Procedure of the House

Kevin Barron Excerpts

Thursday 26th March 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hague]

Before I give way again let me discuss some of the arguments because I want to leave time for the shadow Leader of the House and others.

The arguments in favour of the status quo are that it is a familiar procedure, that it is a quick procedure, and that the Speaker stands for election as the Speaker in his or her constituency in expectation of continuing in office and is therefore in a different situation from other officeholders. But obviously the arguments the other way are very strong. We conduct the great majority of elections in the House, and all elections out in the country, by secret ballot for reasons well understood and instantly appreciated. That has been a general principle of our democracy since the 19th century. Whenever voters elect someone to a position of power and authority over them, the principle is that they should be able to do so without fear or favour. It is how we elect our party leaders, it is how we elect our Select Committee Chairs—[Interruption.] It is certainly how we elect our party’s leader. It also frees MPs from pressure from the Chair or from their parties.

[Kevin Barron (Rother Valley) (Lab)]

This proposal, like the elections for Committee Chairs, goes against one of the major principles of standards in public life: transparency. Should we not bring Parliament into the 21st century and make all elections for everyone open, so that we and the electors can see exactly what we are doing in here? We have a bad enough reputation now; this motion sullies it further.

[Mr Hague]

I think it would be a minority view on both sides of the House that all elections should be by open Division or open voting. The right hon. Gentleman can make a case for that, but it is a minority case. Indeed, the Liaison Committee has said that the election of Chairs by the whole House gives those chosen a greater degree of authority in their role in the House, their relationship with Ministers and their standing in the wider community. The Standards Committee, which he chairs very capably, said:

“We recommend that the Chair of the Committee be elected by all MPs”—

which means in a secret ballot—

“as we believe this would enhance the confidence of the House in the Committee”,

so his Committee has made the case, as he will have to admit, for election by secret ballot.

Committee on Standards (Reports)

Kevin Barron Excerpts

Tuesday 17th March 2015 Commons Chamber

[Kevin Barron]

I am delighted to open this debate, which represents the fulfilment of a great deal of unsung and often thankless work by the Standards Committee.

I should like first to talk about the proposals for changes to the composition of the Committee. Those were recommended in the sixth report of this session, which the House is asked to note. The report was put before the Committee by the Standards Sub-Committee, which was set up in response to the reflections of the lay members of the Committee on their first year in office.

The lay members have prepared a further note covering their experiences after two years in office. That will be published shortly, and I have no doubt that the new Committee will find it as useful, if as challenging, as we found the first one.

The Sub-Committee was chaired by Peter Jinman, one of the lay members, and the House, like the rest of the Committee, has much reason to be grateful to him and his colleagues. Although the report was prepared by the Sub-Committee, it was adopted without demur by the main Committee. Contrary to any fears that may have been expressed before the lay members were appointed, this agreement between the lay and elected Members of the Committee has been typical.

The lay members were appointed to the Committee in 2012 when the Standards Committee was separated from the former Standards and Privileges Committee. Their introduction was intended to strengthen the independent element in the standards system. The first independent element, of course, was the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards. As the report makes clear, her role remains crucial and undiminished and her independence in her field is unaffected.

In the event, the lay members have changed the Committee in ways that were not all expected. By bringing their outside experience to bear, they have encouraged the Committee to rethink its working methods. They have given it the self-confidence to suggest moving away from being a largely reactive body that comes into play when it receives a memorandum from the commissioner and towards being one that seeks to play a clearer and more positive role in standards setting.

The position of the lay members is not always understood. The fact that they cannot vote or propose reports or amendments is sometimes used to suggest that they are in some way ciphers or stooges. I want to say to the House, and to the people listening outside, that that is absolutely not the case. Not only do the lay members play a full part in debate, but any one of them has, by Standing Order of the House, the right to append an opinion to any report of the Committee.

Moreover, given that it is essential that one lay member be present for the Committee to be quorate, they have an effective veto over the transaction of business. Fortunately, neither opinion nor withdrawal has ever been necessary; the lay members have gained their points by discussion and persuasion, and the Committee’s work has been greatly strengthened as a result.

We have recommended that the number and proportion of lay members of the Committee be increased. That brings the House’s system closer into line with the regulatory systems for professions such as the law and medicine, and it is way ahead of lay input in the Parliaments of Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the USA, none of whose equivalent Committees has any lay members whatsoever.

At present the Committee consists of 13 members— 10 MPs and three lay members. We propose that the overall size of the Committee be increased from 13 to 14, of whom seven should be lay members. That will also give us an opportunity to have more diversity in the Committee. Instead of the current quorum of five elected members and one lay member, we propose that the new Committee’s quorum should be three elected and three lay members. If agreed to, our proposal will also permit the term of office of lay members to run over a Parliament, making succession planning smoother. All those changes should strengthen the position of the lay members even further as well as allowing the Committee to experiment with different ways of working.

We also propose that the next Chair of the Committee should be elected, as the Chairs of most other Committees of the House now are. In principle, I think that is an excellent idea. On the other hand, I must warn any prospective candidates that, if elected, they will be in for an interesting and sometimes rocky road. None the less, it is a job worth doing, and one that is crucial to maintaining and improving the reputation of the House.

The report looked in some detail at the current system. It made a few suggestions for changes in practice by the commissioner and the Committee but found that the system was generally proportionate, the process fair and the sanctions appropriate. Some Members might think that our report spends too long setting out the existing system. We did that because we found that it was often misunderstood, and not only outside the House, but within it, and we wanted to help remedy that. Understanding of the system is not helped by the media coverage of parliamentary standards issues, some of which verges on the biased. I will give one example. The House has put restrictions on the remit of the commissioner. The Committee accepts that those should be reviewed from time to time, but none the less for the time being they are in place and the commissioner must abide by them.

