House of Commons Hansard Debates for 20 Apr 1995

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for Bosworth. There is a simple reason for its failure to consider the wider issue of consultancy. From the inception of the inquiry, when the Privileges Committee was set up to examine the entire affair, the Committee was riddled or laden down with Members with commercial interests.

Their remit was to protect consultancies. They set out with a strategic aim, which was to isolate two Members, make out that what they did was not consultancy and somehow preserve the position of Members engaged in consultancy and doing precisely the same thing. That was an unacceptable way in which to proceed. I feel that the hon. Members for Colne Valley and for Bosworth must receive some form of punishment, but I shall not enter the Division Lobby.

6.10 pm

Sir Patrick Cormack (Staffordshire, South): I have heard enough this afternoon to confirm the belief with which I came into the Chamber--that the process that we have followed in investigating these complaints is entirely wrong.

Several hon. Members rose --

Madam Speaker: Order. I am now required under the Standing Order to put the Question on the amendments. We come first of all to amendment (b).

Mr. Winnick: I withdraw the amendment.

Madam Speaker: Amendments (c), (d), (e) and (f) are not moved. It being two hours after the commencement of proceedings on the motion, Madam Speaker-- put the Question, pursuant to Order [19 April].

Question agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House--

(i) approves the First Report from the Committee of Privileges (House of Commons Paper No. 351);

(ii) considers that, having regard to the conclusions of the Committee in respect of the honourable Member for Colne Valley, the conduct of the honourable Member fell below the standards which the House is entitled to expect from its Members, and therefore formally reprimands him for his actions; and suspends him from the service of the House for ten sitting days, with suspension of his salary as a Member for the same period and

(iii) considers that, having regard to the conclusions of the Committee in respect of the honourable Member for Bosworth, the conduct of the honourable Member fell below the standards which the House is entitled to expect from its Members, and therefore formally reprimands him for his actions; and suspends him from the service of the House for twenty sitting days, with suspension of his salary as a Member for the same period.

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Select Committees

[Relevant document: the First Special Report from the Select Committee on Members' Interests (HC 288).]

6.11 pm

The Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. Tony Newton): I beg to move,

That if any select committee, or sub-committee thereof, considers that the presence at a meeting, or part of a meeting, of that committee to which the public are not admitted of any specified Member of the House not nominated to that committee would obstruct the business of the committee, it shall have power to direct such Member to withdraw forthwith; and the Serjeant at Arms shall act on such instructions as he may receive from the chairman of the committee in pursuance of this Order.

That this Order be a Standing Order of the House.

As matters stand at the moment, any Member of the House has a right to be present at meetings of a Select Committee of which he or she is not a member, even if the Committee is meeting in private. "Erskine May" tells us that Members usually leave if asked to do so, and it says that they

"ought, on the grounds of established usage and courtesy to the committee, immediately to retire when the committee is about to deliberate".

But if they refuse to go, the Committee has no powers to make them, although it can ask the House to take action.

A difficulty of that kind arose earlier this year in the Select Committee on Members' Interests. On 7 February, the hon. Member for Workington (Mr. Campbell-Savours) attended a private meeting of the Committee. As the Committee proceeded to consideration of the draft report, the hon. Gentleman attempted to address the Committee. Although the hon. Gentleman was strictly within his rights in attending, it was clearly not appropriate for him, or consistent with the advice in "Erskine May", I would judge, to seek to interfere directly with the Committee's proceedings. The Chairman of the Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Wealden (Sir G. Johnson Smith), who, for health reasons, has apologised to the House for the fact that he is unable to be here this evening, asked him to leave, but he refused. The Committee then adjourned.

On 7 March, the hon. Member for Workington again attended a private meeting of the Committee, and again refused to leave when asked to do so. The Committee then reported to the House, seeking from the House the power to exclude the hon. Gentleman from its future private meetings.

In considering how to advise the House on how it might deal with that request, it seemed to me sensible to consider responding by introducing a general provision to cover such circumstances, rather than simply to propose an ad hoc resolution directed at one hon. Member in relation to one Select Committee. Accordingly, after consultation with the Chairmen of the Liaison Committee and the Procedure Committee, and through the usual channels, I have tabled the motion before the House.

