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Mr. Mark Wolfson (Sevenoaks): Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Shore: No. Indeed, it has been said--I have some sympathy with this--that the committee has passed the buck back to Parliament for its advice and consideration. The Nolan committee recommends, however, that much
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more information should in future be supplied to the register than is now available. First, it says that the detail of consultancy agreements be recorded--of the nature to which the right hon. Member for Watford (Mr. Garel-Jones) referred--and, secondly, that the moneys received in respect of consultancies should be declared.Those recommendations will undoubtedly greatly increase public knowledge of what consultancies entail. No doubt, the House and its Committees will want to consider very seriously whether consultancies should be allowed to continue or whether, in part or in whole, some of them should be banned. The Nolan committee for its part has expressly stated that it will return to the issue after the House has debated the matter and in the light of the enhanced flow of information.
Sir David Mitchell (Hampshire, North-West): When an interest is declared and there for everybody to see in some detail, will the right hon. Gentleman explain what difference it would make if the remuneration were £1,000, £5,000 or £10,000? As long as it is clear that there is an interest and that that interest is properly declared, what additional benefit does the House or anyone else gain from knowing the precise amount?
Mr. Peter Shore (Bethnal Green and Stepney): That raises many questions, but I think that, in judging the importance of consultancies and paid outside interests, it is relevant that the actual amount be declared. There is a real distinction between the receipt of £1,000 a year for some small service and the receipt of £10,000 or more for other services. Those payments which are related to what we do and are able to do because we are Members of Parliament should be made publicly available.
It is crucial to the success, stability and reputation of our democracy that Ministers and elected representatives are not only animated, but are seen to be animated by their desire to serve the public interest and not personal gain or advantage. The vast majority of Members of the House are indeed honourable Members. There are very few who--sadly--fall below the high standards that the House expects and the House must deal firmly with those who transgress. There is also a need, as I hope that I have demonstrated, for greater clarity in the House's own rules on personal conduct. It is my hope that the Nolan committee's first report will assist the House in the task of re-examining its own rules and in restoring public confidence in the integrity of our democracy.
6.22 pm
Mr. Tom King (Bridgwater): I likewise declare my interests, as declared in the Register of Members' Interests. Unlike my right hon. Friend the Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (Sir E. Heath) I think that the interests are reducing somewhat. I think that the House should be grateful to my right hon. Friend, the Father of the House, and, indeed, to the right hon. Member for Bethnal Green and Stepney (Mr. Shore) for raising the tone of the debate and enabling matters to be addressed with the seriousness that they deserve. This is a House of Commons matter. It is not something that should be lost in party-political squabble. I do not think that it was helpful--I say no more than this--that the Leader of Opposition chose to ask such a question at Prime Minister's Question Time, to which the hon. Member for Dewsbury (Mrs. Taylor) referred. It
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might have got the debate off on precisely the wrong foot. It is important that we consider these matters. The Father of the House has done a great service by setting before hon. Members some of the real issues that have to be addressed and the right hon. Member for Bethnal Green and Stepney has made clear that they are very difficult.The House owes itself the duty to read the report. It is well written. One letter that Lord Nolan received--I do not think that he will mind me disclosing it--said that it takes an Irishman to write English. Whether that is true or false, it is a serious report and it contains a number, not of diktats, not of instructions, but of recommendations which it asks the House to consider. Not all are for the House to consider because, of course, it invites the Government to consider some recommendations as well.
I pay tribute to Lord Nolan and the staff working with him: Alan Riddell, our secretary, and his team. I also pay tribute to my fellow members of the Nolan committee, who managed to rise above party politics in considering some very difficult issues to try to approach the matter seriously. I know that my colleagues on the committee would not object to one man being singled out. So to those who rise too fast to say that we are seeing the end of sovereignty and the traditions of the House, I say that I would like to pay tribute to Sir Clifford Boulton, who is not about to betray this House of Commons in the early moments of his retirement from it. His contribution to the committee was extremely valuable.
