Code of Conduct
Charles Walker Excerpts(12 years, 2 months ago)
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Mr Charles Walker (Broxbourne) (Con)
It is a great pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Rother Valley (Mr Barron). Let me begin by paying tribute to the work of his Committee and the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards. A great deal of thought has gone into their review, and much of what is suggested makes perfect sense. However, my amendment seeks to address and limit the no doubt well-intentioned recommendation that will allow the commissioner to broaden his remit into investigating and adjudicating on Members’ conduct in their wider private and personal lives. I believe that that proposed intrusion into Members’ private and personal lives is a step too far, and I am worried about where it may lead the commissioner and the House if left unamended.
Justifying an extension of the commissioner’s powers, the Committee states on page 11 of its report, paragraph 2, that
“The Code does not seek to regulate the conduct of Members in their purely private and personal lives or in the wider conduct of their public lives unless such conduct significantly damages the reputation and integrity of the House of Commons as a whole or of its Members generally.”
If deconstructed, however, that statement, far from limiting the new powers of the commissioner in the area of Members’ private and personal lives, gives him almost unlimited scope to investigate any action committed in this space on the basis that it is potentially damaging to the reputation of Parliament and its Members. A less generous, but accurate, interpretation of paragraph 2, page 11, would read as follows: “The code will seek to regulate the conduct of Members of Parliament in their purely private and personal lives, if it is the view of the commissioner and the Committee that their actions could be deemed significantly to damage the reputation and integrity of the House of Commons as a whole, or of its Members generally.”
I worry about where this new activism by the commissioner might lead. Over the weekend, I racked my brain to try and imagine scenarios in Members’ private lives that would trigger the interest of the commissioner, and I could only come up with two topics: the bedroom and the bottle. In common with most people, these are the two weaknesses that seem most likely to compromise Members of Parliament in their private lives.
On page 24 of the report, the commissioner argues that his interest is warranted on the basis that
“a Member of Parliament is never off duty. Once elected, a serving Member is likely always to be seen as a Member of Parliament, with the duties and obligations that go with that position, wherever they are and whatever they are doing.”
I dispute that view. Despite living in his constituency full-time, the Member of Parliament for Broxbourne—namely, myself—is, on occasion, most certainly off duty, and be assured, Mr Deputy Speaker, if I were not off duty on occasions, I would slowly, but surely, go mad. Perhaps that point has already been reached.
Mr Robert Syms (Poole) (Con)
I find it refreshing that the commissioner thinks we are never off duty. I wonder whether that will be reflected in the Senior Salaries Review Body review of our salaries.
Sir Paul Beresford (Mole Valley) (Con)
May we think about a recent case that the Committee considered? A Member might have had a private meeting, perhaps with another family member who was a businessman, and in which there was a discussion about funding and payment. During that meeting, the Member might have utilised his position as a Member, and that might have become public knowledge, although the meeting was private. I am sympathetic to where my hon. Friend wants to go, but I am bothered that we have not looked at this issue properly and I would like him to consider putting his point but—as the Committee Chairman, the right hon. Member for Rother Valley (Mr Barron), said—then allowing us to look at it carefully later, to ensure that we do not err.
Oliver Heald
May I return to the theme I was developing earlier, in what was described as a very long intervention? I shall try to be briefer this time. The commissioner suggests that some of the new rules might be split. We used to have rule 2, stating that the rules do not
“seek to regulate what Members do in their purely private and personal lives”,
whereas rule 16 said Members must not bring the House into disrepute, which was, in a sense, a mop-up rule. Matters are set out in a more coherent way now, but there is no real change.
Mr Walker
I disagree with my hon. Friend about that. The commissioner is clearly trying to give himself powers to investigate Members’ private and personal lives, which is why this amendment has been tabled.
The commissioner’s interpretation of a Member’s status is at odds with that of another regulatory body, the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority, which states in its consultations and press releases that a fundamental principle of its scheme is that MPs
“should be treated…as far as possible like other citizens.”
The various regulatory bodies that oversee and adjudicate on our activities cannot reasonably expect to have it both ways. The public now rightly demand that Members of Parliament should face the same rigours that they do in their daily lives. The flip-side of that must be that parliamentarians, “like other citizens”, also have the right to a private life and private space—and in this private space people will, on occasions, make mistakes.
