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Mr. Campbell-Savours: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Griffiths: This must be the last time.
Mr. Campbell-Savours: According to The Guardian , in so far as part of a report has been leaked to The
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Guardian , the Committee was dealing with a draft report. That being so, is it true that, when that draft report was being considered, members of the Committee had in mind the existence of a potential libel action? Did they have it in mind?Mr. Griffiths: I do not think that the House would expect me to answer a question about what was said in Committee. I would not presume to say what was in the minds of my fellow members of the Committee. All that I know is that the matter was discussed and that we were moving, having taken some evidence, towards the point where we would seek to reach conclusions. That is what was being done.
Sir Anthony Durant (Reading, West): Does my hon. Friend agree that we took advice in Committee about the libel case? We were told by the Clerk to the Committee, who had taken advice, that we could proceed to deliberate on all those matters because the case had not been put down. Is that my hon. Friend's understanding? It is certainly mine.
Mr. Griffiths: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for making that point. I had rather hesitated to say what legal advice we were given. Certainly, the hon. Member for Wallasey (Ms Eagle), who raised the matter earlier, was aware that the Committee was told that it could discuss whatever it wished and that it could proceed, regardless of what was happening outside, until the question of sub judice arose. I would not wish to go beyond that. That was the legal advice that the Committee had; it was available to every member of the Committee. It would be available to any Member of the House who sought legal advice, presumably.
The point tonight is that the Select Committee on Members' Interests needs to complete its discussions. We ask for the protection of the House in carrying out the duty that the House gave us. We need, therefore, the right for our Chairman to exclude any person who seeks to disrupt our proceedings --no one else.
As this matter has been the subject of so much discussion, there is a danger that others may be tempted to follow along the very undesirable path trodden by the hon. Member for Workington. Therefore, it is necessary that all Select Committees have a power in reserve so that it can be used if it becomes entirely necessary. Whenever it is used, of course, it will be used on behalf of the House, and the House will make the decision. The House is the final arbiter. Select Committees are simply the instruments that do their humble best to carry out the duties that are given to them.
6.57 pm
Mr. Alex Carlile (Montgomery): I am grateful for the opportunity to make a short contribution. I do so as the complainant in both complaints made to the Select Committee on Members' Interests in relation to the hon. Member for Tatton (Mr. Hamilton). In normal circumstances, I would agree with almost everything said by the hon. Member for Portsmouth, North (Mr. Griffiths), who is well known for his independence and for not being a slave to the party Whips. However, extreme circumstances call for extreme actions. The hon. Member for Workington (Mr. Campbell-Savours) has rightly been driven to extreme actions in this case.
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As one of the lawyers in the House, I am used to hearing the courts and lawyers criticised for being slow, indecisive and inefficient. I have to say, as the complainant, that the Select Committee on Members' Interests has been slow, indecisive and inefficient. Even the enormous charm of its Chairman can do nothing to hide those conclusions. The complaints made against the hon. Member for Tatton have not been adjudicated upon; the Committee has delayed for months.In relation to at least one set of those complaints, there is an issue of credibility, although I shall not go into it on the Floor of the House. It is well known, and it has been expressed in the public domain, that the allegation is denied. Witnesses are available to give evidence about the complaint, and, of course, the hon. Member for Tatton, if he wishes, can give evidence to deny the complaint. The task of the Committee is to adjudicate on who is telling the truth--or so one would have thought. Yet, months after I made the original complaint, not only has neither of the protagonists been called to give evidence before the Committee but the Committee has resisted calling witnesses to give evidence.
If a complaint is made on the basis of an hon. Member being paid cash or vouchers in return for assisting a particular business, and if that allegation is denied, how on earth can anybody inside and outside the House have any confidence in a Committee that does not even have the courage to adjudicate on the issue of who is telling the truth? In this Committee's action we have the very evidence necessary, if it were necessary, to convince the country that the implementation of recommendations made by Lord Nolan's committee that there should be some independent scrutiny of issues of factual credibility is very much needed.
In circumstances such as those under discussion, it would be quite wrong for the House to approve action against the hon. Member for Workington when what he did was to highlight serious shortcomings in Committee procedure. I am not satisfied with the failure of the Select Committee to adjudicate on my complaints. I feel like a litigant left without a solution, a remedy. Surely the House cannot possibly be satisfied with that state of affairs.
