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Mr. Ross: I will abide by your guidance, Madam Speaker. Frankly, the hon. Member for Workington
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(Mr. Campbell-Savours) was not present during all the discussions. If he had been, he might not have made those comments.The rules of the register change and develop over time. A consequence of that is that things that were formerly not registered now fall within the rules, and those things will certainly fall within the rules in the future as the intention behind the rules becomes more precisely defined. Sometimes the rules are applied in what seems to me as a layman a retrospective manner. The time of clarification of the rules should be the cut-off point for the declarations that Members may have to make.
The financial interests and benefits of Members of this House are treated as a rich hunting ground by the press, and by some Members, and as an opportunity for political mud-slinging. That is true of Members on both sides of the House, if I may say so.
One complaint made by members of the Committee was that there was a Conservative Whip on the Committee. I noticed that, the first or second time that matter was raised, the complaints were confined strictly to the fact that the hon. Gentleman concerned was a Whip. When I pointed out that I was a Whip also, matters developed somewhat, and they have developed considerably further this evening. It was pointed out that the Conservative Whip would have a power of patronage that was denied to me. [Interruption.] I see the Leader of the House smiling at that, and he knows that that is correct. It may be, however, that during a debate in the House I could say to an Ulster Unionist Member that he would find great favour with his Whip if he went down a particular line. That is not likely to happen, since my right hon. and hon. Friends are strong-minded individuals, but no one objected to my presence on the Committee on the grounds that I was a Whip.
I can only assume that that was because it was understood that when I came through the door of the Committee room, I left my Whip outside the door. I believe that we all should do that, as we are members of a Committee whose reports could have a destructive effect on the integrity, character and personal standing of any individual whose conduct we are investigating. I believe that if everyone behaved in that way, some of what we see and hear might not happen.
We must be able to consider the questions before us in a calm and non- partisan manner, and to reach conclusions that are clearly understood by the House and the public. The behaviour of the hon. Member for Workington was designed deliberately to disrupt the proceedings of the Committee.
Mr. Campbell-Savours: That is correct.
Mr. Ross: The hon. Gentleman agrees. I heard him say earlier that there was a leak of the draft report to The Guardian which occurred in March. However, I understand that the first disruption that he brought about was before that, so any possibility of the Committee carrying out an investigation into that matter was immediately aborted.
Mr. Campbell-Savours: It was in February.
Mr. Ross: Well, that is all right then. The first disruption was on 7 February, so the time scale is
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interesting. The hon. Gentleman's disruption demonstrated a lack of faith in the integrity of Committee members.Mr. Streeter: On a point of order, Madam Speaker. Is it in order for the hon. Member for Workington (Mr. Campbell-Savours) to send signals to and receive replies from someone in the Press Gallery who works for The Guardian ? Does that not show the real story going on?
Madam Speaker: I cannot see the Press Gallery and had not noticed that signals were being given. If that is the case, it is certainly not in order and the hon. Gentleman is right to raise such a point of order. If that is taking place, it must cease forthwith. Mr. Ross must not be interrupted further.
Mr. Ross: I was bringing my remarks to a conclusion anyway, Madam Speaker, by saying that the behaviour of the hon. Member for Workington demonstrates the need for the motion.
7.30 pm
Mr. Jeff Rooker (Birmingham, Perry Barr): This has been an interesting and unusual debate. Without wishing to denigrate the debate that preceded it, this debate has probably been more important to the future of the House than the debate on the conduct of hon. Members.
I accept the motion and, if it is put to a vote, I shall vote for it and encourage my hon. Friends to support it. The motion is permissive. The decision would be made not by the Chairman or Chairperson of the Committee but by the Committee itself. It must be based on a reasonable view that the presence of a specified hon. Member, not being a member of the Committee, would obstruct business. To that extent, the motion would not stop any hon. Member attending a meeting of any Select Committee that is held in private to listen to its deliberations and take notes, because that could not be held to be obstruction. The hon. Member for Tatton (Mr. Hamilton) attended a previous meeting of the Select Committee on Members' Interests and took notes, but nobody held that to be obstruction; therefore, it forms a useful precedent.
I see no case for disrupting Committee procedures, whether they be Select or Standing Committees held in public or in private. Hon. Members can always find a suitably convenient time and place to raise any issue that they want on the Floor of the House. I remember those long distant days when we had a Labour Government--those times will soon return--and, as a humble Back Bencher, I found that I could raise any issue I chose whenever I chose to do so by using the procedures of the House.