It is in the nature of our job—this vocation—that if these mistakes are large enough, they will be picked up and reported by the press, with all the opprobrium, shame and upset that goes with having our private calamities played out on a national stage. I look back at the personal agonies that the former hon. Members for Croydon Central and Winchester went through in the last Parliament, and I shudder to think how much worse things would have been for them if the parliamentary commissioner, however well intentioned, had been conducting his own forensic investigation into their actions, dragging in family, friends and perhaps other aggravating parties. There would have been months and months of investigation, all in the name of protecting the notional honour of the House.
The Committee does not dismiss the possibility of such investigations. It offers a well-meaning but vague assurance on page 6 of its report that
“like the Commissioner, we do not think the Committee or the House should be drawn into judging a Member's purely private and personal relationships.”
Why is that sentence not worded more forcefully? Why does it equivocate when it could say that “the commissioner and the Committee will not allow the House to be drawn into judging a Member’s purely private and personal relationships”? Why is that assurance not given by the commissioner and the Committee? The reason, I believe, is that it cannot be given because the commissioner knows full well that, almost exclusively, personal scandals and misfortunes are where the action lies.
Oliver Heald
Does my hon. Friend’s amendment not create the same problem? If the matter in question were not only to relate to a Member’s conduct, but also affected their ability to be an MP—rank dishonesty falling short of crime, for example—the commissioner would be able to investigate. Does my hon. Friend’s amendment make any difference, therefore?
Mr Walker
In his usual helpful way, the broad-minded Leader of the House made it clear in his response to the consultation that he was not aware of any recent cases where a Member’s conduct in their purely private and personal life had been so outrageous that the House or the general public would have wanted action to be taken against the Member. Those pushing this proposal cannot come up with any sensible examples.
The Leader of the House has been in this place for almost 40 years, but while it seems he cannot think of anything worth investigating, the commissioner clearly can. That is why he is promoting this change to the current code of conduct.
Mr Cash
This issue boils down to how the provisions are drafted. No one has any serious doubt about the intentions and the parameters, but problems do arise. The code states that it does not
“seek to regulate what Members do in their purely”—
I emphasise that word—“private and personal lives”, or in the conduct of their wider lives. Rule 16, however, says:
“Members shall never undertake any action which would cause significant damage.”
Therefore, on the one hand we are told the code does not seek to “regulate”, yet on the other hand we are told Members shall “never” undertake certain actions. I do not think there is any real doubt about what is intended, but I am worried about the interpretation that might be drawn if this proposal is passed. That is the problem. This is more an issue of drafting than of intention.
Mr Walker
I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention.
I appreciate that the Committee and the commissioner are at pains to point out that it is not their intention to create a “red top” charter. I accept that that may not be their intention, but the fact remains that real reputational threat to this place is contained in this flawed proposal.
Sir Paul Beresford
My hon. Friend said he wanted an example. I did give him one, but he has not responded to it. It is a financial, not a lurid, example, and I would like him to consider it.
Mr Walker
The example given was fraud, and it was also extraordinarily tortuous.
The Leader of the House, whom I do not often pray in aid of my arguments—as he knows—has been here for 40 years and he cannot think of anything in that time that would have required this power to have been exercised. We in this place are brilliant at inventing new misdemeanours and crimes as sticks with which to beat ourselves.
Mr Syms
My hon. Friend talked about bed and the bottle. I have never been asked to go on a billionaire’s yacht, although it is something that one would perhaps look forward to, but some Members of this House do stay with important people when on holiday. Does he think that this proposal will give another hand to those who want MPs to have to declare where they are going on holiday?
Mr Walker
My hon. Friend leads me into the final part of my speech. Let us be clear that however well intentioned the power the commissioner is seeking, it will mean that Members’ private and personal lives will be in the ambit of investigation. Their actions will be scrutinised by the commissioner and a subjective view will be taken of whether or not those actions could cause significant damage to the reputation of the House. Every sexual peccadillo, domestic dispute or unguarded cross word would lead to tabloid calls for the commissioner to take action—“Something must be done”, the headlines will cry. The commissioner argues that in the event of an undefined personal scandal, the House’s status would be diminished if it
“were unable to take action to express its disapproval and uphold its standards in such circumstances.”
In a sense, that sounds like a return, after 17 years, to “back to basics”. We know what a disaster that was; we had all these moral judgments applied to the activities of Members. The one example that my hon. Friend the Member for Mole Valley (Sir Paul Beresford) did provide would be covered by criminal law in any case, so it is not relevant to this debate.