The House should approach these issues with seriousness. We are trustees and guardians of a very precious tradition. The mother of Parliaments is temporarily in our hands. We meet here in a week in which the Senate has decided to resume its investigations into the conduct of the President of the United States; the United States Attorney-General has just announced that she will begin investigations into the previous conduct of a fellow member of the Cabinet, the US Trade Secretary; a French Cabinet Minister, who had resigned from the Cabinet because of charges made against him, has been sentenced to gaol; and 20 per cent. of the Italian Parliament--that is a pretty significant number if one looks around--are awaiting trial on criminal charges. Such issues ought not to be taken lightly.
Indeed, when the right hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Mr. Sheldon) appeared before the committee, he made a telling point. He said that of some 184 members of the United Nations at the present time, he felt that only a handful had managed to maintain the sort of standards of conduct in public life that we treasure. We know that once it is lost, how difficult it is to regain. Those hon. Members of all parties, who I know feel aggrieved about some aspects of the report, should recognise first that we heard a lot of evidence in the Nolan committee. We worked pretty hard in those six months. It bears comparison with another inquiry that is taking place at the present time, whose only contribution appears to be an announcement of a further postponement of its findings. From our hearings came the statement, which was quoted in the House, that while there are problems that need to be addressed, the standards of public life expected in the country are high and the overwhelming majority of Members of the House and people in public life seek to aspire to them and, indeed, to maintain them.
So, that is the challenge that we face. The price of freedom is eternal vigilance; so it is to maintain high standards in public life. Eternal vigilance is necessary. If
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we say that we believe that we seek to maintain high public standards, we must recognise one thing. My right hon. Friend the Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup asked what has changed. One thing has undoubtedly changed. I shall not theorise on the reasons for it today. The public perception of this House has gone down and down and down.The very first witness that the committee called to try to get some feeling for public perception of conduct of Members in public life said that 64 per cent. of the public believe that most Members of Parliament make a lot of money by using public office improperly. He confirmed that when a similar poll was taken nine years ago, exactly the same question was asked and the figure was 46 per cent. I and other members of the committee asked each person who came in, such as newspaper editors, and Professor Ivor Crewe, who gave that evidence, whether they believed that the statement was true. Professor Crewe said no, as did a succession of other witnesses. Yet the public perception is that it is true. It is the perception that is untrue, and it needs to be tackled, because if the House does not command the confidence of the British people there is a serious threat to our parliamentary democracy.
It is against that background that we have made our
recommendations.
Sir Geoffrey Johnson Smith: Will my right hon. Friend give way?
Mr. King: May I go on and reach a point on which my hon. Friend may well wish to intervene?
Sir Geoffrey Johnson Smith: I want to comment on something that my right hon. Friend has just said.
Mr. King: I am sure that there will be lots more before I have finished. I shall certainly give way to my hon. Friend later, but first I want to say something else on the same subject.
I do not want to speak for long, because we have written our report and now it is for the House to speak. I want to listen to the views put forward on our recommendations. I shall deal first with the recommendations for the Government, and first of all with those concerning quangos.
The Committee was set up in the face of a barrage of allegations about the practice of making appointments to quangos. It was said that all appointees were Conservative placemen and that appointments were entirely a matter of political prejudice. We took a lot of evidence, and if hon. Members read the report they will see that we did not find that those allegations were conclusively proved. We found, indeed, that the evidence was inconclusive and that the Government had already made certain proposals to try to improve the arrangements for appointing people to public bodies.
The system does not work well enough. The range is too limited; the same names keep cropping up. This is not a party political point; there is simply not an efficient system for selecting people. There is some resentment in local government that the usual nominations on a bipartisan basis and the normal appointments of a number of people--"Buggins' turn" on the local authority round--are not coming up, because we have changed that system for appointing the members of quangos.
We want good competent people. We have proposed to the Government that, in order to regain public confidence, there should be a public appointments commissioner--not
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to make the appointments but to regulate and monitor, to report on the progress of the system of making appointments, and to check that the Departments are acting fairly.As Nolan emphasises, it is essential that Ministers take responsibility for the appointments that they make. In the final analysis they must answer for them. If a Minister sees somebody competent with the ability, energy and drive that he considers necessary for a particular appointment, there is nothing to prevent him from seeking to have that person appointed. But at the end of the day he must be prepared to take the responsibility for the appointment that he has made. Our proposals are an attempt to give greater public confidence in that area, and I hope that that will be achieved.