Dr. Norman A. Godman (Greenock and Port Glasgow): I would have had more sympathy for the motion had it referred to the disruptive conduct of a specified hon. Member. Instead, it talks about the presence of an hon. Member. I am concerned that an hon.
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Member who attends such a Committee and behaves honourably and courteously could still be put out of the Committee's sittings.Mr. Rooker: That would be unreasonable if the hon. Member simply attended, listened to the deliberations and took notes. That could not be held to be obstructing the Committee's proceedings.
Mr. Clappison: On the subject of raising matters on the Floor of the House, is the hon. Gentleman aware that, contrary to the impression that the hon. Member for Workington (Mr. Campbell-Savours) may have given, the hon. Member for Workington raised exactly the same matters regarding membership of the Committee on the Floor of the House in a point of order last year and was given the answer that he should have raised the matter at the appropriate time by objecting to the motion? We now know that he was busy doing deals.
Mr. Rooker: My view, which is shared by many of my hon. Friends, is that the Select Committee on Members' Interests is a classic example of the failure of self-regulation by a quasi-judicial body in this House. That is one reason why I sincerely hope that the Nolan committee will get to grips with that failure. Self-regulation has been a failure ever since it started. I cannot recall the Committee ever taking a proactive view in making the Members' interests register a serious tool for the House and those outside. We hope, therefore, that the Nolan committee will get to grips with the problem. The House will rue the day that we ignore any
recommendations by the Nolan committee on reforming the Members' Interests Select Committee.
As has already been said, Ministers sit on Select Committees. For example, a Treasury Minister is a member of the Public Accounts Select Committee. By convention, Ministers attend only once on appointment, but they receive all the papers. None the less, it is open to them to attend. The Attorney- General is a member of the Privileges Committee. [Interruption.] So, too, is the Leader of the House.
However, whereas Ministers sit on Committees in their departmental capacity, Whips are part of the House's business management and deal with the discipline of party management of their party. They are wholly different animals from departmental Ministers. Anyone can read the rules of the House. Nothing stops the Government placing a departmental Minister on any departmental Select Committee if they choose to do so. Nothing in the rules prevents that. By convention, the Government do not do so but, by convention, they never put Whips on the Members' Interests Select Committee. The matter must therefore be tidied up so that we know which Ministers of the Crown are eligible to serve on investigatory Committees of the House. That serious matter must be dealt with.
I do not wish to go into the details of the incident in question, because the Members' Interests Select Committee has an inquiry under way. I do not know whether it conducts inquiries in tandem, but I have reason to believe that other inquiries are mounting up behind it. On the inquiry that my hon. Friend the Member for Workington disrupted and on which he has allegedly prevented the Committee from making a report to the House because only one witness out of three has been called to give evidence, subject to how that has been
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handled, my Front-Bench colleagues and I will seriously consider advising the parliamentary Labour party as a whole to withdraw complete co-operation and participation from that Select Committee if it is clear to us that a legitimate inquiry has not been brought to a satisfactory conclusion because there has been a whitewash. That matter may be overtaken by the Nolan inquiry, but if there is a whitewash--in this case, there are prima facie grounds for believing that there will be--we shall play no part in it.Mr. Lewis: I am one of those Committee members who, by consensus, has been diligent. I am considering my position because of what has happened over the past several weeks.
My hon. Friend said earlier that hon. Members could raise matters by some device or other on the Floor of the House or elsewhere. Over the past few weeks, all Committee members who have held an alternative view have felt inhibited by our responsible attitude towards privilege and the amount of information that we have in our hands. We are behaving responsibly by not using those devices. Will my hon. Friend take that on board?
Mr. Rooker: I fully accept the constraints under which my hon. Friends have been placed, which is why this difficulty has arisen. If it appears that that Committee has been unable to function because of interference by Government business managers, we shall have no part of it. Only a bent and twisted Government would seek to manipulate investigative Committees of the House.
The Labour Opposition know exactly where we are coming from and how we want to reform the system. That does not mean that we must put up with manipulation of existing procedures. This matter is extremely serious, and, subject to what happens in the Committee and the approval of the motion tonight, we may reach that conclusion. It is not being done in haste, but we consider the matter to be extremely serious and are disturbed by the way in which the Government have behaved.
7.40 pm
Mr. James Clappison (Hertsmere): I welcome the opportunity to make a short contribution to the debate, as a member of the Select Committee on Members' Interests. I strongly endorse the arguments that were made by my hon. Friend the Member for Portsmouth, North (Mr. Griffiths), who serves on the Committee with me, and my hon. Friend the Member for Hertfordshire, North (Mr. Heald).