In conclusion, I am fully aware that Members of Parliament can do bad and unethical things in their capacity as Members of Parliament, which is why these standards and the code of conduct are so important. As importantly, I am also aware that people can do silly and stupid things regardless of who they are, because none of us was born an angel or a saint. So I strongly believe that the House should confine itself to worrying about the matters that directly pertain to the job of being an elected representative, and not those that relate to general human weakness or stupidity. For that reason, I urge the House, the right hon. Member for Rother Valley, for whom I have a huge amount of time, and my hon. Friends the Members for North East Hertfordshire (Oliver Heald) and for Mole Valley, of whom I am extraordinarily fond, despite our little spat this evening, to support my amendment. On this occasion, it is time that the House recognised that the Member of Parliament for Broxbourne is arguing for the virtuous and should carry the day.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
Mr Walker, do you intend to press your amendment to a Division?
Mr Charles Walker
I would be delighted if the Government would accept it, if they could, but otherwise I would like to press it to a Division.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
Mr Walker, do you intend to press this to a vote?
Mr Charles Walker
I do: one’s personal and private life is one’s personal and private life.
Amendment made: (a), at end, add
‘, subject to the following amendment: After paragraph 16 of the Code, there shall be inserted the following new paragraph:
“16A. The Commissioner may not investigate a specific matter under paragraph 16 which relates only to the conduct of a Member in their private and personal lives.”.’.—(Mr Charles Walker.)
Main Question, as amended, put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House takes note of the Nineteenth Report of the Committee on Standards and Privileges (HC 1579), and approves the revised Code of Conduct set out in the Annex to the Report, subject to the following amendment:
After paragraph 16 of the Code, there shall be inserted the following new paragraph:
“16A. The Commissioner may not investigate a specific matter under paragraph 16 which relates only to the conduct of a Member in their private and personal lives.”.’.
All-Party Groups
Resolved,
That
(1) this House agrees with the recommendations in the Twenty-first Report of the Committee on Standards and Privileges, on Registration of Staff All-Party Groups (HC 1689); and
(2) accordingly the Resolution of the House of 17 December 1985, as amended on 10 March 1989, 29 July 1998 and 7 February 2011, relating to the registration of interests be further amended by:
(a) leaving out paragraph 3 (f); and
(b) inserting a new paragraph 4:
“Holders of permanent passes as staff of All-Party Groups be required to register:
i. any paid employment for which they receive more than 0.5 per cent. of the parliamentary salary; and
ii. any gift, benefit or hospitality they receive, if the gift, benefit or hospitality in any way relates to or arises from their work in Parliament and its value is over 0.5 per cent. of the parliamentary salary in the course of a calendar year.”.—(Mr Barron.)
Business of the House
Charles Walker Excerpts(12 years, 3 months ago)
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Sir George Young
The Government have made their position clear. We think the offer is generous but we have made it absolutely clear that no taxpayer money can be involved. I cannot add to what has already been said.
Mr Charles Walker (Broxbourne) (Con)
May we have an urgent debate on the conduct of a Mr Scott Venning and his company City Watch parking, a seemingly criminal organisation with shaven-headed enforcers who lift people’s cars and then extort money to return them?
Sir George Young
My hon. Friend uses robust language. I know, because he has raised the subject before—it is a matter of deep concern—that he knows that the Protection of Freedoms Bill is currently in another place, and that when the Bill hits the statute book, hopefully in May, it will be an offence to clamp on private land and incidents of the sort that my hon. Friend has mentioned will simply be outlawed. In the meantime, I can only suggest that he uses his eloquence to try to get redress for his constituent from the offending company.
Business of the House
Charles Walker Excerpts(12 years, 5 months ago)
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Mr Speaker
Following those stellar performances from the shadow Leader of the House and the Leader of the House, may I gently remind colleagues that we are focusing on the business of the House for next week and the beginning of 2012?
Mr Charles Walker (Broxbourne) (Con)
May we have an urgent debate on the activities of parking enforcement companies—particularly Citywatch and Securak—which could be likened to demanding money with menaces, racketeering and extortion? May I make a final plea on behalf of a constituent? Toyin Lawal’s car was pinched by Citywatch from a car park that it was not even licensed to patrol, and it wants eight grand to give it back to her. I want the police to go round and get her car back off these criminals.
Sir George Young
My hon. Friend’s constituent is fortunate to have such a proactive Member of Parliament championing her interests in the House. He might know that legislation has now gone through making it illegal to clamp cars on private space. I think that it comes into effect in March next year.