The motion provides that any Select Committee that finds that its business is being obstructed in such a way by a Member who is not a member of the Committee would have the power to direct that Member to withdraw from a private meeting and, if necessary, to call on the Serjeant at Arms to enforce any such direction. It applies

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both to deliberative meetings, which Select Committees are required by the rules of the House to conduct in private, and also to meetings at which a Committee has decided to take oral evidence in private. There are two things that I should emphasise. First, this is permissive, not mandatory. Non-members of Committees will still be able to attend Committees' private meetings if the Committee does not regard them as obstructing its proceedings, and their rights to attend meetings at which evidence is given in public--that is to say meetings where the public in the more general sense are allowed in--are not affected in any way by the terms of the motion. The second point that I wish to emphasise is that that power is not a dictatorial power vested in the Chairman of the Committee acting alone, but in the Committee as a whole. No Member could be asked to leave a private meeting unless the Committee had first discussed the matter and decided that, in the circumstances, it would be inappropriate for him or her to remain in the Room.

This matter needs to be resolved, so that the Select Committee on Members' Interests can make progress with its current inquiry. But I commend the motion to the House not only on that basis, but because I think it represents a sensible power to be available to all Select Committees to ensure that their work, which the House rightly values highly, can proceed as the House would wish.

6.14 pm

Mr. D. N. Campbell-Savours (Workington): I make it clear in opening my remarks this evening that I do not intend to breach the privileges of the Select Committee on Members' Interest in any way by saying anything about evidence that is being given to it. I say that, Madam Speaker, to put at rest your mind and the minds of the Clerks of the House in so far as they might feel that I would be inclined to breach that principle. I do not intend to do that. I intend to speak to the motion and, if necessary, to call on the precedents of earlier debates, not only in this century but in the previous century, to justify what I am doing.

I stand accused of disrupting the Select Committee on Members' Interests. The motion would give a Committee the power to direct a Member who disrupted or obstructed the business of a Committee to withdraw. I will argue--indeed I do argue--that a Committee should not be given that power, and that the Floor of the House must crucially remain the forum for appeal for a Member who feels that a Committee is conducting its affairs contrary to the interests of Parliament. Let me give the House an example of a Committee which, by its conduct, is failing to carry out the remit set by resolution from the Floor of the House of Commons--the Select Committee on Members' Interests. My view is that its proceedings are an abuse of Parliament, and in the way in which I acted I have been able--and will be able--to draw attention to its deficiencies. There is no other proceeding in the House that allows a Member to do this. I can ask a question: that is not a debate. I can apply for an Adjournment debate; I have no guarantee that I will be called, because I may not be selected or may not come up in the ballot. I can apply for the ballot for motions--I have no right to win the ballot. I have no right to catch

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your eye, Madam Speaker, in any debate, and no right of laying down, other than through the process of ballot, a motion that is debatable in this place.

If hon. Members think about what I am saying, it is the only proceeding open to me as a Member of the House of Commons to initiate a debate of this nature. Let me use the Select Committee on Members' Interests as an example. Its members cannot do what I am doing, because, being members of that Committee, they cannot reveal what is, in effect, unreported evidence to the House. They cannot comment publicly on its proceedings. I can, if I find out, by whatever means.

Indeed, in this case I was able to read about it in The Guardian . They have no rights to do what I am doing. My view is that any Member of the House of Commons who believes that the proceedings of a Committee of the House are being abused has a responsibility to use proceedings to draw the wider attention of Parliament to what is happening, as indeed I would argue is happening in that Committee. This is the only procedure that I know can be used.

Let me be more specific. There are two Committees of the House of Commons that are, effectively, quasi-judicial--the Privileges Committee and the Select Committee on Members' Interests. I heard, during the debate that took place on the report into John Browne, some eloquent speeches by Conservative Members of the House, arguing that the proceedings were so judicial that they required a different approach by Westminster. So I think that we would generally concede that they are quasi-judicial.

What happens if a Government Whip--a Minister of the Crown--is placed on that Committee? Does it inspire confidence in the public to know that that Committee is adjudicating on matters that are quasi-judicial and yet can be subject to the influence of a Whip--the person who fixes the pairings, and may arrange foreign delegations; the person who, perhaps, allows a Member to go off and visit his or her family, and who may even arrange a promotion? I believe that, if a Whip's eye is on the proceedings of a Committee, it will influence the way in which the Committee works.