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Mr. Oliver Heald (Hertfordshire, North): This House has entrusted the Select Committee on Members' Interests with its authority. In doing so, I believe that we, as Members of this House, should respect that. We should, in a sense, set a standard. If we invest a Committee with authority, especially an authority which, as the hon. Member for Workington (Mr. Campbell-Savours) explained, is absolute and exclusive in a certain area, it should be wrong for individual Members, whether they be the hon. Member for Workington or, indeed, the hon. and learned Member for Montgomery (Mr. Carlile), to say that their judgment is greater than that of the House, greater than that of the Committee, thereby abandoning an essential principle. If one sets up such a Committee, as we have in this House, we should not interfere with its authority.
That principle has been this place for more than 150 years. In 1844, the Speaker observed in a similar issue:
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"no Member who was not a Member of the Committee had any right to interfere with the proceedings . . . though he might be present in the room."Ms Eagle: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Heald: Not just yet. [Hon. Members:-- "Give way."] I shall in a minute.
It is important to look at why we have those rules. The manner of the investigation of a Committee of this sort is important. If the investigation is to be judicial, it must be made in an atmosphere that is not sullied by sympathy or prejudice and is not interfered with by individual Members who put their own opinions above those of the Committee and seek to interfere with its business. There is a danger of improper pressure on Committee members if hon. Members attend the Committee's deliberations and make personal attacks on its members, as the hon. Member for Workington has today with reference to a particular Member.
Mr. Heald: The Government Whip in question.
Mr. Heald: It is certainly a personal attack to say that that Whip was trying to influence the Committee.
Ms Eagle: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
It is certainly a personal attack to say that somebody who is there to do his duty on a Committee and who has been placed there by the House is likely to interfere and place undue influence on the Committee's members. There would be very little point in having such Committees--we might just as well go back to having a Committee of the whole House with witnesses brought to the Bar of the House--if all Members were entitled to attend Committees and to interfere in the processes. There must be a remedy.
Ms Eagle: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
The only remedy is that which the motion suggests--in fact, the traditional remedy. On other occasions when it has been necessary to exclude a Member from a Committee, a motion has been placed before the whole House and that person has then been told that he must not attend the Committee at the behest of the Chairman. If there is no remedy, such Committees will become meaningless.
It is wrong to say that there have been only a few instances over recent years. In the present climate, many interest groups which are represented-- trade unions among them--by hon. Members from all parties, campaign for this, that and the other issue. If it becomes the practice that a Member may attend a Committee that is deliberating on one such issue and interfere with its process, Committees will not be able to do a proper job.
Ms Eagle: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Heald: Before I give way, I wish to say that it is worth remembering the words of Gladstone, who was involved in the debate in 1844. He said:
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"great inconvenience would result from investing Members of that House, who were not Members of the Committee, with a recognised authority to appear as advocates . . . sitting in the Committee, and possessing every authority except that of voting, but taking part in the discussions equally with the Members of the Committee."Hon. Members: He did not make that point.
Mr. Heald: He made that point. He also said:
"to adopt such an arrangement, while it was totally unnecessary as aiming at supplying a defect which did not exist, would be exceedingly mischievous, because it would impair the authority which belonged to the Committee, and would constitute a number of Members of the Committee, who would be swayed by different interests, and must render the tribunal less competent to conduct the proceedings in such a manner as would be conducive to the interests of the public".--[ Official Report , 8 March 1844; Vol. 73, c. 724-25.] The hon. Member for Workington wishes to attend the Committee and to put forward his own point of view on issues that are sub judice, and so on, with the aim of interfering with the views of its members. He also wants to be able to make unfair and unjustified attacks--I believe--on members of the Committee when he did not object to their selection or their election to that Committee. It is all very well and good to say, "Oh, I did a deal with the Whips," but that does not show the sort of campaigning spirit that he seems to be parading today.
The hon. Member for Workington described himself as somebody who could not find a remedy on the Order Paper and could not find a way in which to express his opinions. As a new Member in the House, I have noticed the hon. Gentleman in operation: nobody uses the Order Paper more, nobody is present more often at business questions, during points of order and at all the other opportunities that exist for Members to put a point of view if they wish to do so.