Members’ Salaries
Charles Walker Excerpts(13 years, 1 month ago)
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Mr Charles Walker (Broxbourne) (Con)
It is absolute agony that we are having this debate this evening after we have had such a fantastic and informed debate on Libya. It goes to prove that there is never, ever a good time to talk about MPs’ pay and conditions.
However, the debate comes under the heading “Boring but important”. Let us cast our minds back to May 2009, when this House and this democracy that we love so much went through a period of enormous upheaval. I remember that there were great protests outside Parliament—nothing to do with pay and expenses, but enormously voluminous protests. I used to stand in the yard listening to the protests and imagine what it must have been like at the Bastille 220 years earlier in 1789, with the hordes outside. I would close my eyes and think, “Will I get the piano wire or will I get the guillotine?” I think my constituents were rather wishing I would get both and they would both be very slow. It really was an appalling time for this country—this proud democracy brought low by something as innocuous as pay and expenses.
We all vowed in 2009 that we had learned our lessons. Indeed, in 2008 we had started the process of repair by, on 3 July, voting to remove responsibility for pay from our hands. The process of reform was in train. I took great relief, during the debates in 2008 and 2009, from the fact that at last we were not going to have these agonising evenings in the House, but here we are again, having another agonising evening.
We, as Members of Parliament, are brilliant at not only setting our own bear traps but then jumping into them. I feel that that is what we are doing tonight, because the motion has been introduced by the Executive. I know that MPs, both those who served from 2005 to 2010 and our new colleagues, are much chastened by what happened in 2009. We are reforming ourselves from within, and we are not actually as stupid as some people would have us believe. I have absolutely no desire or ambition to accept a 1% pay rise. All that I sincerely wish is that the Back Benchers of this place had been allowed to propose their own motion.
I understood that there was cross-party agreement between the Opposition, the party of government and our colleagues in government, the Liberal Democrats, and I thought there was a real desire and move for a Back-Bench motion that would allow us, as Back Benchers, to do the right thing by this country and our constituents by postponing the pay rise for two years. I am therefore saddened that the Executive have brought forward tonight’s motion. Much play has been made of the new politics, which is not about expediency because expediency gets us into such trouble. The motion is expedient and it lays a future bear trap for us. I wish that we were not here, once again, discussing the tedious subject of our pay and conditions.
Mr Heath
I did not hear the hon. Gentleman say what he said that he had said about my right hon. Friend—I heard something quite different—but we shall have to look at the Official Report to be sure.
Once IPSA has control of Members’ salaries, it will be entirely independent and it will not be for me or for anyone else to tell it how to do its job. Independent assessment is right—we all agree about that. In principle, Members of Parliament should not vote on their own pay. But in a House that does not flinch from having an opinion on the remuneration of others, we cannot just ignore the perception or consequences of an increase of our own pay.
Mr Charles Walker
I do not think that a single Member of Parliament wants this wretched 1% pay rise. What we wanted was the chance as Members of Parliament to do the right thing and table our own motion to decline it. What we are getting, I am afraid, in a robust speech from the hon. Gentleman on the Front Bench, is Executive posturing at our expense and it does him no favours at all.
Publication of Information about Complaints against Members
Charles Walker Excerpts(13 years, 5 months ago)
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Helen Jones
I am a lawyer, but I am not sure that I am a highly trained one—I am certainly a very out-of-practice one. I recognise that my hon. Friend has a long record on campaigning for more transparency, but there is always a balance to be struck between the need for fairness to those under investigation and the need for transparency. We all recognise that it is not necessarily easy to draw the line. The Committee has done an excellent job in trying to make proposals that achieve the right balance, but it is not always easy. I hope that my right hon. Friend the Member for Rother Valley will consider that point about the run-up to a general election, which is a consideration for Members in all parts of the House.
The second motion would give the commissioner the power to initiate an investigation. That sensible move might increase the access to justice that my hon. Friend the Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman) mentioned, because it would allow the commissioner to look at things that are perhaps aired in public, but not necessarily referred to him. I know, too, that there has been some concern among hon. Members about allowing the commissioner to act pursuant to a finding by the compliance officer of the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority. That is not because hon. Members do not want there to be a compliance officer; it is because there is some concern about the procedures adopted by IPSA. However, I understand—I am sure that my right hon. Friend the Member for Rother Valley will confirm it—that it will still be for the commissioner to decide whether there is a case to answer, according to the same standards that he applies now, when he considers whether the rules of the House have been breached. I hope that that provides some reassurance to hon. Members.
