David-Barrett: I would emphasise that this is a process rather than a one‑off event. The code should not be seen as something static; this Committee and everything around it should be seen as a process. Within that, I would like to see a lot more debate. I would like to see a lot more debate of individual decisions and cases that come up, both within the Committee and through outreach with the public. I echo what Alexandra said about engaging with the public on the code. If you ask people whether they trust an institution to regulate itself, most people are going to say the same about pretty much any institution, to be honest, but if you can engage people a little bit on the question of what the rules should be, you might get slightly different results.
Q16 Ms Darcy: Do you think the code could be presented in a way that makes it easier to engage the public?
Dr David-Barrett: Absolutely. It is very difficult to understand. I struggle with it—the cross‑referencing; you try to get an answer to a question on one thing and you are sent to a different paragraph in the guidelines, so, yes, absolutely.
Alexandra Runswick: Can I add something briefly on the idea of its being a process and not just a destination? One thing that might also help with public understanding is if, where there are investigations, there is the ability to reflect not just on whether or not that person has broken those rules but whether or not, in the light of that case, the rules possibly need to be reviewed. Obviously there are big inquiries like this, but if there could be space for that reflection quite publicly, whether or not on an ongoing basis, it would be helpful.
Q17 Sir Paul Beresford: Other professional bodies and organisations—dentists, doctors, lawyers and so on—all have a fair contingent of the profession on their governing boards. The interesting thing in the decisions of some of the boards I have looked at is that it has been quite apparent that the lay people suffer from a lack of knowledge, and they need professional people on there. Would that not apply here, or do you think that there should be more lay people on those professional bodies?
Alexandra Runswick: There are a very large number of professional bodies that have a majority of lay members: the General Medical Council—I think, most of the medical councils—and doctors, opticians and solicitors.
Q18 Sir Paul Beresford: That wasn’t the question. Do you not feel that they should have a large proportion—less than half or more than half—that are of the profession they are guiding?
Alexandra Runswick: I think there certainly should be some from the profession they are guiding, absolutely. That point of view needs to be represented in any inquiry, in any body governing a profession, but I do not accept that it is not possible for lay members to have the understanding necessary, because often they do not look just at the technical instance of the experience of the profession but bring broader skills about investigating and understanding. Yes, there is absolutely a role for the profession to be represented, and it must be, but I do not think that means that it cannot also be done by lay members and that they cannot be at least equal members or the majority of the board.
Lord Bew: Can I come in on this point, which is a very sensitive one? It is quite true that other professions use lay members in a very substantial way, and we have looked at this a lot in the Committee on Standards. Having said that, I accept that Parliament is a different case, not just because of levels of expertise, and it is a difficult matter. There are reasons why Parliament has concerns about privilege that is not privilege. Immediately you use the word “privilege” you think of something indefensible, whereas in fact parliamentary privilege is a fundamental part of the evolution of democratic freedoms in this country against various forms of arbitrary power. It is very difficult and I concede that point.
Having conceded the sensitivity of it and why parliamentarians feel nervous, for understandable historical reasons, the view of the Committee on Standards since 2009 has been, in principle, that we want to see lay members playing a significant role and for them to have voting rights. In theory, we wish to see a particular outcome—full voting rights. In more recent times, the Committee on Standards has made it clear in our submission to you that, if that is not possible, we would regard it as a step forward, now that there is a proposal to increase the number of lay members, that it became normal for the views of lay members to be known publicly. Because this is such a difficult matter, I have deliberately taken the temperature of my Committee twice in recent months on this point. It is a Committee that includes Members of Parliament from all the leading parties as well as lay members.
I would not overstress expertise as the key point. The key point is public reassurance. I will conclude with that. We need to move to a pattern where it becomes clear that the lay members have a view. The public are never as reassured as one would like them to be, but you cannot even begin the job of public reassurance without its becoming known that the lay members took a particular view of a problem and that it is not some kind of internal stitch‑up. That is what is really important.