The sixth report pointed out that many complaints to the Commissioner for Standards fall outside her remit. This applies particularly to what might be called level of service complaints, when a constituent feels that a Member did not help them as the constituent asked. We suggested that time, resources and frustration might be saved, not least for complainants, if constituents could be helped to understand better what MPs can and cannot do, what they may reasonably be expected to do, and when some other person or institution should be approached first.

Following publication of the report, one newspaper carried the headline, “MPs no longer want to help constituents with their bin collections and street repairs”. We do live in an elected democracy. Any such suggestion is ridiculous. Insult was added to injury in this case because the Committee had held a press briefing at the time of the report’s publication and Committee staff had already explained the recommendation to the journalist concerned. The misrepresentation was deeply disappointing, if not predicted from some quarters.

Misunderstanding of the system is not restricted to the media. There is widespread ignorance even in the House on occasion about what our system is. The Committee believes that the House authorities should do more to promote understanding of parliamentary standards—for instance, by making the website clearer. The Committee accepts that it, too, could do more to help the media and the public to understand its reports, in particular the process by which they are arrived at. We have made some suggestions for our successor Committee and to the commissioner to consider how this might be done, though any Committee will be careful to avoid getting drawn into argument about specific cases.

We are glad that plans have been made to make the induction of new MPs more effective.

The House is committed to reviewing the code of conduct and guide to the rules once in every Parliament. I now come to the proposed changes referred to in the first motion before us. These have been a long time coming, as they were first proposed in the Committee’s third report in the 2012-13 Session. Indeed, it was mainly the delay in bringing them to the House that led the Committee to recommend that its reports should be debated within two months of publication. Still, better late than never, and I am pleased that any difficulties seem to have been resolved and that the Government are now able to bring changes forward. This means that the revised code and guide will be in force at the beginning of the new Parliament. This will be crucial in assisting people who get over the wire, both those who are Members of the House now and new Members coming into the House. It will be enormously helpful if the proposed changes are agreed to.

The proposed change to the code of conduct reverts to the position as it was before 2013, making it clear that the code does not seek to regulate what Members do in their purely personal and private lives. We understand that this change meets the approval of Members.

The proposed changes to the rules make the rules on registration simpler, clearer and more consistent, tighten the rules on lobbying and make it clear that previous resolutions of the House are to be read in a way that is compatible with the code and guide currently in force. In this way they allow the House to respond to the recommendations of the Group of States against Corruption, otherwise known as GRECO, a Council of Europe body of which the UK is a member. Like the lay members, the GRECO report holds a mirror up to the House, and we should consider carefully the recommendations it contains. The recommendations and the Committee’s response to them are printed in our third report, to assist the House.

As the sixth report makes clear, the maintenance of high parliamentary standards is a matter for each and every one of us, whatever parliamentary position we may hold. There are many different sorts of leadership in the House. Standards are not a matter for the Committee on Standards alone: it is important that political leaders understand the system, and do not inadvertently undermine it by appearing ignorant of the rules. These are the House’s own rules, agreed in debates like this, and we should all respect them.

Business of the House

Kevin Barron Excerpts

Thursday 26th February 2015 Commons Chamber

[Kevin Barron (Rother Valley) (Lab)]

The Leader of the House will know that many, many months have passed since we agreed the principle of standardised packaging of tobacco. I understand that we are waiting for the detail of the regulation to come through. Can he tell us how that will happen, whether it will be dealt with on the Floor of the House or in Committee, and when it will happen?

[Mr Hague]

I cannot tell the right hon. Gentleman that yet; otherwise I would, of course, have announced it in the business statement. Details will become clear as the days go by. I have made it clear before that regulations could be laid but that they could not be made until after a date in early March—I believe in the first week of March. We have not got to the point when those regulations can be made, and we will announce how we are to do it in due course.

Business of the House

Kevin Barron Excerpts

Thursday 5th February 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hague]

The whole country takes this matter very seriously. This country rightly has a high reputation for animal welfare, and that must be preserved. Investigations into the matter are taking place, as my hon. Friend says, and those are important. The Crown Prosecution Service is considering the evidence for a possible prosecution. On labelling, we support the EU study that is looking at consumer opinions on methods of slaughter labelling. That study has been delayed, apparently, but it is now expected in the next couple of months. We will be able to review the options at that point and I am sure that the House will want to debate them.

[Kevin Barron (Rother Valley) (Lab)]

I am delighted to see that action 20 of the Government’s anti-corruption plan states:

“House of Commons to approve the proposed amendments to the Guide to the Rules relating to the conduct of Members”,

with a deadline of March 2015. The Committee on Standards is very happy to support the Leader of the House in implementing that Government policy. When will the debate take place?

[Mr Hague]

I am very grateful for the right hon. Gentleman’s support. I absolutely hope that the debate will take place. He and I have discussed it a number of times. There are a number of outstanding Committee reports to address in the remaining weeks of this Parliament. My hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg) talked about a European Scrutiny Committee report, there are important reports from the Procedure Committee and there is this important report from the Standards Committee. I will do my best to accommodate these things in the coming weeks, with the right hon. Gentleman’s support.

Respect Policy

Kevin Barron Excerpts

Monday 14th July 2014 Commons Chamber

[Kevin Barron (Rother Valley) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House approves the First Report from the Committee on Standards, Session 2014-15, Respect Policy, HC 321, which endorses proposals for the operation and review of a policy to deal with complaints of alleged bullying or harassment by Members or their staff towards House of Commons staff.

The motion appears in my name and those of the Leader of the House, the shadow Leader of the House my hon. Friend the Member for Wallasey (Ms Eagle), and members of the House of Commons Commission.