If members of such a Committee can say nothing--if the only way in which we can ensure that the matters that we are discussing are drawn to the attention of Parliament as a whole is for someone like myself to use the procedures of the House to that end--so be it. That is one reason for my actions; I shall give others shortly.

Mr. Alex Carlile (Montgomery): Does the hon. Gentleman agree that it is difficult for a Committee of the House ever to satisfy the House--and, in particular, the public--that it is judging issues of credibility fairly? Does not the judgment of credibility itself lose all credence in the public mind if a Whip is on the Committee, influencing the way in which members of his party vote on whether a Member of Parliament should be believed or not?

Mr. Campbell-Savours: The hon. and learned Gentleman has encapsulated my argument in fewer sentences than I have used. That argument concerns the Committee's credibility in the eyes of the wider public and, indeed, Parliament.

That is the first abuse that, in my view, requires protest: in that context, this forum is essential for the identification of a deficiency. The second, however, is far more

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important, and one in which I would expect parliamentarians to take a particular interest. I refer to the relationship between a Committee of the House of Commons and a court of law.

We know that the hon. Member for Tatton (Mr. Hamilton) is bringing a libel action against The Guardian , and I know that, subject to the rules of the House, members of the Committee cannot speak about these matters outside the Committee. What happens if, during that Committee's proceedings, the fact that a libel action may be brought by an hon. Member--the subject of a complaint--begins to interfere with the Committee's judgments and the way in which it conducts its inquiry? What happens if the Committee decides, in its wisdom, that it is not prepared to address a particular subject because it feels that that might prejudice--I use the term advisedly--action that may or may not subsequently arise in a court of law?

That is precisely what is happening in the Select Committee on Members' Interests. If members of that Committee are not free to speak on such matters, who will speak--except people like me, who are prepared to take on the House's procedures to bring Parliament's attention to what we consider a deficiency?

I put it to the House that the timing of the inquiries--I stress that the word is plural--by the Committee is being determined by a civil action in the courts. I ask hon. Members to think of the implications. Let us suppose that someone's action--whatever it might be--had to be referred, by way of complaint, to either the Privileges Committee or the Select Committee on Members' Interests; the Member involved might say, "Ah: if the Committee will have the probability of a libel action in mind, perhaps I"--that is, the person about whom the complaint is being made--"should bring a libel action in the courts, knowing that it may be delayed for two or three years." That is a way of effectively destroying Parliament's right to debate issues and carry out full inquiries, and that is what I object to. That is why I say that we must have the right to protest on the Floor of the House: Committee members cannot speak about the matters to which I am referring now.

The libel action that I mentioned is not even listed, and may never be listed. I understand that there are some judgments that have a bearing on whether it will be listed. My hon. Friends cannot refer to the matter, but I can, because of the procedure that I have used. I refer to Burdett v. Abbott in 1811 and Stockdale v. Hansard in 1839. The jurisdiction of the Houses over their Members--their right to impose discipline within their walls--is absolute and exclusive. It is possible that, if someone faced a libel action brought by a Member of Parliament when the House was dealing with a complaint, it could be argued in a court of law that the matter must be dealt with in Parliament rather than the courts, and the Member concerned might well have to petition Parliament before he could deal with the issues with which he wished to deal in court. My argument is that the Committee is being manipulated by proceedings in a court of law, in a way to which my hon. Friends cannot refer. I am using the only procedure open to me in order to refer to it.

Mr. Nigel Spearing (Newham, South): My hon. Friend has made a powerful point about the relationship between

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a Select Committee and courts of law, but may I return him to his first point? He referred to Whips sitting in on Select Committees. Surely it is accurate to say that--as my hon. Friend suggested--when a Government Whip is involved he is, in practice, a Minister of the Crown. Moreover, he is a paid Minister of the Crown: he is paid to do the work of the Executive, which we accept for reasonable purposes as individuals sitting in the Chamber. Is it not a practice, however, for no Minister to be a member of a Select Committee, and is that not an even more powerful argument for resisting the incursion of the Executive on the legislature?