Q19 Sir Paul Beresford: Can I come back on that? I have been on this Committee for some time. We have had one vote, and I am afraid I was the one who caused it. It was before the lay people were here and the result was a disagreement over whether a Member should be thrown out or not. In fact, the police did the job for us. I do not believe it is better to change the system to voting for lay members from the system we have now, because the lay members are asked at every stage of the finality of a paper whether they wish to put an independent view. We have always reached an agreement. Rather than a vote, if the independent lay members put forward an independent view, that, I believe, is more effective than a vote, particularly as it would be an opportunity they could utilise to explain, which you do not have with a straight vote.
Lord Bew: I understand this argument. I tried to indicate earlier that I respect the arguments against having full voting rights for lay members. I understand them and I have a certain sympathy them, but it remains my Committee’s view that it could be done and, on the whole, because of the factor of public reassurance more than anything else, it would be a good thing to do. As I said, I have been taking the temperature of the Committee. Indeed, we have indicated in writing to you that we would regard what is currently being proposed as a step forward. It is all to do with public perception of these matters. In one recent controversial case, the Prime Minister referred to the views of lay members. It was something that he got slightly wrong; he did not understand the way things worked. But the fact that he wanted to do that in a crisis tells you everything that you need to know about the issue. The fact that he wanted to be able to say, “The lay members have a particular view of this particular question” and wanted to be able to say that to the British public tells you everything you need to know, and it trumps everything else about this matter. In fact, in that particular case it was probably not a strictly accurate thing; the lay members were not in a position—put it that way—to do what he wanted at that particular point, but it tells you everything about what is desirable. It is very crude and I concede the point that all the efforts at transparency that we are advocating have not taken the tricks that Lord Nolan and others 20 years ago expected them to take, but it is none the less fundamental to at least allowing the public the levels of reassurance that can be offered; they are still defensible and the alternatives are all far worse.
Q20 Ms Darcy: Sir Paul is right. In every inquiry we deal with, the lay members are asked for their opinion, and now we make sure that it is actively recorded. As a lay member I would comment that, although we might all agree on individual cases, in terms of the process and the ongoing approach to the rules and the cultural change that might be needed in this place, we might have different views and different contributions that we could bring from our external perspectives. Your views on how we could feed those sorts of wider views on cultural change into the process would be really helpful.
Dr David-Barrett: I have a small point, which I think is related. Another thing that has been floated is the idea of having a lay member as chair. That might be another way of giving lay members a chance to frame the debate. Another option is to rotate the chair. The Polish Sejm has an ethics committee that has a rotating chair. That is quite an interesting model of governance. Was your broader point around integrating lay members’ views in the process?
Q21 Ms Darcy: It was about getting the Committee to a place where it is able proactively to discuss some of the cultural change questions that it may need to address.
Dr David-Barrett: Culture change is ultimately what we want. Codes of conduct are an odd hybrid between formal rules and trying to elicit informal regulation. Ideally, what you want from a code is that everybody so much believes in and shares those values that people do not want to breach it because it would damage their reputation; they would feel that there would be shame from their peers if they breached the rules. The need to change the culture is key to having a successful code. As to how to do it, it is largely about getting people talking about it, getting people to think about the norms enough to start internalising them and realising how they might fit or clash with their own internal values.
Alexandra Runswick: Part of the battle is publicising what the lay members of the Committee do. When I was asked to give evidence to this Committee, I spent quite a lot of time trying to find evidence and whether there were any minority reports. It was incredibly difficult to find, and I am fairly good at manoeuvring my way round the parliamentary website. We have already spoken about the fact that the public are not very aware of the code and its exact contents, but the more you can have a lay voice coming through, the better, whether that is in the main report or in a separate report.
Where I disagree slightly with Lord Bew is on the public perception point. I am fairly relaxed about voting rights. For me, it is not so much whether or not lay members can vote. If that is something, as lay members, people want, I am more than happy to support it, but for me it is about the numbers. For me, the public perception will change when there are at least equal numbers of lay members to MPs. That is where you start to get cultural change. Adding lay members to a Select Committee is an important step and has been a cultural change, but it is step one and there is a longer journey to go. It is adding public engagement to an existing model of how Select Committees work rather than thinking more generally about how we meaningfully engage with the public and what structures we need to allow that to happen.