What the hon. Member for Workington (Mr. Campbell-Savours) has done is wrong. I appreciate that he holds strong opinions about the matter, but it must be wrong for any Member of the House to override the procedures of the House and take it on himself to decide the way in which Committees operate. As a result of the hon. Gentleman's behaviour, the Select Committee has been obstructed.
At the beginning of his speech, the hon. Gentleman said that he wanted to respect the privacy of the deliberations of the Select Committee. However, by the end of his speech I had reached the conclusion that we would have had more privacy if we had conducted our proceedings in the middle of Trafalgar square, because he blatantly used his speech as an opportunity to ventilate as much as he could.
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Turning to the merits of what the hon. Gentleman says--one does not need to do so for long--he undermined his own case about the membership of the Committee by not taking--Dr. Godman: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Clappison: No. I do not have time.
The hon. Member for Workington undermined his own case by not taking advantage of the proceedings--
It being one and a half hours after the commencement of proceedings on the motion, Madam Speaker-- put the Question, pursuant to Order [19 April].
The House divided: Ayes 135, Noes 35.
Division No. 133] [7.40 pm
AYES
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Ainsworth, Peter (East Surrey)Amess, David
Arbuthnot, James
Arnold, Jacques (Gravesham)
Ashdown, Rt Hon Paddy
Atkinson, David (Bour'mouth E)
Baker, Rt Hon Kenneth (Mole V)
Baker, Nicholas (North Dorset)
Baldry, Tony
Bates, Michael
Beresford, Sir Paul
Booth, Hartley
Bottomley, Peter (Eltham)
Bottomley, Rt Hon Virginia
Bowis, John
Brandreth, Gyles
Bright, Sir Graham
Burns, Simon
Butler, Peter
Carlisle, Sir Kenneth (Lincoln)
Carrington, Matthew
Clappison, James
Clarke, Rt Hon Kenneth (Ru'clif)
Clifton-Brown, Geoffrey
Coe, Sebastian
Congdon, David
Conway, Derek
Coombs, Simon (Swindon)
Currie, Mrs Edwina (S D'by'ire)
Curry, David (Skipton & Ripon)
Deva, Nirj Joseph
Douglas-Hamilton, Lord James
Dover, Den
Durant, Sir Anthony
Eggar, Rt Hon Tim
Evans, Jonathan (Brecon)
Evans, Nigel (Ribble Valley)
Evans, Roger (Monmouth)
Evennett, David
Faber, David
Fenner, Dame Peggy
Forsyth, Rt Hon Michael (Stirling)
Forth, Eric
Foster, Don (Bath)
Fowler, Rt Hon Sir Norman
Fox, Dr Liam (Woodspring)
Freeman, Rt Hon Roger
French, Douglas
Garnier, Edward
Gillan, Cheryl
Goodlad, Rt Hon Alastair
Goodson-Wickes, Dr Charles
Greenway, Harry (Ealing N)
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Greenway, John (Ryedale)Griffiths, Peter (Portsmouth, N)
Hague, William
Hanley, Rt Hon Jeremy
Hargreaves, Andrew
Hawkins, Nick
Hayes, Jerry
Heald, Oliver
Heathcoat-Amory, David
Hendry, Charles
Heseltine, Rt Hon Michael
Higgins, Rt Hon Sir Terence
Hogg, Rt Hon Douglas (G'tham)
Horam, John
Hunt, Rt Hon David (Wirral W)
Jack, Michael
Jones, Gwilym (Cardiff N)
Jones, Robert B (W Hertfdshr)
Kirkhope, Timothy
Knight, Mrs Angela (Erewash)
Knight, Greg (Derby N)
Kynoch, George (Kincardine)
Lait, Mrs Jacqui
Lidington, David
Lightbown, David
Lilley, Rt Hon Peter
Luff, Peter
Lyell, Rt Hon Sir Nicholas
MacKay, Andrew
Maclean, David
Malone, Gerald
Mandelson, Peter
Mans, Keith
Marshall, John (Hendon S)
Martin, David (Portsmouth S)
Merchant, Piers
Mitchell, Andrew (Gedling)
Monro, Sir Hector
Neubert, Sir Michael
Newton, Rt Hon Tony
Nicholson, Emma (Devon West)
Norris, Steve
Onslow, Rt Hon Sir Cranley
Oppenheim, Phillip
Page, Richard
Paice, James
Portillo, Rt Hon Michael
Richards, Rod
Robertson, Raymond (Ab'd'n S)
Robinson, Mark (Somerton)
Rooker, Jeff
Ross, William (E Londonderry)
Rowe, Andrew (Mid Kent)
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