Nolan Principles

Sam Rushworth Excerpts

Thursday 12th November 2026 Commons Chamber

[Dr Sam Rushworth (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

It is poignant that this debate follows a debate on the battle of the Somme. I was reflecting yesterday on remembrance and thinking about the sacrifice of my grandfather in the second world war and our great-grandfathers in the first world war, and I reflected on what they might think about politics today. I think they may be quite disappointed in the democracy that we have built, particularly in the coarsening of public discourse, the amount of times that people engage with others as their enemies, rather than their opponents, and some of the falling standards in public life.

[Chris Vince]

I was going to make this point to the hon. Member for Mid Dunbartonshire (Susan Murray), but she had finished her speech. My hon. Friend the Member for Bishop Auckland (Dr Rushworth) talks about the behaviour of Members of Parliament, which is really important. I visit schools quite regularly in my constituency and talk about the debates that we have in this place, and it is really important that when the debates end, we treat each other with respect and courtesy; I think the majority of Members do that in this place. Does he agree that it is disappointing when some Members of this House do not treat other Members with the same respect?

[Dr Rushworth]

I agree 100%.

There is a responsibility on all of us, frankly, to do better. Why? The point has already been made very well, but there is a decline in trust in politicians. I naively thought when I was elected to this place that if I just told the truth all the time, worked incredibly hard and acted with integrity, it would shine through, but it does not. I have many constituents who do not trust me and think that I am a liar, not because of anything tangible that I have done, but because they think the whole political class is not to be trusted and that the moment somebody becomes a politician, they fall into that class. That is why it is so important that we do more to uphold and strengthen standards in public life.

It is important that we address a couple of areas in particular. One is around stronger safeguards that give our constituents confidence that when we choose to put ourselves forward and become elected to this place, we genuinely have their interests at heart and are not using this place to enrich ourselves. For example, we have to get rid of second jobs. I am not talking about medics maintaining their medical licences; I am talking about people earning vast sums of money while not representing their constituents in this place. I have found that this job is equivalent to two full-time jobs. It is impossible to be a proper Member of Parliament and to do our job properly while constantly being away earning huge sums of money elsewhere. It simply cannot be done, and we need to legislate strongly against that. We also need to do more to enable our constituents to see the difference. Maybe there needs to be greater transparency. I have often wondered if we should clock in and out of the Chamber and report how many surgeries we all hold, and so on, so that people can make fair comparisons and understand who is doing the work and who is not doing the work.

Another point we need to address is our debating. Maybe we need to review “Erskine May” and what constitutes parliamentary language. I have been really disappointed at times since I was elected by the things that are deemed acceptable. For example, I thought it was disgusting when the Leader of the Opposition described Members on the Government Benches as “paedo defenders”, and we all know that we got abuse because of that. The things said in this Chamber get repeated to us by our constituents. Members on the Government Benches who are themselves survivors of child sexual abuse had that label attached to them, and it was deeply distressing to them. Frankly, the Leader of the Opposition should have done better, but that was not called out by Mr Speaker because it is apparently deemed to be parliamentary language. We need to address that.

We also need to look beyond this place. There are examples—one has been given already—of where the public simply do not have the transparency that they would expect at lower levels of government and in public bodies. I was very disappointed to see that the leadership of Durham county council changed the rules on hearing standards complaints, so that a very small committee, on which Reform always has a majority, hears an increasing number of serious complaints. Some former Reform councillors who resigned and sit as independents have described the leadership as shambolic.

The Nolan principles predominantly deal with integrity, but do we need to consider principles that address the challenges of 2026? Is it acceptable for people in public life to express racist opinions under the guise of free speech? Before Reform took control of Durham county council, I supplied it and the media with a full dossier of disgusting Facebook posts from accounts that claimed to be their candidates’ accounts and who the administrators of those accounts were. One of those people went on to become a Reform councillor, which was entirely unacceptable.

Finally—as I raised with the Leader of the House today—as we look increasingly to devolve power, there needs to be stronger accountability for regional mayors and local government, right down to parish council level. There need to be legal safeguards in place to provide protection. At the moment, town and parish councillors do not have to declare interests and are not subject to the same scrutiny as us, yet planning decisions are often made by them. I think we can do better on this issue in a number of areas.

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

First, I apologise to the hon. Member for Mid Dunbartonshire (Susan Murray) for missing her opening remarks. I was rushing to the Chamber from another meeting.

I very much welcome a debate about the Nolan principles. To start with a point that the hon. Member for Bishop Auckland (Dr Rushworth) made at the beginning of his speech, it is indeed surprising and perplexing that we would regard nearly 100% of the colleagues in this Chamber—from whichever party—as careful, diligent and morally upstanding people. There is a tiny minority who we perhaps do not trust, but basically, although we might not be able to remember the seven principles of public life by heart, that is the way we want to live our lives. That is the example we want to demonstrate in the work we do, yet the more paraphernalia created around the enforcement of standards in the House of Commons, the worse the reputation of politicians seems to become. I think that is because we think of ourselves as legislators, and the hon. Member for Bishop Auckland fell into that trap: “We need more rules about this. We need more rules about that. We need rules to address this.”