Mr. Campbell-Savours: I must dissent slightly from my hon. Friend's comments. There are Committees to which there have been Government appointments, but I am talking about quasi-judicial Committees--special Committees.

Another abuse requires protest. It, too, is linked with the libel trial. To what extent should a libel trial determine who gives evidence to a Committee? If Mr. Al-Fayed, Mr. Greer and the hon. Member for Tatton do not give evidence to that Committee because of the possibility of a subsequent libel trial, I would argue that Parliament's proceedings are being interfered with. But my hon. Friends can say nothing to the Committee, because they are locked in by an oath of secrecy and confidentiality-- which, I must say, I have always supported in a different context involving non-reporting of proceedings.

Sir Terence Higgins (Worthing): I take the hon. Gentleman's point about Whips on Committees, and have some sympathy with his view about the relationship between Committees of the House and outside judicial proceedings. I may not have followed the hon. Gentleman closely enough, but I do not understand what parliamentary procedures he seeks to invoke to put matters right. Does he argue that he has the right to disrupt Committees to bring these issues to the attention of the House?

Mr. Campbell-Savours: I am speaking against the motion. The Leader of the House has tabled a motion that would give the Chair power to exclude those who wished to protest about what goes in Select Committees, when it is known that members of those Committees can say nothing because they are bound by an oath of secrecy and a principle of not speaking on unreported evidence.

Mr. Iain Duncan Smith (Chingford): I have listened carefully to the hon. Gentleman. He has just said that a problem arises if the individual is bringing a case of defamation, or of libel as he termed it, against someone or a newspaper, as that conflicted with the interests of this place in so far as the Committee could not hear evidence from those people. Surely he must be careful that the individual, by being a Member of Parliament, has no fewer rights to defend himself or herself in a court of law if that is their chosen venue.

Mr. Campbell-Savours: The hon. Gentleman has not quite grasped what I have said. I am not saying that those things conflict, but that Committee members have decided that they are prepared to give the court action precedence. That is interfering with their judgment on the way in which the Committee should proceed.

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Protest should take place on the basis of another argument. It relates to the way in which the Committee has been taking evidence. We know that a libel trial is going on outside. We find that when Peter Preston, the editor of The Guardian , was giving evidence to the Committee, the hon. Member for Tatton was present in the room to hear the evidence. However, when the hon. Gentleman submits his evidence to the Committee, whether it be oral or written, The Guardian editor is not allowed access to that evidence.

The Committee, therefore, is being used as a sort of discovery forum where a Member can discover the case of The Guardian , but The Guardian cannot discover the case of the hon. Member for Tatton. It seems to be a very unlevel playing field, if I might use that term. I object to the fact that the Committee's proceedings are being used in a way that favours one party in his action, in the event that it were to take place in a court of law.

Another abuse certainly requires protest. It is one that should be close to your heart, Madam Speaker. When a Committee leaks, there is normally a leak inquiry. We know for a fact that the Committee has been leaking like a sieve because, in early March, The Guardian published an article that, I understand, was based on the Committee's draft report. The article stated: "Hamilton breached MPs rules". Who objected? Did the Committee convene to consider that leak? Whenever I have been on a Committee where a leak has

occurred--thankfully, over the years, there have been few--normally we have had a leak inquiry. If I remember rightly, a leak happened only once when I was on the Public Accounts Committee, whose Chairman is present, and we went to Liaison Committee. A discussion had to take place in the Liaison Committee about what action would be taken, yet the Select Committee on Members' Interests, for whatever reason--I shall come to it in a minute--is not prepared to ask for a leak inquiry.

I shall tell hon. Members why no request for a leak inquiry has been made. It is simple. No inquiry has been requested because that Committee is leaking like a sieve through the Tory Whips Office. That is where the leaks are coming from. A Committee member is in the Whips Office. Furthermore, everything that happens in the Committee is going not only into the Tory Whips Office, but to the hon. Member for Tatton, who knows chapter and verse what is happening in the Select Committee on Members' Interests.

I challenge anyone on the Government Bench to deny what I am saying. They know the truth. They know that, if they come to the Dispatch Box and deny what I am saying, it is contempt of the House. It is contempt deliberately to mislead Parliament. The hon. Member for Tatton knows in detail what is happening during proceedings in that Committee, which is discredited.