We already have a system relating to Ministers' conduct and the standards according to which they operate. Many hon. and right hon. Members will be familiar with "Questions of Procedure for Ministers", the contents of which have grown up over the years. It is not sufficiently clear and comprehensive, and we suggest that clearer and more comprehensive guidance, entitled "Conduct and Procedure for Ministers" should be given to every new Minister. My right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster has already said that a code for civil servants will be introduced, and our suggestion would parallel that, with a proper guide being given to Ministers. Another question that we addressed was the problem that arises when a Minister is thought to have behaved incorrectly in relation to the code of conduct and procedure, and how that should be investigated. It is no secret that there have been problems. There have been two examples in recent years, and the role of the Cabinet Secretary should be carefully considered. When it is his duty to advise the Prime Minister, should he be the person to conduct the investigations too? I shall not delay the House further, but hon. Members may like to read the conclusions that we drew on the subject. It is essential that there be an effective system.
I shall now mention another aspect that has caused
concern--Ministers leaving office and taking up outside appointments. There is no question about the fact that individual Ministers who leave office are capable of making an effective contribution and can bring considerable ability to bear, to the advantage of our country. We must ensure that that channel is not obstructed by political correctness to an extent that becomes unfair to the people concerned and disadvantages our country.
None the less, there must be public confidence that Ministers, like civil servants, are not allowed to take special advantage of information that they have acquired during their period in Government and exploit it for their own personal advantage or for the advantage of an organisation that they may join. When I was Secretary of State for Defence I used to approve or give advice on the terms under which senior civil servants leaving office could or could not take up certain appointments, yet there were no rules for Ministers at all. At present there is nothing to stop a Minister walking straight out and taking any job, although a week beforehand he may have denied his permanent secretary or another senior official in his Department the opportunity to take up a particular employment.
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Mr. Quentin Davies (Stamford and Spalding): Will my right hon. Friend give way?Mr. King: May I finish this point first?
It is fair that Ministers should be expected to take the advice of the advisory committee now chaired by Lord Carlisle--a group of 10 experienced senior people who can ensure that appointments that former Ministers may take up do not invite allegations of impropriety.
I was glad to see that my right hon. Friends the Members for Sutton Coldfield (Mr. Fowler) and for Norfolk, South (Mr. MacGregor) supported that proposal when they gave evidence before the Committee. It could be a defence and a protection for Ministers in such circumstances.
My colleagues and I were anxious to ensure that it was recognised that Ministers and civil servants are not in the same position. The situation is not the same for a senior civil servant retiring at 60 on a full pension, who has anticipated his retirement and knows when he is going, as it is for a Minister who may be about 40 with three or four children, who finds himself, perhaps to his surprise, no longer in such demand as he was. [Laughter.] That reaction is interesting. I do not think that, if the situation changed, Opposition Members would hold quite the same view as they hold now--because it does not happen to be fair. I believe that in the end they would recognise that.
I believe that the changes are sensible. We propose that for Cabinet Ministers, as for permanent secretaries, there should be an automatic three -month waiting period, but that for Ministers below Cabinet level and for Whips there should be no automatic waiting period.
I shall now give way to my hon. Friend the Member for Wealden (Sir G. Johnson Smith), as I promised.
Sir Geoffrey Johnson Smith: May I take my right hon. Friend back to the beginning of his speech, when he gave us some interesting figures about the public perception of Members of the House of Commons. He told us that when those who produced the evidence that we were held in low esteem were asked whether they agreed with that opinion, they said that they did not. How does my right hon. Friend account for the gap in perception between those who gave the evidence and the public?
Mr. King: I shall not detain the House with my opinion on that, because we all have our views on it. However, it is a fact; I am not sure whether my hon. Friend is challenging it. We all share the concern about the public view of Members of Parliament. The people who do not share it may be those who organised the polls and the commentators who commented on them. That is the public perception which, while it may be unfair and fed by the media, is something we must recognise as damaging to democracy.