I spent the previous Parliament on the Standards Committee, and I participated in producing the report that came out in May 2022. That report was a complete revision of the House of Commons code of conduct, and was trying to start a different conversation. One witness, who was a Chief Whip of a major political party, told us in evidence, “The seven principles are quite simple, and if you do not understand them, you should not be in public life.” On the face of it, they are very simple, but is navigating conflicts of interest as a Member of Parliament simple? We all have them; whether we are paid as an outside director or sponsored by a trade union, everybody has conflicts of interest. What about the conflicts of interest—even if they are not necessarily declarable—between our parties’ programmes and the interests of our constituents? We all have to deal with conflicts of interest.

The image we were given in one piece of evidence from the Westminster Abbey Institute was that we are trying to navigate our way across a stormy sea, with lots of conflicting pressures and priorities, and it is not always easy to decide what to do in a given set of circumstances. If any hon. Member present thinks it has been easy, they probably do not realise what they have stumbled into. Yes, we want transparency, and yes, there need to be rules, but the rules should not be the culture. If you go into the Tea Room and talk about the House of Commons code of conduct, Madam Deputy Speaker, I am sure that you find—like everyone else—that people discuss how to stay clear of the rules. That is what the conversation appears to be about; it does not tend to be about how to deal sincerely and honestly with conflicts.

The problem with the way in which the House of Commons has set up the adjudication of the code is that it tends to be a very legalistic process. Anyone who has been under the cosh of an investigation by the Commissioner for Standards finds first that they have got nobody to talk to. I have recommended that we should split the role of the commissioner, with somebody to advise and counsel Members of Parliament about conflicts of interest and the code, and somebody—preferably a former High Court judge—to adjudicate.

Of course, I have no criticism to make of the present commissioner, but we could upgrade the juridical process of adjudicating the code as we have done for appeals, which are now presided over by a High Court judge and a panel in a much more strictly judicial process. The advantage of that is a High Court judge is used to adjudicating: judging evidence and facts and coming to a conclusion.

[Dr Rushworth]

I genuinely think that the hon. Gentleman’s is a voice worth listening to on this. Does he not feel that the growth in rules has been a response to the scandals we have had rather than the producer of them? Is he arguing for less regulation or that we have just got the wrong rules and system in place?

[Sir Bernard Jenkin]

I am not arguing for abolition of the code or anything like that. I am arguing for a system that recognises that conflicts of interest inevitably arise and have to be handled. The system should create a supportive environment for Members of this House to discuss and explore the dilemmas they are confronted with, openly and frankly and without fear. That does not exist at the moment.

I also think that the margin of appreciation in interpreting the rules should be much more forgiving. The present commissioner has made it clear that that is not his method, and indeed the House of Commons resolutions do not steer him in that direction. We might think that the guidance accompanying the rules was just guidance, but the official advice from the House Service is that, because it has been approved by the House, along with the code of conduct rules, it has equal force as the law of Parliament. I do not think that is what Parliament really understood when it voted the guidance through, or each time it does so. I would like to see a more flexible and forgiving system: one where there is a more open conversation about the dilemmas we face.

--- Later in debate ---

[Charlie Dewhirst]

I apologise for that, Madam Deputy Speaker. I will continue, hopefully without catching your attention on such matters again.

It is worth saying that the former Prime Minister’s total expenses bill was more than any recent party leader and more than two-and-a-half times that of any MP in that period. That is certainly doing politics differently. If “passes for glasses” was not enough, the Government’s crony appointments got worse. The former Prime Minister disgracefully chose to appoint the twice-fired Peter Mandelson.

[Dr Rushworth]

I think it is important that we note that this is known about because everything was declared in the appropriate way through the system that we have in place. It is important that the public are able to distinguish between that and people taking gifts and concealing them from the public. I am not going to bring up previous scandals in the hon. Gentleman’s own party, but I think he knows that they exist.

[Charlie Dewhirst]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his point. He is right that people in glass houses should not throw stones, and we do not need to end up in a tit-for-tat argument. He is right that those things were declared, but when it comes to the former ambassador, I think he will find that there were issues that were not declared, and they led to that downfall.

The former Prime Minister was, as he later admitted, well aware that Peter Mandelson had maintained his friendship with Jeffrey Epstein even after his conviction for child sex offences. The choice to appoint him was bad enough, but it was the cover-up that ended up being worse perhaps than the crime. The former Prime Minister’s assurances to this House last year that full due process was followed, despite not maintaining a record of what it was doing, not recording the Prime Minister’s decisions and despite key Government WhatsApp messages and phones mysteriously—