Mr. James Clappison (Hertsmere): I appreciate that the hon. Gentleman has strong views on the matter, but, in effect, he is complaining about the procedures of the House. Is not obstructing that Committee the wrong way to complain about those procedures? May I give the hon. Gentleman one example of where he is wrong? He has complained about one of the Committee members. He probably knows full well that a procedure exists in the House for appointing Committee members. When that

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hon. Member was appointed, neither the hon. Gentleman nor anyone else objected to that Member's inclusion on the Committee.

Mr. Campbell-Savours: This is obviously a time for honesty. My hon. Friends will be surprised by what I am going to say. The hon. Gentleman may remember that, last year, an argument took place in the House about the conduct of the hon. Member for Rutland and Melton (Mr. Duncan). After I had objected to every Select Committee appointment for four months, I did a deal with the Tory Whips--I admit it. I agreed that I would not object to any more Members being appointed to any Select Committee.

The hon. Member for Hertsmere (Mr. Clappison) has required me to breach a confidence. He presses me across the Floor. He is a Conservative Member. I did a deal saying that I would not object, and, of course, the nomination went through. I kept my side of the bargain--I did not object--but Ministers of the Crown should have known that it was improper to appoint a Minister to that Committee. They must have realised that that would lead to an argument in the House. Some people are sceptical about the reason why Ministers put that Whip on the Committee. It might be that, at that time, they knew that an argument would take place about the right hon. Member for Thanet, South (Mr. Aitken). I will not go into that today. They will certainly have known about the complaint about the hon. Member for Tatton. They may have foreseen that a number of complaints would be considered by that Committee over a period of months, which would be highly embarrassing, and that they needed the services of a Whip to ensure that the Whips Office was kept informed of what was going on in the Committee.

The hon. Member for Medway (Dame P. Fenner) smiles, but I ask her rise to her feet and challenge anything that I have said. She has been a member of the Committee for 10 long years, nine of them with me. I know her well on these matters. Normally, she would protest. Please protest.

Dame Peggy Fenner (Medway): The hon. Gentleman has asked me to intervene and I am nothing if not obedient. I know him to be a man who feels strongly about things. May I take up one point that he has made? My hon. Friend the Member for Tatton (Mr. Hamilton) was sitting in at the deliberations, but, as things are at present, he was entitled to. Do I understand from the hon. Gentleman, who is a great constitutionalist, that he thinks that we should not allow Members to sit in? We should allow them to do so.

Mr. Campbell-Savours: The hon. Lady makes my case for me. If she and her hon. Friends had the libel action in mind in determining the Committee's proceedings, she should not have allowed the hon. Member for Tatton to sit in on Mr. Preston's evidence as she would be destabilising the playing field, or it would not be level in terms of the information made available. It is she and her colleagues who would introduce the element of libel action.

Mr. Oliver Heald (Hertfordshire, North): Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the Committee has its authority as a result of the resolution of this place, that it is therefore arrogant of him to say that its decisions, which are made with that authority, are wrong, and that he is entitled just to walk into the Committee and speak in breach of all the

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rules? What does that say about this place's powers and the Committee's authority? Is he not breaching it through arrogance?

Mr. Dennis Skinner (Bolsover): My hon. Friend is a searcher for the truth.

Mr. Campbell-Savours: I thank my hon. Friend. To some extent, the hon. Gentleman is correct. What I have done might be perceived to be arrogant, but I put the question back to the hon. Gentleman: what alternative did I have to draw attention to all those undeniable deficiencies?

Mr. Terry Lewis (Worsley): May I try to clear up the question of Peter Preston's evidence? It should be set against the background of the four principal players in the whole inquiry. The whole tenor of the Committee changed as soon as the Whip was appointed to the Committee and walked in part of the way through the inquiry. We were left in a position where discipline was imposed and three of the four principals were excluded from the Committee's examination. I know of no Select Committee which was to examine people which examined one person and excluded three.

When Peter Preston came, his case, as my hon. Friend the Member for Workington (Mr. Campbell-Savours) said, was prejudiced because the hon. Member for Tatton (Mr. Hamilton) exercised his right, as a Member of the House, to sit in on that investigation and inquiry and to take notes. To my mind, that is unacceptable. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Workington on raising this matter for debate.