I now turn to the issue of Members of Parliament. I shall be helped in my remarks by the clear exposition given by the right hon. Member for Bethnal Green and Stepney, who made clear that there are difficult decisions to be made about how consultancies are to be handled in future. Some members of the committee wondered whether not just lobbyists but all consultancies should be banned completely, and the report addresses that issue.
Exceptions and anomalies have come out in the speeches and interventions which colleagues have made, and the House must address such points. We must ensure
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that the House does not depend on a mono- cultural stream of people coming through a politically correct net into the House. There must be the widest possible range of access to the House, so that Members have experience and interest in a wide range of fields. The House will be better for that.The difficulty is how we make that happen in a way which also ensures that we protect ourselves from the other extreme of problem. Every Member knows that there are those who have used their membership of the House to provide services in a way that has invited considerable criticism and which has not brought credit on the House. It will be for the House to draw up the difficult resolutions on that subject.
Some people have asked me what is to happen after this debate. The House must take the report's recommendations forward, and decide how to address the issues. We must ensure that we maintain access to people outside the House, and we must respect the fact that lobbying is an essential part of the democratic process. We do not want debates to be uninformed or to have Members who do not know what they are talking about. We must ensure that we have the mechanisms of democracy without inviting the criticisms which have been attracted to it.
The House must have a way of ensuring that whatever it decides is maintained. I strongly endorse what the right hon. Member for Bethnal Green and Stepney said about a parliamentary commissioner for standards. That person could be the registrar of Members' Interests under another name, as we propose the abolition of that post. We also propose merging the Committee of Privileges and the Committee on Members' Interests into a single committee. Those who think that that would be a gross intrusion into the wonderful system that we have at the moment might like to talk to the two Members who recently experienced the present system. They warmly welcome the introduction of a new system which could contain within it the elements of natural justice, efficiency and promptness which some might feel the two Members were denied under the present hallowed system.
A gentleman--or a lady, I hasten to say--of independence and stature could be appointed by the House, chosen by House, voted in to his post by the House and would be an Officer of the House. I do not see how the appointment of such a person could be a great undermining of the sovereignty of the House. Such a commissioner could report to a sub- committee, and would have some powers of investigation. I see in the proposals protection for men of repute from unfounded allegations.
Individual Members could go to an independent commissioner when allegations and smears are made against them. The commissioner would be able to investigate the allegations privately, and he could have the authority to determine whether they justify further investigation. Hon. Members have said that that would be a considerable strength, as they have nothing of that sort at present. We all have odd constituents who can make some wild allegations, but we have no protection against them at all. Someone who could command confidence in that field would be a reassurance and a benefit. Another point in the proposals may seem outrageous to some. We propose that the commissioner should be responsible for the guidance of Members, and could operate some form of induction training for Members on conduct and procedures. When I came to the House, I
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stood between Lord Whitelaw and somebody who I have now forgotten, marched up to the Chair, signed a piece of paper, got my writ and I was in. It was thought that I must know what I was supposed to do. I was elected at a by-election, but nobody told me where anything was. People may say that we are considering some appalling new professionalism, but certain facilities and improvements in this field will be genuinely helpful. If we want to maintain standards, it would be helpful if the standards which the House expects of Members were clearly set out.I recognise, as did the right hon. Member for Bethnal Green and Stepney, that we have in a sense passed the buck to the House. We have done that in the knowledge that the Nolan committee believes that it is not only allowable but valuable for Members to have outside interests and involvements because that widens the experience that a Member brings to this House. We believe there are none the less challenges which the House has to face. Abuses and pressures in the field of consultancies and lobbying must be addressed. One or two comments from hon. Members have given me the worry that some people have felt that they could walk away from this matter, and that they could leave it and everybody would forget about it. All of the evidence that I listened to during the proceedings of the Nolan committee, and all that I have been exposed to in my constituency and in my public life suggests that that would be profoundly unwise. I hope that the House accepts the responsibility to address the issues and to recognise the difficult dividing lines. The House must come up with proposals which can build on the recommendations which we made in the report, and do so in a way which commands the widest public confidence. We must restore public confidence in this mother of Parliaments which we all cherish and hold dear.