Q22 Mr Rader: Should the code be a set of high‑level principles or detailed rules?
Dr David-Barrett: It should be both. The principles are absolutely important. We are talking about ethical issues on which the expectations of the public change over time, and they vary across different contexts. We need something that is fairly flexible, in that we need principles that we can go to rather than very strict rules. It would undermine the code if there was too much rigid detail. We are trying to build a culture, so it needs to be about principles. Having said that, people clearly need guidance on what they do in a particular case, and that is where the more precise rules are helpful. The mix is good at the moment.
Alexandra Runswick: I agree that there needs to be both. No one could disagree with the Nolan principles. The challenge is not whether you support the idea of integrity being in the MPs’ code of conduct but what that means in practice. Then you come up against issues like second jobs, for example, where some of the public will take a very firm view that an MP having a second job calls into question their integrity. Obviously others, and many Members of Parliament, will see it as broadening experience and bringing additional expertise to Parliament. You need a mixture of both. You need to review periodically when there are issues that need more specific guidance. Lobbying is one that Lord Bew has already mentioned, and I have mentioned second jobs. Over time, as things evolve, there will be additional issues where you need to move from the general principle to more specific rules.
Lord Bew: On that last point, there needs to be a debate about lobbying; it would be a very useful development. It is a remarkable fact that under this Government there has not been a big lobbying scandal, but you cannot assume that situation will continue ad infinitum. The key thing is that there is a problem, which I fully understand, about the plethora of regulations and the constant manufacturing of regulations that are out there. Therefore, it is with reluctance that I agree with Elizabeth. She is right. It needs to be both principles and detail in certain areas, because it is fairly clear that on certain occasions over the last few years Members have not been clear as to the detail of what is expected of them. To conclude my answer to this question, although we obviously wish to see the Nolan principles internalised as much as is possible, it is quite important not to see them as issues of personal character but as relating to the responsibilities of office. That is fundamental from our point of view, if I could put it like that. That is how I would view it.
Q23 Mr Rader: I wonder therefore whether there should be in any detail of the rules a greater linkage with the Nolan principles. I would be very interested in your view on whether or not there is too much emphasis on the registration of financial interests.
Lord Bew: On the first thing, the House of Lords, in its new code, took up the Nolan principles, which were revised and sharpened, in 2013. The House of Lords has internalised them in its conduct regulations, but I have to say that it has also become stronger on the registration of financial interests. The two Houses are different, but it is not incompatible to strengthen your commitment to the Nolan principles, as the House of Lords did, and become more sensitive to financial questions in and around the House. For example, the permissible gift levels were slashed by half, which I think on the whole was a serious response to our document on lobbying, which had suggested something like that.
Alexandra Runswick: Declarations of financial interest are incredibly important. From the public point of view it is about how you do it, because, yes, all the information is published, but it is not done in a way that is at all user-friendly for members of the public, in terms of understanding what the information is, or even the kind of formats it is in. As Lord Bew has already mentioned, both Houses have different systems for doing that, and although there have been some improvements in the way the data are published, it is incredibly confusing. If you were a constituent trying to understand what financial interests your MP had, even the headings they are listed under do not necessarily make sense, and it constantly refers you back to other documents or codes of conduct to explain to you what the data mean. I do not think it is too focused on regulating financial interests; it is more that it has not done it in a way that makes it transparent for the public. The information is all there, but it is virtually incomprehensible if you do not already understand the system.
Dr David-Barrett: I do not have anything to add. I agree.
Q24 Mr Rader: Finally from me, the commissioner mentioned earlier the range of complaints or concerns reported to her, many of which she does not have the power to investigate. Should the commissioner be given more power to investigate breaches of the Nolan principles?
Lord Bew: That is quite an interesting question to put to the Chairman of the Nolan Committee. By a kind of overspill, we too get a significant number of complaints about Members of Parliament, which again are not within our remit, and there is always a slight frustration when we have to explain that. While we are the guardians of the Nolan principles, we do not do individual cases in general, which is very important. I think it is right, if only because the detail of some individual cases is so tortuous and ambiguous that there could be no benefit, in the defence of long‑term principles, from engagement with them. The possibility is, indeed, that if you get something wrong you contaminate the principles. I think my answer to your question is yes, it seems to be a reasonable idea. It is not for us, but—
Mr Rader: I take that point.