I want to make one thing clear at the outset: the fact that the Committee on Standards and the Commission are inviting the House to agree to a policy to deal with allegations of bullying and harassment is not a sign that there is a widespread problem. It shows the reverse: that the Commission wants to be a good employer and that Members of Parliament themselves want to make sure that any incidents of bullying and harassment are dealt with effectively.

Recent events have shown the dangers of not taking action to deal with potential problems. We are no longer in a situation where a quiet word with the Whips might be used to persuade an MP to change his or her behaviour. We need to be able to demonstrate that we do not have a culture of covering things up or of avoiding difficult issues. We also need to make sure that the system is fair and recognises that complaints need to be handled appropriately.

Although we may have very different political philosophies, those who stand for election do so because they believe in social justice, however they define it. It would be perverse for this House to be one of the few places without an effective and visible policy.

This debate and this policy are necessary because MPs are not employees of the House, but we depend on the services provided by those who are employed by the House of Commons Commission. If staff of the House are bullied by their colleagues, management can discipline those colleagues. If we as MPs bully our own staff, they have rights under employment law, as well as the support structures many parties have now put in place.

MPs, however, cannot be disciplined by the House of Commons Commission if they bully or harass House staff. We are in the position of hotel guests or other service users. If this were a hotel, services might be withheld from a particularly obstreperous MP, but that would be going against everything that the House service exists to do. It has never, ever been contemplated.

If it is to be a good employer, the House needs to have a policy in place that tackles the fact that MPs cannot and should not be subject to sanctions imposed by House management, but provides a clear framework for dealing with incidents when things go wrong. The motion gives us the opportunity to do that, and I believe we should agree it not only because we think it is right and that the House should be an exemplary employer, but for reasons of self-interest. Without such a policy, the House of Commons Commission is vulnerable to legal challenge if things go wrong.

The report by the Committee on Standards, which I Chair, briefly sets out the background to this debate. There has been, and there still is, a respect policy, which comes in two parts. The first deals with the informal resolution of disputes between Members and staff, and it remains in force. The second, which dealt with formal action if differences could not be resolved, has been suspended, because in practice it was found to be flawed, not least because it was seen as unfair to the Members being investigated. Investigation was done by a member of House staff and Members had no right of appeal, but staff did. It was quite clearly, in the Committee’s view, flawed in that way and I think most people agreed.

The note on our website on what Members can expect from the House service makes it clear that dignity, courtesy and respect on both sides are central to the relationship between Members and staff. That is generally the case. I have checked before delivering this speech, and there is not a single live complaint about a Member at present.

That is not to say that bullying is inconceivable: I think we all have to accept that it happens in almost every workplace. We operate in a high-pressure environment, and I am absolutely sure that, sometimes, things are said that are almost instantly regretted. Diffidence and patience with the status quo are not natural qualities for an MP, so a framework is necessary in case things go wrong.

The proposed policy strengthens the informal part of the process and revises the formal part of the process, so that investigation is independent and the complainant has no more rights than the person complained about.

The informal part of the process is most important. It requires Members to be told if they have upset a member of staff. I am told that, in most cases, Members have immediately apologised and taken steps to make amends as soon as they know that they have upset someone. It requires managers to look at the wider picture and consider whether difficulties arise because of a lack of capability or resources. If difficulties cannot be resolved, and both parties agree to it, there will be mediation.

These measures should mean that very few cases are taken forward to the formal stage of the process—that is, possible investigation by the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards—but it is right that we should have effective measures to deal with such exceptional cases. If a complaint is made, the Parliamentary Commissioner will review the material. She will decide whether the behaviour alleged is so serious that it meets the high bar of conduct that would have the potential to

“cause significant damage to the reputation and integrity of the House of Commons as a whole, or of its Members generally.”

Members will know that that quotation is from Members’ code of conduct.

As the respect policy itself makes clear, the commissioner may be concerned by a complaint about a brusque response in a highly charged political situation. She has the power to make recommendations to management about the handling of the situation and to settle matters informally, if both parties are willing to do so, even at such a late stage. Where it is appropriate, she will be able to investigate and report to the Committee, which will decide what action to recommend.

We recognise that cases of this kind can be difficult for both the complainant and the person complained about, so they will be handled differently from normal complaints. A far higher level of confidentiality will be observed, and names will be released only if the commissioner concludes that bullying or harassment has occurred. As hon. Members know, when the commissioner investigates the activities of a Member of this House, that fact is currently stated on the commissioner’s website, even though nothing is found against the vast majority of Members. The commissioner—like the Committee on Standards and, I believe, the Commission—thinks that that should not happen in the rare circumstances of these cases.

The Committee did not take the decision lightly to endorse the Commission’s proposals. We wanted to be sure that the existence of the formal stage of the process was not seen as an excuse for management to ignore their responsibilities towards both staff and Members. We consulted every Member of the House, and took comfort in the fact that there were very few replies on that point. We did not agree to this change until we were sure that real measures were in place to prevent problems from arising in the first place, and to stop problems needlessly escalating if they did arise.

We wanted to make it clear that this matter is primarily the responsibility of the management of the House. I welcome the fact that the respect policy recognises that difficulties may arise not simply from a Member’s behaviour, but from other behaviour. At the very first stage, it requires line managers to consider whether there is a resourcing, capacity or other issue that needs to be addressed.

We wanted staff training to make sure both that staff are appropriately trained to deal with what I shall call “customers” in difficult situations, and that managers understand their responsibilities under the new system. We understand that training has begun, and that there will be more training for staff of the House to implement the change.

We wanted it to be clear to everyone that the bar for investigations by the commissioner would be high, and we are satisfied that the new policy spells that out. We were also concerned that the new system should work for staff. We asked the House authorities to assure us that staff whose first language is not English will be adequately supported, and I am glad to say that that is included in management guidance.