Mr. Campbell-Savours: It is unacceptable only because a majority of the members of the Committee were prepared to have the possibility of a libel action in mind when they were deliberating on the pace of proceedings. It is clear that, to begin with, the delay of six weeks since my alleged sin was committed was very convenient for the Government. I understand that the Whips were crowing. They said, "We may well get this case listed before we can get on to the second part of the inquiry." I do not want to go into the detail of those allegations, but many would argue that they should have been dealt with in the first part--

Mr. Bill Etherington (Sunderland, North): Will my hon. Friend give way?

Mr. Campbell-Savours: Yes, but we must not deal with the detail of the allegations.

Mr. Etherington: If I go wrong, I am sure that you will put me right, Madam Speaker. Is my hon. Friend aware that the libel action was well known about before Peter Preston was called? It had been agreed that witnesses would be called. Only after Peter Preston had given his evidence, which was heard by the hon. Member for Tatton (Mr. Hamilton), did the Conservative majority decide to hear no more evidence.

Mr. Campbell-Savours: We are learning something new by the minute. If that is the case, the Committee is discredited and what I did was absolutely right. It means that the great British public cannot rely on a parliamentary Committee to be objective when it sits down to adjudicate on matters of that nature. The comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland, North (Mr. Etherington)

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harden my resolve and my feeling that what I have done is right, even though it might be described as arrogant by the hon. Member for Hertfordshire, North (Mr. Heald).

I have used the only procedure available to me in the House of Commons to raise the issue. There is no other way and that is why the motion is wrong. It is ill-conceived because it means that, if such things happen again in future and members of a Committee are constrained in respect of what they can say in public because of issues of privilege and contempt of the House, no one will be able to do what I had the right to do and that is to get up today and reveal what is happening. I did that in the public interest.

The Leader of the House is today closing down the public interest. He is closing down the opportunity for debate. He is taking away the right to protest. The right that I have used is not being abused. It has been used very rarely over the years. It was used once in 1991; once in 1994; once in 1989; once in 1982; once in 1974; once in 1952; once in 1827 and once in 1849. The point is that the procedure has been used very rarely over the years. However, when it has been used, it has been used to defend the interests of Parliament.

6.43 pm

Mr. Peter Griffiths (Portsmouth, North): I should like to return to the motion, which relates to procedures in Select Committees, not to the detail of the procedure that has been partly completed in one Select Committee. The time to discuss the behaviour of a Committee and the way in which it called evidence and the evidence that it published is when the evidence has been completed and is published for the House. The minutes of the Committee are published for the House, as are the recommendations. That would be the normal procedure. However, those of us on the Select Committee on Members' Interests faced a situation that became quite intolerable. At this point, I must stress that I am not usurping the role of the Chairman of the Select Committee on Members' Interests. He is indisposed and I am not seeking to speak for him or to take on his mantle. The important feature of this debate is that we should make it possible for a Select Committee that was given direct and clear instructions by the House to continue and complete the work that it was authorised to begin.

It is entirely improper for there to be discussion outside the Committee on matters discussed by the Committee before the Committee has had a chance to reach a conclusion. It is wrong to suggest that the Committee has been behaving other than according to the normal rules that apply to Select Committees of this House. It has been meticulous in its respect for the rights of Opposition Members and it was courteous when it was interrupted, not once, but twice. It was explained to the hon. Member for Workington (Mr. Campbell-Savours), who interrupted the Committee, that the matter he raised was not one for the Committee because the Committee does not decide its own composition. The House decides who shall sit on a Committee. If any hon. Member has the slightest objection about a nomination, that protest should be made when such a nomination appears on the Order Paper, when there is an opportunity to vote on the matter.

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If hon. Members do not read the Order Paper, that is not the fault of the Committee or a fault of the proceedings of this House; it is a lack of diligence. If someone wishes to accept that he or she lacked diligence, that is a matter for that person. The issue of who should be a member of a Select Committee is not the issue before us tonight, and who interrupted the Select Committee on Members' Interests is not of particular importance.

The hon. Member for Workington is overweening in his suggestion of his own significance in this matter. The matter that he wanted to raise was raised in the wrong place. He was in the wrong place and he was discourteous. Until that time, it had been assumed that, if an hon. Member wished to attend a Select Committee meeting, particularly a Select Committee of the nature of the Select Committee on Members' Interests, he would do so. An hon. Member was not expected to interrupt such a Committee.