Alexandra Runswick: Coming at this from the point of view of the public, I am not sure they even know what the Nolan principles are. As to whether they want more accountability for their MPs or to know how they should hold their MPs to account, I do not think the Nolan principles would come up on their agenda, so I would phrase the question differently and look at a completely different range of mechanisms. I am not necessarily opposed to increasing the powers of the parliamentary commissioner, but I do not think it will impact particularly on the public’s perception of MPs or Parliament. They would be more interested in issues about recall—those kinds of accountability mechanisms.
Q25 Mr Rader: I encourage you perhaps to put some of that in writing to us if there are other views you wish to express.
Dr David-Barrett: The priority might be slightly to increase the scope of the code and the rules in terms of lobbying and the revolving door—some of the points that have already been made. Then giving the commissioner the necessary powers to investigate those areas would make sense.
Q26 Sir Paul Beresford: What about the private lives of MPs? The media do not hesitate, given the right opportunity, but should the code be looking there?
Dr David-Barrett: One potential benefit of a good code is in creating some clarity around the fact that MPs have private lives and should be entitled to privacy. I can see that in an ideal world a code says, “This is off limits; these are private affairs,” but it is very difficult. The current formulation of not bringing the House into disrepute is quite a good one, and I would want to keep it fairly open and allow it to take into account changing public expectations and norms.
Alexandra Runswick: I am very sympathetic to why MPs would want there to be a clear distinction. Unfortunately, I do not think, from the public’s point of view, that there is one. Lots of the things that might be considered private—for example, your financial arrangements; if you have an interest in a particular company and then are regulating that company—call into question integrity issues. I think the public do not see a distinction between private and public, and I do not think it is possible for MPs to draw that line. Certainly, there are lots of other professions for whom their codes of conduct cover both, and I think the code should cover both.
Lord Bew: I accept that on a financial issue such as that the public do not see a difference between public and private, but I think they accept that there is such a thing as a private life to which MPs are entitled. The whole purpose of the Nolan principles is that they are principles of public life. It is very simple: they are, by definition, principles of public life.
Q27 Sir Paul Beresford: Coming back to something that has cropped up time and again, the issue of MPs and second jobs—there are good arguments on both sides—seems to revolve around the financial aspects. Could I put it to you that we should be thinking more broadly than that? It is not the money they are earning; it is what the interest is. I have dual nationality. I do not need to declare it: the moment I speak, everybody knows. If you are a member of CND—we have a big argument over the replacement of certain missiles—it should be declared, but you do not have to declare it. There are various issues, such as if you belong, let us say, to the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds and there is a big issue on a planning application. Do you not think we should be looking beyond second jobs to second interests?
Dr David-Barrett: I am quite sympathetic to that view. In particular, I do not like it when an argument is made that, “I’ve got this interest but I don’t receive any money for it,” or “I’m on the board but I don’t get paid.” That does not seem to me to change the calculation as to whether it is a conflict of interest or not. However, it gets very broad, so it will require some careful thinking about all the possible interests and positions that people take. I am not quite sure that I see an easy way of regulating it, but I take the point.
Q28 Mr Grieve: As a Minister, one has to fill out an enormous form about every organisation the Cabinet Secretary’s compliance department feels that you can still be a patron of. The major problem is usually that you do not even know what organisations in your constituency you are a patron of; you accepted 10 years ago and you are not sure whether in fact you still have that status. You can do it, but it is quite a burden.
Dr David-Barrett: It is possibly not worth while.
Q29 Sir Paul Beresford: But it is probably as relevant as second jobs.
Dr David-Barrett: Possibly, yes.
Q30 Mr Jinman: If I can come in on that, it is interesting that, when being a trustee, you have conflict of interest and conflict of loyalty. It seems to me that that is the other part that has become defined in more recent years and means precisely what you were saying: you may not get paid but you have a duty of care to that particular body—of representation and of knowledge. The duty of loyalty is the one that is being highlighted, and, personally, I feel that is something we need to be aware of. I note that Members very often stand up and say, “I am an honorary member of…” before commencing a statement. Having that registered is a useful guide to a person’s background.