We are also grateful to the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards for her work with the House authorities and with us. She worked with the House authorities to make sure that the human resources processes in place recognise that making a complaint to the commissioner is a last resort. She reviewed the procedures for investigation so that there is a separate appropriate procedure for use in such cases. I have already noted the higher level of confidentiality. The new procedure also involves the complainant, as well as the MP, in checking the facts in the commissioner’s memorandum. Both parties will of course have the opportunity to appear before the Committee if there are further proceedings.

There is one final safeguard. The Committee recognises that this is a major change, so we recommend that it is reviewed in the next Parliament, and we invite the House to give the House of Commons Commission, together with the Committee, powers to suspend or renew the policy. I expect the findings of the review to be published and possibly debated, if that is felt necessary.

Let me repeat that I do not expect many cases to be brought under the policy. I do not think that bullying is widespread, but that should not be an excuse not to have an effective means to deal with it. I am sure colleagues on both sides of the House would condemn bullying in any other workplace. This motion gives us the opportunity to make it clear that we will not tolerate it in our own workplace. I hope that the House will agree to the motion.

[John Thurso (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD)]

May I place on the record the thanks of the House of Commons Commission to the Chair of the Committee on Standards, the right hon. Member for Rother Valley (Kevin Barron), for his and the Committee’s work on this very important matter? As with everything it does, the Committee took it extremely seriously, put in a lot of work and came up with something that is thought through and detailed, and does exactly the job we had hoped it would do.

I want to pick up on two of the right hon. Gentleman’s points. The first is that it is absolutely essential that the policy is fair to all parties. It is vital that the House has a respect policy that looks after staff, but it is equally of the utmost importance that it is one in which Members have full buy-in and can feel confident, because otherwise it would not be fair to both sides. The second point is that there are no outstanding complaints at this time. By far the majority of Members treat the staff with the courtesy and respect that they so richly deserve. When it is made clear to them, most Members who have from time to time been errant in their behaviour immediately apologise to the members of staff concerned. The policy is as much a preventive measure as something to deal with a problem, and it puts us into the category of best practice employers. The way in which the right hon. Gentleman framed the opening of the debate is very much what the Commission had hoped for.

I will briefly set out why the policy is so important to the Commission. The Commission is of course the statutory legal employer of House staff, and it therefore has a very important duty of care towards them. Without effective policies on bullying and harassment, the House is more vulnerable to legal charges. There are of course policies in place for bullying and harassment of members of staff by their line managers and employers and for relations between Members and Members’ staff, but there is a gap between members of the House service and Members of the House in that, as was pointed out, we are rather more customers than employers. In that respect, the problem is that unlike the customers of most establishments, who can be shut out by the establishment’s owner if they are felt to be bullying or harassing the staff, it would be unthinkable for Members to be excluded. We therefore require a policy that works, and the respect policy seeks to address that situation.

Notwithstanding the fact that occurrences are very rare, some 7% of staff—nearly 100—experienced some form of harassment, according to a survey of staff, in the previous 12 months. For one in six of those affected, the harassment took the form of repeated incidents involving the same individual. The proportions are small, but that suggests that something like 20 to 25 House staff may experience ongoing problems with one or more individuals.

As the Committee’s report sets out, the policy initially agreed by the Commission in June 2011 proved to be flawed. It was based on policies used by other employers, but it did not fully take into account the special relationship that exists between House staff and Members. I reiterate that the Commission is very grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for taking on this unenviable task. We believe that it has produced something that provides a proper mechanism for dealing with the rare circumstance of the most serious cases. The Committee has concluded that the revised policy is fair to all parties, as I have mentioned. On that basis, the Commission both thanks the Committee and commends the policy to the House for its endorsement.

I should note that, assuming the House agrees to the motion, the policy will come into effect immediately, but it will not be retrospective.

[Kevin Barron]

The hon. Gentleman says that the policy will not be retrospective. However, if somebody has a difficult relationship at the moment, something that has gone on during the past few days, weeks or months might be added to a complaint to the commissioner if she felt that it ought to be investigated. There are no such cases whatever to my knowledge, but just in case there are, I thought that we should mention that the policy would be retrospective in relation to such behaviour over many months or years that is considered at some point in the future.

[John Thurso]

I am most grateful to the Chair of the Committee for intervening to make that point. Of course, at the moment no complaints are extant, so there will be nothing retrospective about complaints that we know about and have dealt with. However, if a complaint is made now, it will of course be subject to this policy.

The House greatly values its staff and the exceptional work that they do in supporting us all. An effective respect policy is a very important part of delivering the Commission’s aim to be exemplary employer. I commend the policy to the House.

All-party Parliamentary Groups

Kevin Barron Excerpts

Tuesday 13th May 2014 Commons Chamber

[Kevin Barron (Rother Valley) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That–

(1) this House approves the Sixth Report of the Committee on Standards, Session 2013-14, HC 357, on All-Party Parliamentary Groups, and the Rules for All-Party Parliamentary Groups contained in Annex 1 of that Report.

(2) the Resolution of the House of 17 December 1985, as amended on 10 March 1989, 29 July 1998, 7 February 2011 and 12 March 2012, relating to the registration of interests be further amended with effect from the beginning of the next Parliament by:

(a) leaving out paragraphs 3 and 4; and

(b) inserting a new paragraph 3:

“Chairs of All-Party Parliamentary Groups shall be responsible for registering the matters specified in the rules for such groups and for the group’s adherence to the Guide to the Rules for All-Party Parliamentary Groups”; and

(3) the Committee on Standards shall have power to update the Guide to the Rules for All-Party Parliamentary Groups from time to time and to make such minor changes to the Rules for All-Party Parliamentary Groups as are necessary to ensure the effective operation of the Register of APPGs and the regulatory regime applying to such groups.