The final motion will probably present us with the most difficulties. We are being asked to agree in principle to two lay members being appointed to the Standards and Privileges Committee. We support that move, but there is no doubt that if the House agrees the motion, there will still be a lot of work to be done. The Committee on Standards in Public Life said that lay members should be chosen through what it called
“the official public appointments process”.
Much as we love the Committee on Standards in Public Life, and much as we acknowledge that its knowledge of the rules of the House is deep and abiding, the problem is that none of us knows exactly what the official public appointments process is, because it differs according to which organisation one is dealing with. Therefore, we will first need the Procedure Committee to look at appointments. However, I hope that we do not get another round of the same, small coterie of the great and the good being appointed. There is a quangocracy out there, and I personally would like members of the public who have not previously been involved to be appointed.
Mr Charles Walker (Broxbourne) (Con)
What is certain about the recruitment process is that we will have head-hunting firms earning a lot of commission from the taxpayer. That is causing a number of people in this place a great deal of concern.
Helen Jones
The hon. Gentleman makes a fair point. When the Procedure Committee looks at the issue, I hope that we will be able to avoid that. With great respect to all the ladies and gentlemen who serve on many committees, I do not want to see the usual suspects. I would like to see people who have not been involved before and who bring an entirely different perspective.
Peter Bottomley
I think my hon. Friend makes the point that if we registered what we did not do we would probably have a longer list than if we registered what we did do. The key point is that the general aim of having transparency matters.
The first of the motions introduced by the right hon. Member for Rother Valley (Mr Barron) concerns publication. During my time in Parliament, there have been two or three cases in which I have been rather proud of my approach to them and the persistence I maintained. However, two of them ended up with accusations being made against me of being a paedophile, one of which was swallowed by a national newspaper, which published in 2 million copies a case against me. If a Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards took media attention as a basis for starting an investigation, I would object. As it happened, in that case, no other newspaper copied the allegation, and the first settled, at pretty heavy expense to it, and made a damages payment. I wish those events had not happened, but the case involved people whom I had upset. They were bad, mad or sad; I was bold and pretty decisive, and there ended up being a series of allegations against me.
In a second case, a constituent whom I had helped complained to the commissioner that I had taken obscene photographs of his children. The commissioner found that there was no case to look into, but if that person had gone to the papers and they had run the story as they normally would, under the current arrangements the commissioner would have had to look into it. We have to be aware of such dangers. We cannot legislate against all possibilities, but we have to be careful about saying that just because there has been media attention, the commissioner should get involved.
Mr Charles Walker
I hope that the person who made that allegation was investigated by the police and faced the full force of the law, because that is outrageous.
Peter Bottomley
That may be, but the issue is that it was done and that the people who do such things are not always thinking straight. That is not my problem. The issue is that the commissioner should be very careful about taking the decibels as a reason for launching an investigation.
Dissolution of Parliament
Charles Walker Excerpts(13 years, 11 months ago)
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Mr Heath
With respect to the hon. Gentleman, it instead removes a difficult dilemma for the monarch, who is bound under the current conventions to take the advice of the Prime Minister seeking the Dissolution. That puts the monarch in an invidious position if that advice is not consistent with the political situation that, it might be suspected, is present in the House. By removing the prerogative exercised by the Prime Minister, the monarch is in the stronger position of not being put in the embarrassing position of having to divine by means that are not clear the intentions of the House.
An automatic Dissolution following a no confidence vote would not work in this context because it would prevent another party or parties in the House from having the opportunity to form a Government. Another general election might well not be in the national interest, particularly if it is very soon after the previous election. For example, in January 1924, Mr Baldwin lost the confidence of the House and Mr MacDonald became the Prime Minister. So we have a historical precedent.
Mr Charles Walker (Broxbourne) (Con)
The hon. Gentleman has been to many Adjournment debates. There are normally three people in such a debate, but tonight there are 60 Members in the Chamber. This issue is causing enormous concern. Can we have a period of quiet reflection? Can we establish a constitutional committee to look at the matter closely and carefully, to give all Members and our constituents the reassurance that they desire?
Mr Heath
We will have a period of reflection: first, we will publish the motion, which the House will consider, and then, at a later stage, we will publish the legislation, which will be considered in advance and then by both Houses of Parliament, which will give them the opportunity to have their say. I do not think that this is a precipitate process; it is carefully considered. Hon. Members such as the hon. Gentleman might well have views that they want to express on behalf of their constituents, and they will be listened to, because that is how we intend to run debates in the House.