Alexandra Runswick: I agree that it is about more than just the money. Often the focus is on the money, partly because that is quite salacious, but also because, if you are looking at how you address the issue of second jobs, the money is the easiest one to address; you can do it by time, you can do types of job or you can do money. Money is the simplest one to regulate, so I think often the focus is on the money for those reasons. I fully accept that it is about much more than just an amount of money that an MP is able to earn; it is about how much time constituents feel their MP is spending on the main job of being an MP and on any additional work they are doing. It is also about whether or not they feel that the jobs are bringing in something external to Parliament or that a Member of Parliament is getting a job on the basis of their skills and experience and their potential ability to lobby within Parliament. For the public, that is where the issue is—as a possible corporate lobbying route. It is not just about the money, but the focus on the money is because that is the simplest way to regulate it.
Lord Bew: My perspective is inevitably the House of Lords, where, in a sense, we all have second jobs, or most people do. Particularly in the last five years, the House has become more and more sensitive about registering in speeches all the interests in the register of interests. That is very revealing and important, to the extent that now if you forget as you are speaking and then suddenly remember and stick it in in your speech halfway through, it is regarded by quite a large number of Members of the House as improper behaviour, even when it is a slight slip of the mind and somebody suddenly says, “By the way, I should say while I am speaking on this that I have this role.” That is where it has got to; not declaring it straight away at the top of the speech is disapproved of. That is revealing in itself. Even mentioning it as the speech goes on will meet a slight harrumph of disapproval.
Q31 Mr Jinman: May I pick up on another area? In the review of the 2015 Northern Ireland code, there was a recommendation for the introduction of a code of conduct for Members’ staff? How far should Members be responsible for their staff, and is that something that should be introduced?
Lord Bew: Apart from Mr Rader, I am the only person from Northern Ireland around the table at the moment. That recommendation was provoked by a number of fairly dramatic newspaper stories about scandals connected with special advisers to the members of staff. That is the context for that particular development, but just because there were unique circumstances that fed into the suggestion, it does not mean it is a bad suggestion in principle. It probably makes sense because, if some weird and wonderful things could happen in the Northern Ireland Assembly, they could happen in this Parliament too.
Alexandra Runswick: It is certainly worth looking at, but I do not know enough about it to be able to comment in detail. As Lord Bew said, where other codes are highlighting issues, it is certainly worth reviewing.
Dr David-Barrett: Training staff in the code and everything that it means is an important part of the process, not just because of the staff’s own responsibilities, but because of their role in advising MPs and highlighting things that might be problematic. That is definitely worth looking at. The other related issue is employing family members. That increasingly looks anachronistic and odd to the public.
Q32 Mr Jinman: Can I lead into another area? It is the broad and difficult area sometimes of bringing the House into disrepute—the reputation of the House and the reputation of the Members therein. Where do you put the bar on that? Where is the level at which a behaviour is deemed to have had an effect on all rather than on one?
Dr David-Barrett: That is very difficult. It has to be looked at on a case‑by‑case basis. I am not sure you can have a black and white rule.
Lord Bew: If I could return to the earlier point, the Nolan principles, which my Committee wants to defend and we want Parliament to defend, are not just about personal character; above all, they are about the responsibilities of office. That is the key determinant. I understand there are great sensitivities around the idea of bringing Parliament into disrepute and great sensitivities about what some Members see as effective entrapment—it is a very difficult debate—but the guiding line has to be, and Parliament should be determined to defend, some concept of the Nolan principles of public life and responsibilities of office. Issues of personal character, while they must to some degree be related to willingness to accept the Nolan principles, are not in the frame in the same way, if I can put it like that.
Q33 Mr Jinman: There is the definition problem as to whether it is a job, or what indeed the role of the MP is; we have looked at that previously. If you look at professions, bringing a profession into disrepute is very often considered actionable by a regulatory body. If one explores that a little further, and says “bringing the House, or the job, the employment, or the profession of MP into disrepute,” is that something that should in fact be added to the list and looked at?