I am delighted that the House is able to debate the report, which sprang out of Mr Speaker’s recognition that all-party group regulation needed to be reconsidered to ensure that it remained appropriate. As I recall, both you in a previous life, Madame Deputy Speaker, and I were members of the working group that was set up. It was chaired by my right hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw), who unfortunately is unable to be with us tonight, although he would have liked to have been here. The Select Committee on Standards built on the proposals of the Speaker’s working group but we also conducted our own investigation. The lay members of the Committee played a full part in this investigation and their presence meant that we had the power for the first time to see ourselves as others see us. I can assure the House that lay members may be friends but in private they have no hesitation in being critical friends. In my view, their ability to be critical friends is precisely what makes them worth having on the Committee. I am sure that view is shared by all members of the Committee. As a result of their involvement we know that the Committee’s proposals command the support of people who have taken the trouble to inform themselves about the way this place works and the wider issues involved in all-party group regulation.

As part of our work, the Committee joined with the Administration Committee to get some hard facts about the way in which all-party parliamentary groups operate. We surveyed all APPGs to find out the range of support they received and the frequency of their meetings, and besides that quantitative evidence we took qualitative evidence from colleagues from external organisations involved with APPGs, from those who reported on them and from critics as well.

I do not think we should be embarrassed about APPGs. Indeed, I would be surprised if more than a handful of us were not involved in APPG work. APPGs enable groups of Members to inform themselves about policy. They allow us to work across party lines and to work across both Houses. They allow us to educate ourselves. Today’s all-party Whip shows that Members have opportunities to meet with UK ambassadors from many different countries, hear about the launch of the Green Investment Bank’s new scheme to help local authorities install energy-efficient street lighting, look at the links between mental health and problem debt, or hear about immigration detention in the UK from Shami Chakrabarti or social work from Martin Narey—that is only some of the meetings that are taking place today under the all-party group system. There is a great opportunity for Members of this House—for legislators—to hear from experienced people on many issues.

[Robert Flello (Stoke-on-Trent South) (Lab)]

I draw the House’s attention to the various APPGs with which I am closely involved, and other declarations of interest. One APPG today met a group that included over 60 members of the freight industry. Members of the House were able to hear from them, and were informed by a response from Baroness Kramer. That knowledge would not be able to be received in any other way.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)]

Order. Interventions must be brief.

[Kevin Barron]

My hon. Friend’s point is well put. I am no expert on freight but if I wanted to be and I was involved in making legislation in this House, that is the type of opportunity that is available to share experience from outside.

APPGs come in all shapes and sizes, from a few people effectively acting as a friendship group for a particular country to groups such as the parliamentary and scientific committee, which provides a way for parliamentarians and the science community to communicate with one another, often through major events. APPGs provide a forum for parliamentarians to press for change. They also provide a forum in which outside organisations working on the same topic can communicate with one another.

It is true that APPGs provide a forum in which outsiders can promote policy to Members of Parliament. I think it is reasonable for us to listen to those who want to lobby us, whether they are charities, businesses or knowledgeable individuals. Their ideas will only be taken up if we think they are good. This is a Parliament—a place where people talk. We talk to one another in formal proceedings, but, even more, we talk to people outside this place, both formally and informally. We need to do that to do our job, so there should be as few barriers as possible to people talking to MPs. Freedom of association is one of the rights protected by the European convention on human rights. Nobody wants to stop MPs talking to each other or to those outside this place, but we could not stop, even if we were mad enough to want to try. Any regulatory regime has to be proportionate, or all-party groups’ activities will simply be driven underground.

It is fair to say that there is a suspicion about all-party groups and at least a danger that they could be misused, so we need a regime that reduces the chance of such misuse. Before I go into that, I just wish to say that I hope last week’s events in this place made it clear that existing rules already prohibit Members from using all-party groups for personal gain and that the Committee on Standards will have no hesitation in condemning those who seek to misuse them.

Our proposals in this report are based on five principles: ensuring parliamentary control of all-party groups; ensuring responsibility and accountability; financial transparency; improved understanding; and proportionality. On parliamentary control, it is already a requirement that groups should meet to elect officers at Westminster on a sitting day and that the meetings and annual general meetings should be advertised on the all-party notice. We also propose an increase in the quorum; that only parliamentarians should have voting rights in all-party groups; and that all members—MPs and peers—should be entitled to vote in an all-party group.

Our proposals on responsibility and accountability are designed to ensure that groups are regulated from this House and it is clear who is responsible for compliance. Rather than having a contact officer, all-party groups should have a chair from the Commons, who will have responsibility for ensuring that the group complies with the rules. All-party group notices should give a parliamentary e-mail contact—we are working on that at the moment. We recognise that external support can be invaluable, but if these groups are really of interest to Members surely we should be willing to provide some resource to support them. Complaints about all-party groups could be and will be investigated by the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards.

Members are already responsible for registering benefits they each receive as a result of APPG membership, such as visits or hospitality, and that will remain. We also recommend that APPGs that receive £12,500 per year will need to submit annual income and expenditure statements. Benefits in kind will need to be described and have an approximate financial value ascribed to them. We believe that is a sensible thing to do, but that does not take individual members of all-party groups away from their individual responsibilities to register such matters.

On improving understanding, we want there to be clear APPG branding, accompanied by clearer rules about the informal work Members undertake which is not linked to APPGs. The House has formal Committees and, in APPGs, a mechanism for MPs and peers to work together outside that formal framework. Members are entirely free to work outside those frameworks, but we should not be attaching the logo of Parliament to groups that do not comply with the regulatory requirements. Some offers were made during the debate and with the working group on getting harsher on this, but we genuinely believe that such an approach would drive people away from the formal all-party group structure into an ad hoc system, which would have little, if any, influence. We want to make sure that that is avoided. There also needs to be far better information on APPGs on the parliamentary website. I am pleased to say that the all-party Whip is now at least available on the intranet.