I have been a member of the Select Committee on Members' Interests for as long as any serving Member. I cannot remember the Committee being interrupted in that way. However, had such an interruption occurred, I would have assumed--and I believe that most hon. Members from all parties would have done so too--that the Chairman would request the hon. Member to withdraw. If the Chairman had asked the hon Member to withdraw, I assume that he or she would have done so. That may not have been a well-founded assumption, but that is what I assumed.

However, once it has been found possible to stop a Select Committee deliberating, what prospects have been opened up if we do not take firm action immediately? Any Member of the House who decides that he does not like what a Select Committee is doing and who thinks that there may be some party political or personal advantage to be gained can simply disrupt the Committee in the knowledge that it will take some time to bring the matter to the Floor of the House.

One person, whose name has been referred to in the debate, is a victim of the tactics of the hon. Member for Workington--my hon. Friend the Member for Tatton (Mr. Hamilton).

Mr. Lewis: Come on.

Mr. Griffiths: I will certainly come on, and say that justice should be done as swiftly as possible. I do not reveal secrets from the Select Committee, except to say that we have made progress; we are moving towards a decision. My hon. Friend the Member for Tatton has a right to know the decision of the Committee at the earliest possible moment.

The result of the two interventions by the hon. Member for Workington has been simply that the Committee has not been able to sit. It has not been able to listen to the comments of his hon. Friends who, on occasion, have had my support in that Committee. [Interruption.] Opposition Members have never found me taking a purely party political line, and I object to the suggestion that that might be so.

Ms Angela Eagle (Wallasey): I agree with what the hon. Gentleman says about his conduct. As he is so worried about the delay, does he agree that it is disgraceful that we have had to wait six weeks since my hon. Friend the Member for Workington (Mr. Campbell-Savours) came into our Committee proceedings to have this debate? In the

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past, such matters were always dealt with on the same day or the day after. Will the hon. Gentleman admit that that is the fault of the Leader of the House?

Mr. Griffiths: I certainly regret that there was a delay. Had the hon. Member for Workington made his protest on the one occasion and then left the matter at that point, the Committee would have met again the following week. It would then have proceeded to deal with the matter in hand. But the hon. Gentleman repeated the interruption, and that meant that it was not possible for the Committee to continue its work.

As for the suggestion that there is some division between the two parties on the Select Committee--which I resent--I am sure that many hon. Members will recall that, on two occasions, I pressed my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House for an early debate. I also pressed that he should initiate the debate on a substantive motion, which would have dealt with the impasse that had arisen.

I believe that the Select Committee on Members' Interests has behaved properly. Individual members of that Committee have also behaved properly according to their consciences. That has always been so on the Committee. I do not recall any breaches at any time in this Parliament or previously.

I do not want to delay the discussion. I simply ask that we consider the needs of Select Committees to carry out the remit of the House. They need the opportunity to discuss matters privately on occasions, and to discuss matters with care. The contributions of individual hon. Members should be equal, regardless of their party or their length of service. Each person who is properly appointed by this House should be allowed to express his view.

Mr. Piara S. Khabra (Ealing, Southall): Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the Committee has become moribund for two reasons? First, the libel action has stopped progress in the Committee. As the hon. Gentleman knows, one evening the Committee sat from 6 pm to 9 pm. We did much work, but since the libel action was initiated that work has stopped. Secondly, in respect of a Minister being appointed to the Committee, hon. Members objected at earlier meetings, not later. Those two matters are of great concern to certain members of the Committee. I appreciate that the hon. Gentleman has been very co-operative with the Chairman of the Committee and has been trying to behave in a non-partisan way, but the Committee is making no progress for those two reasons.

Mr. Griffiths: Those matters can be resolved within the Committee when it is permitted to meet and to carry on its discussions. It can decide its own procedures. It will report its conclusions and the minutes of the discussions will be made available. There will be no secrecy about what happened and when. Any evidence that is called will be reported fully to this House and there will be an opportunity to discuss the matter at that point. To call in the jury before the evidence has been heard is grossly unfair to the person who is the subject of consideration by the Select Committee.

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