Lord Bew: There is a very intense ongoing debate about precisely that problem. The only point I would make is that you are absolutely right about professions, but Parliament is not analogous with professions in that way, for a number of reasons, one being that entrapment is more likely to happen for Members of Parliament; you cannot rule it out for certain professions, but it is much more likely for Members of Parliament. It is a really difficult question. I am not disagreeing with you; I am just saying it is a more complicated question. The Committee on Standards is going to have to engage with it a lot over the next few months, because there has to be a discussion. An advantage of my Committee is the existence not just of lay members but of the three Members of Parliament. We are going to have to talk seriously about this particular issue, because everybody knows that it is coming to the forefront very quickly indeed.
Q34 Mr Grieve: Let me be controversial for one moment. I happen to think that the Nolan principles are extraordinarily good principles on which anybody should base their public life, but when I read them and compare them with the reality of political life in the House of Commons, they bear very little relationship to the reality at all. Just as an example, they mention things like objectivity. Forgive me, but objectivity is not what many people elected to this House think it their business to be promoting at all. They have ideals and ideology and they wish to promote them, and of course the whole democratic process is the sliding and tension between the tectonic plates of people’s opposite views. If we were all standing around being objective, this place would become very dull very quickly. I have sometimes wondered whether in fact we might have a problem in trying to marry the Nolan principles in their entirety to what goes on in politics. Perhaps we need some other set of principles, other than Nolan, to be applied to parliamentarians, because I have always found this marriage very difficult. While I myself think that for Parliament, or anybody, to decide to adhere to Nolan is very wise, it is very far removed from what in fact politics in the raw is really about.
Lord Bew: I think I have already indicated that I understand that, but I would also make a slightly different point. From the point of view of the Nolan principles—for those principles to be viable—they assume the functioning of a liberal democracy along relatively decent lines. Every dictator in the world thinks he is objective and honest. I am simply making the point that there is that rather complicated relationship. In some ways, the Nolan principles are subordinate to the existence of a fairly decent liberal democratic political system, which makes the question even more difficult. Party competition is at the heart of our freedom, and at the same time it is not often the site for the operation of the principles of selflessness, and so on. That is the tension we work with. Whether or not one produces something different, I am not sure. There is a value to the Nolan principles, which is one reason why the Committee—before my time—has always resisted revising them. Maybe not among the public more broadly, but certainly among a number of sectors in professional life in Britain and in the media, they are understood and they are reasonable and decent guidelines. But there is a problem about where they fit with the world of party political politics, and I concede that. On the whole, we continue to work with the principles because they are recognisable and decent broad guidelines.
Alexandra Runswick: Could I briefly add that the very point you raise about the realities of political life would also prevent you from changing the Nolan principles? If you look at the work the Hansard Society did in its audited democratic engagement about MPs’ attitudes to ongoing ethical training and continuing professional development, you will see that even when MPs had had that as a routine part of their previous professional life, they did not want it to be part of the role of an MP, because they thought the public would see it as a waste of public funds. It is one of those tensions where you raise a very good point, but it is also the very point that will stop you doing anything about it.
Dr David-Barrett: That is an excellent point. On the objectivity point, although Members have partisan interests, we still have an expectation that that interest is broadly about their view of what it means to serve the public interest. You can still make distinctions. I have a couple of other points about partisanship. The parties should play a greater role in ethics training and there should be a party‑equivalent forum, which might provide an opportunity for Members to speak frankly about how to behave in dilemmas or in difficult situations that perhaps cannot be achieved here, but it is also extremely important that this Committee is cross‑partisan and above that partisan fray.
Q35 Mr Jinman: What rule would you like to see introduced? If there is a new rule and you have the opportunity, what is missing? You have spent a lot of time looking at the rules. What is needed?
Dr David-Barrett: The issue of the revolving door needs to be looked at. MPs have traditionally been outside any sort of regulation on post-public employment. I think the arguments were that one individual MP did not have much influence and that it was too restrictive on their independence in a role where they might lose their seat easily at any point. Those arguments are absolutely valid, but at the same time there might be an argument for distinguishing different roles of MPs. MPs certainly have a lot of access to power and different roles. Being Chair of a Committee, for example, gives you different kinds of access to different potential employers. It is something that needs to be looked at.