On proportionality, as well as making sure that the financial transparency regime is effective without being onerous, we propose to end the requirement for there to be 20 qualifying members before a group can be set up. In practice, it has meant that colleagues have signed up to groups on the principle that they might some day be interested, or because if they wished to found a group themselves their colleagues would be more likely to support them. I have had an interest in several all-party groups for most of my time in this place, so I know that that is the case. Members trade names. They may say, “Well, you can put me down for that one, as long as you don’t expect me to do any work in that area.” We feel that that behaviour should now end, and there is detailed recommendation about how to do that.

It was impossible to distinguish between groups that attracted a great deal of parliamentary interest and those that were, shall we say, more specialist, and we feel that there should be more transparency in that area. Let me end with a quote from our report. It says:

“No one wants a Parliament where Members have no interaction with wider society, take no steps to inform themselves about matters of public concern or are simply lobby fodder for whichever party they represent. APPGs perform a useful function in allowing Members to set the agenda and in allowing wider groups to put their case to interested parliamentarians within a framework which ensures transparency and control by Parliament.”

I hope that the House will agree to our proposals, which are intended to produce such a framework.

--- Later in debate ---

[Kevin Barron]

I am very pleased that the report has the support of the House. I have heard the wider debate on the issues. Paragraph (3) of the motion gives the Committee licence to make minor changes without necessarily coming back to the Floor of the House, but we will use that in a sensible and proper manner, if at all.

Question put and agreed to.

Standards

Kevin Barron Excerpts

Thursday 8th May 2014 Commons Chamber

[Kevin Barron (Rother Valley) (Lab)]

Let me first say to the Leader of the House that we did point out the issues about Members of the House of Lords not having constituents and that a suspension from this House meant a suspension of pensions and salaries as well. The reason we used the analogy in this case is that a Member of the other place was caught by the same sting, for want of a better expression, and we therefore thought it right and proper that we ought to look at it.

I am pleased to have this opportunity to set out why the Committee on Standards considered that Mr Mercer’s actions merited, as we have heard, the longest suspension since 1947, with only one exception, which, as Members will know, ended up in the criminal courts with a conviction.

The House is a place for policy debate, which happens formally in the Chamber and informally outside it. Members do their best to explore different points of view and to establish the underlying facts, and almost every Member works closely with external groups to do so. That is entirely legitimate. The Leader of the House mentioned the Committee’s report on all-party groups. He will see in that report, which we are pleased to be debating next week, that my hon. Friend the Member for Stockport (Ann Coffey), stated very clearly in her evidence that lobbying is part of the parliamentary process. Members talk to a lot of people, they listen to a lot of people, and then they make up their minds. The rules allow MPs to have external interests, but they do not permit paid advocacy. It is not acceptable to receive money in return for acting in Parliament or to use your position as an MP to get advantage, either for yourself or another person. That has been against the rules for centuries. Members who do this undermine our democracy. As this case shows, it is not possible to evade the rules simply by paying lip service to them; Members’ actions matter.

I remind the House that this case is not, like many cases that have grabbed the headlines for many years now, a legacy case from the expenses scandal of 2004 to 2009. It is not a legacy—it happened during the lifetime of this Parliament. That puts some of our feelings into perspective. I hope that Members will read and take notice of what we have said.

[Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)]

On legacy cases, was my right hon. Friend surprised to see the chairman of the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority quoted recently on the front page of a Sunday newspaper criticising the process, despite the existence of a memorandum of understanding on these matters between this House and IPSA?

--- Later in debate ---

[Kevin Barron]

Yes. That relates to the preceding case the Standards Committee dealt with, which has not been debated in this House. I was very surprised indeed, because we have had a memorandum of understanding with IPSA since 2010. If it is felt that this House should take action against a Member—only this House can do that—the case will initially go to the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards and then to our Committee, which will produce a report and make recommendations. IPSA has never approached us on such an issue in any of the past four years. If any UK organisation knows about Members’ expenses post 2009-10, it is IPSA, so I was not particularly happy about that.

[Mr Graham Allen (Nottingham North) (Lab)]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that the all-party groups, so many of which have secretariats from outside this place, are the next big scandal waiting to happen, and that the only way to clean up the situation is for Members themselves to take responsibility for the groups by funding them and, if they care about the issues so much, using their own resources to make sure the process is clean? The Mercer case could be the first of many, if we are not careful.

[Kevin Barron]

The Standards Committee did not know that this would come up when we started looking at all-party groups. The right and proper time to discuss those matters will be during next Tuesday’s debate.

The Committee on Standards has been critical of media stings in the past, but the case under discussion was not one in which a Member was misrepresented or had made a single error. It was a sustained course of conduct, not an ill-advised response to a single “fishing” incident.

There has been some confusion over the respective roles of the Committee and the commissioner. The commissioner is a finder of fact. She investigates and presents her findings to the Committee, and sometimes those findings include advice on the interpretation of the rules. The Committee entirely agreed with the commissioner’s conclusion that Mr Mercer’s actions had inflicted significant reputational damage on the House and its Members. The commissioner does not have a role in recommending a penalty. It is for the Committee to decide on the recommended penalty, and MPs and lay members play a full part in that discussion.

In this case, the Committee took into account the gravity of the offence and the penalties given in similar cases in the past. In fact, there are very few similar cases, and in most of them the Members concerned were no longer in Parliament by the time the Committee’s investigations were over. There is very little we can do about ex-Members.