Mr. Gary Streeter (Plymouth, Sutton): Will my hon. Friend give way?
Mr. Heald: I am going to give way to the hon. Member for Wallasey (Ms Eagle) in a moment.
The hon. Member for Workington is known as an operator--somebody who can make decisions and find ways in which to put forward a point of view. He may even wish to attend a debate on the Committee's report--a point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Portsmouth, North (Mr. Griffiths). For the hon. Gentleman to suggest that he is an innocent abroad, who cannot find a way in which to put over his point of view, is frankly wrong. Everybody here knows that.
Ms Eagle: We are talking about a particular and rare instance. What does the hon. Gentleman suggest that hon. Members should do if they believe that something is overwhelmingly and utterly wrong with the way in which a Committee is proceeding? If this motion is passed tonight, there will be no way in which to deal with such rare circumstances--ever. This is a very serious issue. I enjoy the hon. Gentleman's light-hearted speeches, but he is missing the point. What would he do if he were on a Committee and unable to speak, but he believed that
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something utterly wrong was being allowed to go on and that there would be no way in which to draw the very serious matter to the attention of the House?Mr. Heald: I am grateful to the hon. Lady for giving me the opportunity to say that I do not accept her premise. There are ample opportunities in this place for campaigners--
Mr. Campbell-Savours: What are they?
Mr. Heald: I have already suggested six or seven ways in which Members can make their points of view known, including objecting to the appointment in the first place. There are many opportunities available here.
In the past, there have been occasions on which, because of their powerful views on a particular issue, Members have been drawn to challenge a Committee and to interfere with its proceedings. In 1849, Bernal Osborne felt so strongly about the Irish Poor Law Committee that he tried to interfere with its deliberations, and was told to go.
Mr. Bill Michie (Sheffield, Heeley): Which Committee?
Mr. Heald: It was the Irish Poor Law Committee, but there have been numerous examples down the years.
I do not believe that it is right for an individual Member to put his strong views above those of the House. When this place has decided by resolution to give a Committee authority to deal with an issue, it is simply wrong for another Member to be there trying to interfere with the members of the Committee and with its deliberations.
Mr. Streeter: I am greatly enjoying my hon. Friend's argument. Does he agree that the disturbing aspect of the case before us is not simply the fact that the hon. Member for Workington has clearly broken the long- established rules and procedures of the House, but the fact that he has done so solely to pursue his personal agenda? That agenda is not about an issue of national security or a threat to democracy but is designed merely to peddle his personal diet of sleaze, slur and innuendo, and to attack Conservative Members.
Mr. Heald: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for making that intervention. No doubt the hon. Member for Workington will have heard it.
A more fundamental issue is at stake--the law of Parliament, which has set out those principles for more than 150 years, and which the hon. Member for Workington, aided and abetted by the hon. and learned Member for Montgomery, now wishes to break and to treat with contempt. That says something about the form of campaign with which they wish to associate themselves.
In the House there are many methods of making a point or pursuing a campaign, and both those Members have used them over the years. I believe that that is the democratic way of doing things. The other way is to ignore the authority of the House, and to be prepared to flout its rules, to be chucked out of the Chamber, to interfere with Committees--
Mr. Campbell-Savours: To wave the Mace?
Mr. Heald: I had intended to make another point, which is that all those activities amount to a principle that
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we often hear expressed by Opposition Members--that it is justified to break the law for a cause. But there are an awful lot of causes, and if everybody is entitled to say, "I can break the law, because of my cause," we shall end up with anarchy. That principle is a Labour trait. We have seen it applied to the poll tax and to the Members of Parliament who refused to pay it; we have seen it on the picket lines and in many other contexts.The worrying aspect is the "demo-ism"--the wish to take direct action to establish a form of street cred. The House should have no truck with that. I do not say that we should uphold the institution for the sake of it, but in our earlier debate on the report of the Privileges Committee the right hon. Member for Chesterfield (Mr. Benn) said that the issue at stake was the upholding of our constituents' rights. I believe that for that purpose the law of Parliament is important. Once we start breaking that law, there will be no end to it.