Alexandra Runswick: I completely agree with that. In previous responses we have already touched on lobbying and the need for the code to address the perception of lobbyists being able to use MPs, or MPs themselves being able to be lobbyists for companies. The big one for me is the one we have already discussed—second jobs.
Lord Bew: I would say that lobbying is potentially the most dangerous issue for Parliament in the immediate future. From our point of view as a Committee, the legislation of two and a half years ago had the effect of making it more difficult for us to push the case for the document on lobbying that the Committee had decided to do, indeed before my appointment, because, once Parliament has decided to move in a particular area, any report, no matter where it is from, is to some degree discounted. Parliament has acted and that is decisive in the short term, but, as time moves on, I think there might be a debate around what happens to MPs and how they find work after they lose their seat—I do not in any way suggest necessarily, as there are very different rights. It is a very insecure profession now, much more than it was, and there are different rights to be balanced. All I am suggesting is the crucial importance of a debate around this area, and an acknowledgment that the lobbying legislation that we have had, while useful in certain respects, has not resolved and tidied up the matter in any decisive way. That would be a fortunate thing. Our lobbying document, for example, raised issues about things such as the enhanced role of Chairmen of Select Committees, and how they are more sensitive, which bears on points that turned out to be very important in terms of newspaper headlines over the last year. Getting the balance right, I concede, is very hard. We do not have a system of indentured servitude in this country, even for MPs. On the other hand, Parliament would benefit enormously from widespread acceptance of the lobbying legislation, as it now is; while it has done some useful things, it is not the end of the matter.
Q36 Chair: In relation to lobbying, which specific rule or rules would you change?
Lord Bew: We would probably be looking for a more restrictive timescale than is currently being talked about, but as to exactly where you take it, we talked about two years for MPs, and that is why I am being careful. While our report says that, there are different rights to be balanced, and all we want to see—the most important thing first of all—is a serious debate. That is a key area from our point of view. As I mentioned in passing, we now have to take into account the fact that the role of Select Committee Chairmen has been greatly enhanced over recent years, and the information they have access to is also greatly enhanced. Therefore, they have to be considered, in a way that probably would not have been necessary several years ago, as a separate category when one talks about their future and lobbying. But again, how you do this is for Parliament and there is room for a lot of discussion. I think we were right to flag up the issues. Some of them have already turned out to be, in practice, difficult and burning issues. There is plenty of room for more thought on these matters.
Alexandra Runswick: In terms of the current register, there are specific things that need to change to improve it. It would need to cover all lobbyists, not just consultant lobbyists. There are also some very basic transparency issues that Parliament itself can address: for example, the way that ministerial meetings data are published. The Department of Energy and Climate Change currently lists all meetings as being about energy and climate change, which, while I am sure it is absolutely true, is not necessarily in the spirit of transparency.
Lord Bew: That is a good point.
Alexandra Runswick: There is also the speed with which those kind of data are published. Looking more specifically at the code of conduct, and where that might help with lobbying and the issues of second jobs and revolving doors, there is the principle that any external appointment needs to be about bringing external expertise into Parliament, rather than experience gained in Parliament being used for the corporate sector. That principle around any second job is an important one.
Dr David-Barrett: I agree with those points. On the revolving door, there should be a requirement for MPs to seek advice, at least on positions that they are planning to take, and that should be open to scrutiny by the public.
Q37 Mr Grieve: You have probably answered the next question. Looking at the current register and declaration of Members’ interests, are there specific changes arising from what you have just said that you would like to see?
Alexandra Runswick: Unlock Democracy, together with Spinwatch, has been trying to put together a website to bring together all the different transparency data that Government already publish, so that it is all in the public domain and published in one place. We have been finding it a technological nightmare, because, while all the information is there, it is all in different formats and it is updated at different times—often it is in the digital equivalent of the cupboard under the stairs and it does not in any way relate to anything else. There are lots of broad principle changes, which we have already talked about, on lobbying, and about ethics, training, and all kinds of things, but at the basic level Government transparency could be hugely increased in the way that their data are published and the way that they all relate—in the same way as I mentioned earlier about the register of Members’ interests. It is all there, but not in a way that the public can meaningfully engage with on their own. That is something that needs to be looked at seriously. We would love nothing more than for Government to be so transparent in the way they publish their data that we do not need ever to launch our project, but that is not looking as if it is going to happen any time soon.