As our minutes show, the Committee seriously considered an even heavier penalty than the one on which we eventually agreed. It is disappointing when colleagues say that the Committee overturned the views of the independent Commissioner for Standards and suggest that there are fundamental disagreements between the Committee and the commissioner, because that is not the case. Clearly, no system is beyond improvement. Indeed, the Committee will itself hold an inquiry into how the House’s disciplinary process could be improved, and the commissioner will contribute to that process as fully as possible. However, public confidence is not helped when Members of Parliament attack the integrity of the system rather than try to understand the Committee’s work, or when they claim that the Committee has overturned the commissioner’s findings, without appreciating the complexities of individual cases.

I do not want to go into this in great detail, but on 8 April my hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw (John Mann), who sadly is not in his place, asked an urgent question and said that the Committee’s proceedings should be open

“so that people can see on what basis the Committee overturns the views of the independent Commissioner for Standards”. —[Official Report, 8 April 2014; Vol. 579, c. 124.]

There are three pages in that report that clearly explain our decision in relation to that of the commissioner. I advise Members of the House to read our Committee’s proceedings before dashing to the media to grab a few headlines.

I would have more sympathy with Members’ calls for reform to increase public trust if the proposals of the Committee on Standards and Privileges, made in December 2012, to update the code of conduct and the guide to the rules had been debated in the House. We are still waiting for that to happen.

[Mr Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)]

I am probably interrupting the Chair of the Standards Committee to make a different point, but on public confidence, why did Mr Mercer hear about the contents of his report before it was published from journalists briefed by people who were party to the report? Is that not a breach of privilege that the right hon. Gentleman should take very seriously?

[Kevin Barron]

We are undertaking a form of inquiry into what happened and this is all I can say at the moment, but it looks as though what was in the media came out before the decision had actually been taken. We may make a further report to the House at some stage if we feel that it is necessary. However, I have no concerns about that. The integrity of the Committee stands good. We take decisions not on the basis of party politics, but on the basis of the commissioner’s memorandum, the precedents of actions we have taken in the past and what is presented to us. What happened was unhelpful, but it may have been based on pure speculation about this case. As has been said, there are other cases, one of which—in the other place—is directly related to this media sting.

Finally, if any Member has issues about a report, its coverage in the media or anything else, they can talk to me or any Committee member. We hold no party political proceedings on such matters. We are trying to get this place beyond what came to light in 2009, and it would be most helpful if all Members kept that in mind when talking about Standards Committee reports. I hope that the House will accept this report.

Business of the House

Kevin Barron Excerpts

Thursday 1st May 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lansley]

My hon. Friend will know, not least from the many occasions on which I have quite properly received representations from hon. Members, that it is important to Members of this House that they can advise and support their constituents on many issues arising from asylum and immigration and that they can do so effectively through their contact with the Home Office and its associated agencies. I will, if I may, ask my hon. Friend the Minister for Security and Immigration to respond directly to my hon. Friend on the subject of the cost of the asylum immigration hotline. If he is happy to do so, he might like to have a direct conversation about how we can best represent our constituents in a way that serves their interests.

[Kevin Barron (Rother Valley) (Lab)]

Will the Leader of the House find adequate time for discussion of the outstanding reports from the Standards Committee that await debate and of the report from its predecessor, the Committee on Standards and Privileges, on the proposed revision to the guide to the rules relating to the conduct of Members? That report was published in December 2012, yet we are still waiting for time for a debate in the House.

[Mr Lansley]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his question, which allows me to say that I had hoped that we might have resolved those issues before now. We have not and I hope that we will soon. We and other stakeholders across the House need to establish consensus not only on that important issue but on how we might take forward the issues that the right hon. Gentleman and his Committee are considering as regards a more general revision of the code of conduct. I hope that in our conversations and my representations to his Committee we might be able to strengthen the work of the Standards Committee and give greater reassurance to the public and our constituents about the independence and robustness of the processes we have in place.

Parliamentary Standards

Kevin Barron Excerpts

Tuesday 8th April 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lansley]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend, who expresses that point very straightforwardly and well. I think the House will know that if at any point the lay members of the Standards Committee were to present an opinion to the House which had the effect of dissenting from the decisions of the Committee as a whole, the House would take that very seriously indeed.

[Kevin Barron (Rother Valley) (Lab)]

The Select Committee on Standards adjudicates on individual cases but also has a duty under Standing Order No. 149 to consider any matters relating to the conduct of Members. On 22 March, before any of the current controversy arose, the Committee received a thoughtful paper from lay members on their impressions of their first year on the Committee from January 2013 to January 2014, which was also sent to you, Mr Speaker, and was placed in the Committee’s programme for future discussion. The Committee has already decided to examine the current system for consideration of complaints about Members of Parliament, to consider improvements as required. We will be drawing up detailed terms of reference over the next few weeks, drawing on the lay members’ reflections. The lay members will continue to play a leading role in this work.

The Committee has reported the lay members’ paper to the House and it is available on our website. As the lay members say, it is a matter of regret that the Committee on Standards and Privileges’ recommendations on standards issues have not yet come before the House but the Committee is determined to lead on these issues in the interests of maintaining the integrity of this House.

The Committee does not think it is appropriate to keep a running commentary on its decisions in individual cases, but at our meeting today the Committee authorised me to say that it continues to believe that its individual adjudications are impartial, fair and non-partisan. It is extremely important that those who express opinions on these cases both within the House and outside it should have read closely the careful reasons and evidence-based conclusions set out in each report. The Committee will continue to work closely and co-operatively with the commissioner to reach objective, fair and non-partisan adjudications.

[Mr Lansley]

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

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

Kevin Barron Excerpts

Tuesday 8th October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

That is excellent news.