7.13 pm
Mr. Bill Michie (Sheffield, Heeley): The motion is narrow, which is a pity, because the feeling in the Committee, and certainly among my hon. Friends, is that a wide-ranging issue of principle is involved. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Workington (Mr. Campbell- Savours) on having taken action that will at least allow us a debate, even within the narrow terms of the motion. There is no doubt that the Select Committee is in deadlock, but that has nothing to do with my hon. Friend the Member for Workington disrupting its proceedings; it stems from the make-up of the Committee itself. That is the problem, and it is a serious one. As has already been said by more than one Member, I am afraid that by its actions so far the Committee has discredited itself.
I sit on two Select Committees, and I tried to take part in the earlier debate on privileges but did not succeed. Comparing my experience on those two Committees, I can tell the House that the level of democracy in the Privileges Committee is years ahead of what happens in the Select Committee on Members' Interests.
Not only has the Committee been discredited by its own make-up but we have been mugged by the rules of the House. As my hon. Friend the Member for Workington has made clear, there is no way, shape or form in which we can speak out of turn as members of a Committee committed to sitting in private. We have to rely on other Members to help us out, and that is an unfortunate position to be in.
The hon. Member for Portsmouth, North (Mr. Griffiths) said that we should leave it to the Committee to make its report, and the House could then debate and deliberate on the issues and the rights and wrongs. That idea is beyond belief, because there is no confidence whatever in the Committee. I not speak not for myself alone but for many members of the Committee who now find themselves in an impossible situation.
How can such a Select Committee be impartial when a Government Whip is sitting there? How can there be an impartial judgment when we called only one witness before the majority on the Committee decided that one witness for one side was enough, and that we should now make a rational judgment? How can that be right?
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There are papers before the Committee that--Mr. Terry Lewis (Worsley):--have not even been discussed.
Mr. Michie: As my hon. Friend reminds me, those papers have not been discussed and cannot be discussed. "We'll see to that later," it is said, "Let's deal with this issue first. We want a decision now, having heard one witness, all in private. Then we will deal with the other issues."
To my mind, some of the papers before the Select Committee on Members' Interests are more revealing than anything that came out in the previous debate on cash for questions. The two or three Members involved in that affair are in the Endsleigh league compared with what might happen--
Mr. Alex Carlile: They are in the Vauxhall Conference.
Mr. Michie: Yes, those people are in the Vauxhall Conference compared with what might happen if the Committee were allowed to discuss or question some of the evidence before it.
Unfortunately, there are even greater restrictions, because some of that evidence may not even be within the remit of the Committee. Some have asked why we do not let the Privileges Committee deal with it, but unfortunately the rules of the House do not allow that to happen. I have some of them here. I shall not read them all out but, among other things, they say:
"It is not possible for Select Committees to exchange unpublished evidence",
although there are certain powers that enable that to happen in some circumstances. Apparently, the only way in which it can be done is for a motion to be brought to the House by a member of the Government. I do not have enough confidence in the Government to think that they would allow even one of their Members to do that. So that is another serious problem.
Mr. Campbell-Savours: We need a protest.
Mr. Michie: My hon. Friend is right: we need a protest to ensure that that can happen.
The House should now free Members of Parliament and allow them to make the right investigations as responsible Members and as selected members of the Committee, rather than passing rules to restrict them as the motion would do.
The Nolan committee will respond to the Prime Minister and the House in May. It seems that the Select Committee and the Nolan committee--indeed, the House and the Nolan committee--are going in opposite directions: one, Nolan, is going for more openness and the other, the House, is going for more restrictions. The Select Committee on Members' Interests is battening down the hatches to ensure that information cannot flow, but it is battening down the hatches on a sinking ship.
Nolan is on the horizon, and unless the House gets its act together, Nolan will have to do it for us. The public are demanding more information and more transparency, yet the House--through a Committee with a Whip as a member--is restricting the rights of Members and information. I honestly believe that, unless we change our ways--we must have fewer, not more, restrictions--we
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will come to a point where it will not be the Committee that is in disrepute and not looked upon with confidence, but the whole House. 7.19 pmSir Terence Higgins (Worthing): I had not intended to speak in this debate, so I shall be extremely brief. I am as anxious as anyone that the Select Committee system should work effectively. If it is not doing so, that must be of concern to the whole House. Equally, I have considerable sympathy for some of the points made by the hon. Member for Woking.