Lord Bew: Could I add to Alexandra’s remarks? We have been pushing very much on the two areas of timeliness and transparency of Government release of information, all of which is out there more or less as promised, but delivered at times of the year, and so on, that make it difficult for it to play the role that it might have played in reassuring the public. We are told that things will improve. Whether that will happen is another matter, but the Committee on Standards has consistently, since the publication of our lobbying document, been pushing on the transparency and timeliness of release of information, away from the model that Alexandra gave of the most terse.
Q38 Mr Grieve: I can understand the wider issue about Government, but if we narrow it down to MPs’ registers, on the face of it, if somebody wants to look at my entry, they can look at my entry. Obviously, there is the issue about being unpaid, and I think I picked up the bit about unpaid appointments that might not feature when I am patron of something. I am trying to drill down as to what else we ought to be putting in that list. On the face of it, it is in one place, although there may be other information you can get from elsewhere. What more should we be putting down in that register?
Dr David-Barrett: A lot of it is around usability. If I want to search for a particular company and see which MPs have registered an interest relating to that company, I cannot do that at the moment. Similarly, if I want to search a particular MP’s interests over time or get usable data against which you could cross‑reference other things, perhaps with voting records, that is not possible, or at least not without downloading and collating all the data yourself.
Alexandra Runswick: I echo that. You might be able to find in an MP’s entry in the register of interests that they have a financial relationship with a defence company. You would then have to go somewhere completely different to find, for example, whether or not they were also a member of a defence APPG. It is about those kinds of links. All the information is published, but not in an accessible way, not in a way that people can make or discount those links.
Q39 Mr Rader: Are you suggesting that that is an IT problem or are you alluding to the fact that you think there is something more that could be done?
Dr David-Barrett: A lot of it could be solved with a good interactive database.
Alexandra Runswick: It is not just an IT problem, but IT would resolve a lot of it.
Sir Paul Beresford: I might be able to help on that. The Administration Committee is looking at the IT, and so on. We are a long way from getting to the website. We have some massive problems, which we have to work on, and a lot of the stuff is out of date. I believe the recording method, to give you an example, is Betamax, if you can remember that, to give you an indication of how far we have to go. It is on the Committee’s list to sort. Don’t hold your breath.
Q40 Mr Jinman: How much further do you feel you want the knowledge to go? Is it just the Member? What about the Member’s wife and children? How far do you want to extend this, because very often companies are in the names of families and so on? Where is the limit, and, equally, the purpose? You are using the words, “the public want to know.” I am interested in how far we take this and when it becomes an invasion of the MP’s privacy—of their family and their private life. Where are the limits?
Dr David-Barrett: It probably needs to extend to spouses and children, otherwise it would be too easy to avoid transparency for people who wanted to do so. I am not sure. It is a debatable issue. Another way of doing it is to have a requirement to declare the information about spouse and children—not make it public but declare it to a commissioner or a committee. I think France does that with its register.
Alexandra Runswick: I agree that it would certainly need to be immediate family, because there have already been cases where people have—if not broken—certainly pushed the boundaries by either employing family members or using family members’ names so that they might not have been as transparent as they should have been. That would be important.
Lord Bew: Obviously, some of the things in your mind’s eye involve this, but where the public interest is involved that must be the defining feature. Elizabeth’s suggestion of adopting a French model may be the best and most sane way of dealing with it. I come back to my basic point about transparency. The truth is that all these moves will not reassure the public as much as we once hoped they would, but, on the other hand, one of the great advantages of transparency still remains that it is a deterrence to bad behaviour.
Chair: Thank you very much for coming before us today. We appreciate all your responses. Thank you once again.
Oral evidence: The Code of Conduct and Guide to the Rules, HC 817 3