[Mr Kevin Barron (Rother Valley) (Lab)]

Tagged on to this debate is a report by the Committee on Standards and Privileges, which I chair, that we published on the day of the Bill’s Second Reading. It was all a bit of a hurry because of the Government’s haste to get these provisions into Parliament. On 18 July I wrote to the Leader of the House with some major concerns that we had about the Bill’s implications for Members of Parliament and the consequential implications for the codes of conduct—our own rules in relation to Members’ activities.

The House of Commons has long been concerned about lobbying. As early as 1695, the House resolved:

“The Offer of any Money, or other Advantage, to any Member of Parliament, for the promoting of any Matter whatsoever, depending, or to be transacted, in Parliament, is a high Crime and Misdemeanour, and tends to the Subversion of the Constitution.”

Successive resolutions have restricted what Members are permitted to do. The current code of conduct states:

“No Member shall act as a paid advocate in any proceedings of the House.”

Indeed, the “Guide to the Rules relating to the Code of Conduct of Members” makes it clear that prohibition on advocacy is not limited to proceedings in the House or approaches to Ministers but extends to approaches to colleagues and to any servants of the Crown. Consultant lobbying is usually understood to consist of the acceptance of money in direct return for lobbying activity. Under the code of conduct as currently written, this would almost certainly be a breach of the advocacy rule. We noted that the requirements for the registration of Members’ financial interests are far more detailed than the Bill’s requirements for entries in the register of consultant lobbyists. There was grave concern that had it remained as first published, there would have been major conflict between Members of this House and organisations outside.

We recognised that although Members are permitted to have outside interests, a Member who carried out consultant lobbying would be breaking the current rules of conduct of the House. None the less, we also recognised that that could change if the House changed its rules to permit such activity, though we considered that to be extremely unlikely. If that were the case, Members would then not be immune from the general, nor should they be. If the advocacy rule were ever rescinded, a Member who acted as a consultant lobbyist should be subject to the same rules as any other such lobbyist.

We had to draw up the report very quickly because of the timetable that we have had for the Bill. We brought up two major concerns in our conclusion. First, we said:

“In our view, the difficulties about the way in which the legislation applies to Members of Parliament would be swept away if paragraph 2 of Schedule 1 was removed.”

The Government’s amendment 29 does that, I am pleased to say. As has been clearly pointed out in the debate, under the paragraph I would be potentially restricted to lobbying the Secretary of State or a senior civil servant only on the basis of a constituent having contacted me about an issue. That would be nonsensical. It would mean that to be able to do the work that I have been doing on public health for many years in this Chamber, I would first have to get a constituent to write to me about it. It could also affect my ability to go to a recognised charity that is concerned about public health issues and work with it in the hope of getting more effective legislation. We all do that, as the right hon. Member for Chesham and Amersham (Mrs Gillan) said.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Graham Allen (Nottingham North) (Lab)]

I thank the Government and the Leader of the House and his team for paying attention to the report that my right hon. Friend put together. That shows that it can be done. We improve legislation the more we talk and the more we listen. This is a very good example of that, and I hope that there will be many more examples to come.

[Mr Barron]

On the two issues that we were concerned about, the Government have seen sense. This hasty piece of legislation has been changed so that we, as Members of Parliament, are not prevented from representing our constituents on wider issues. The day this Chamber can listen only to advice coming from the Executive, we may as well be in Stalinist Russia, and that is not something that I would feel comfortable with.

[Mr Redwood]

A couple of Opposition Members have raised the issue of paid advocacy and I want to reassure anyone following our debate that no one in this Chamber is saying that MPs should be allowed to receive top-up money from outside this House and then advocate the cause of those paying them. That is clearly wrong. It is against the rules and nothing in the Bill would facilitate it. I think we all agree on that, so that argument is a red herring.

The issue we are debating is the crucial one of the legitimate role of an MP and whether it can continue untrammelled by a Bill that could inadvertently capture legitimate things that an MP does. If the Leader of the House is going to guide us to reject the new clause, I want reassurance that the lobbying element of an MP’s job will be completely untouched by the way in which he wants the Bill to end up. In moving the new clause, my hon. Friend the Member for Harwich and North Essex (Mr Jenkin) made it clear that he is trying to resolve the issue of the legitimate work of an MP.

A very important part of an MP’s job is to be the chief lobbyist for their constituency but, as colleagues have said, we may also wish to be a lobbyist for another interest group that is not based in our constituency. It may be a very important part of a shadow Minister’s job to represent an industry, charity or group of underprivileged people who are not in their constituency, in order to shape national policy. Individual Members may wish to pursue similar themes, even if they are not prominent in their constituencies. It enriches our debates and makes for a fairer society if anyone from outside this House can find MPs who support their cause and who can be their advocates. We are lobbyists for all sorts of groups and interests throughout the country, whether they are in our constituencies or not. It is very important that a court or external body does not assume that, because we are paid a salary and because we lobby Ministers on behalf of the interests of people and companies throughout the country, we are subject to the rules under discussion.

I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Mr Cash) that we are not seeking special privilege. We are saying that this Bill is designed to stop abuse of the lobbying system and I want a reassurance from the Leader of the House that it has not been worded in a way that inadvertently could trap MPs as if we were an abuse of the lobbying system, when the healthy expression of lobbying, through and of MPs, is fundamental to our democracy. I think that view is shared throughout the Chamber. The great difference between a free society and a tyranny or an authoritarian regime is that any group, interest, person or company in our country can try to find an MP who thinks they have a fair cause, and if they persuade an MP of that—without any payment of money or anything inappropriate—their cause can run in this House and have the chance of influencing Ministers.

I hope that the Leader of the House can reassure me that the Bill will leave absolutely no doubt that we can be lobbied and that we can lobby, and that we are the free lobbyist for anyone with a good cause.