Mr. Campbell-Savours: Workington.
Sir Terence Higgins: I am sorry. I have sympathy for the particular point he made on the matter of Whips serving on Select Committees. Having said that, I feel bound to say that a number of Committees of the House-- for example, the Committee of Selection--have Labour Whips among their members. I personally have qualms about that, because there is a tendency for the Labour Whip to take rather more of a role in selecting Committee members than is the case with Conservative Whips. There have been previous debates on the matter in which I have expressed similar concerns. It is for the House itself to decide who serves on a Committee, and it will be interesting to see which way the House votes when the matter next comes up. Having said that, I have considerable sympathy for the point which the hon. Member for Workington (Mr. Campbell-Savours) made with regard to the position of the Committee on Members' Interests and the Privileges Committee. I have given evidence to the Nolan committee and I believe, in the light of recent experience, that that matter ought to be looked at by Nolan, and I hope that he will make recommendations. The overlap between the Privileges Committee and the Select Committee on Members' Interests creates an unsatisfactory situation, and certainly the time taken by either of the Committees to reach a decision is of concern.
I have served on the Privileges Committee on every occasion recently except the present occasion, and it is my opinion that it is too large to operate expeditiously--not least because of the difficulty in getting all of the members in one place at one time, as so many are senior Members of this House. An appropriate compromise may be to look at the terms of reference of the two Committees, and perhaps have a specific sub-committee which could report to the Privileges Committee on investigations into matters such as the one we debated earlier today.
Having said that, I intervened on the speech of the hon. Member for Workington because I had terrible difficulty in understanding what he was saying. He said that he was using the only procedure available to him to bring the matter to the attention of House. It gradually dawned on me--it had not occurred to me when he started--that he regards having the right to disrupt a Select Committee's work as a procedure of this House. That is intrinsically an absurdity. A Committee is set up by the House, and the hon. Gentleman says that one of the procedures which Members may use is to disrupt the work that this House wishes that Committee to carry out.
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I take the point made by the hon. Lady, the Member for Hertfordshire, North. She is a relatively new Member, for whom I have considerable respect.Ms Eagle: My constituency is Wallasey.
Sir Terence Higgins: I was misinformed.
Mr. Heald: I represent Hertfordshire, North.
Sir Terence Higgins: I apologise. I have respect for my hon. Friend as well.
I respect the contributions which the hon. Member for Wallasey (Ms Eagle) has made to a number of debates, and I accept that she feels passionately about this subject. I am bound to say to her that Committees are set up by the House to deliberate on a matter, and their proceedings and deliberations are then published. If there is a problem, the right moment at which to raise it is when the report is brought to the House.
Mr. Campbell-Savours: But then the deed is done.
Sir Terence Higgins: No, the deed is not done. The matter is then before the House to consider, and the House can decide whether it agrees with the view that the Committee expresses. That is the right way to deal with the matter. To say that individual Members have the right to disrupt the work of a Committee that has been established by the House to carry out that work is intrinsically absurd. The motion this evening is reasonable. It does not infringe the rights of Select Committees and, far from that, it seems to me wholly to facilitate their work.
7.24 pm
Mr. William Ross (Londonderry, East): As it happens, I am the only Committee member who is not a member of either of the two major parties and, to some extent, I have been a spectator of the private quarrels which seem to go back and forward between the two parties. Since we are talking about a Committee that has a wide remit to decide the form and content of the Register, we must tread with great care on that narrow ground between what is really in the public interest and what is private business. It became clear to me during the gathering of information on Lloyd's just how easy it is to stray over the line. A great many of those who sat on the Committee at that time would agree that the Lloyd's rules had ramifications that were not immediately apparent when the rules were first drawn up. The Committee makes recommendations as to changes in the form and content of the register.
Mr. Campbell-Savours: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Ross: The hon. Gentleman made a long speech, and I have little time. I shall not give way to him.
Mr. Campbell-Savours: They are still registering syndicates--
Madam Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman must be allowed to continue.
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