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Michael Morris): Before I call the next hon. Member to speak, may I remind the House that Madam Speaker has declared that speeches from 7 o'clock shall be restricted to 10 minutes?
6.48 pm
Mr. Robert Maclennan (Caithness and Sutherland): Following the precedent established during the debate, I shall begin by declaring the interests that I set out in the register in my name. I must express to the right hon. Member for Bridgwater (Mr. King) my belief that he has made an extremely persuasive speech to which we must all listen and upon which we must reflect. He was right to emphasise at the beginning that, compared with standards of conduct observed in public life in other countries, Britain stands out as being gratifyingly clean. It is not pharisaical to note how rarely corruption cases break through the surface of the expansive activities of Government in this country. It is not pious complacency to take pride in the altruism and selflessness of the numberless people who spend their lives working in the public service. Our purpose in Parliament should be to seek to underpin the high standards which the public are entitled to expect and on which, for the most part, they can rely.
In some ways, it is regrettable that today's debate is necessary; but necessary it is. In reflecting that Lord Nolan was not as worldly as he might be to understand
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the workings of the House and how things are done, the Father of the House was reflecting the judgments of an earlier age and was not sufficiently in tune with the public's perception of the work that is done in the House, nor with the urgent need to seek to affect those public perceptions. I have not served in the House for as long as the Father of the House, but I am in my 30th year of service. Even in my time, I am aware of the changes that have taken place, not least in the accumulation of consultancies, to which the right hon. Member for Bethnal Green and Stepney (Mr. Shore) referred.One should ask why that has happened. I believe that it has happened at least partly because the remuneration of Members of Parliament during that period has not kept pace with the rise in earnings of others in society. The Nolan committee refers to that fact.
Mr. Duncan Smith: Is not it strange, therefore, that the Nolan committee reached no conclusion about the link between the increase in consultancies and the decrease in the purchasing power of hon. Members' pay? Does he not find that a matter of concern?
Mr. Maclennan: No. The committee was properly aware of the limitations of its remit. It was not invited to consider the remuneration of Members of Parliament generally and, although it was correct to allude to the issue, it would have been wrong to take a final view about it. However, we can properly consider the link in this debate and form our own judgments on it.
A number of recent episodes have sadly besmirched the reputation of the institutions to which the individuals involved belong. They have raised in the public's mind questions about whether there is a sickness in our political system. I do not wish to linger on the background to setting up the committee, but it will be recalled that a succession of episodes in different areas gave rise to anxiety. Those include the Asil Nadir affair; the circumstances of the arms sales to Iraq, which are currently under investigation by the Scott committee; the resignation of at least one junior Minister who failed to declare a financial interest before his becoming a Minister; the activities of certain political lobbying firms; the accommodation of ex-Cabinet Ministers in the boardrooms of companies that they had a hand in privatising; and, as charted by the Public Accounts Committee in a number of reports, the disreputable conduct of certain individuals who operate within quangos.
Too often, the proper conduct of public business is secured only by ill- defined conventions and self-restraints. Today's abuses are testimony to the frailty of those protections of the public interest. Written constitutions alone manifestly do not eliminate improprieties from public life. None the less, constitutional provisions that defined the public rights and duties of the citizen--and the citizen in public service--and rendered those rights and duties enforceable in the courts would modernise our democracy. They would provide necessary checks and balances, secure greater transparency in public transactions and offer legal remedies where breaches occurred. Under such a constitutional system, Members of Parliament would not have the last word for they would be subject to the constitution. The Liberal Democrats believe that, ultimately, this country should move along that road.
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The need for the Nolan committee's appointment was, however, urgent and although the effect of its recommendations is far-reaching, it is a very British response to the defacing episodes that I mentioned earlier. The report is a masterly compendium of proposals. If adopted in their entirety, they should help to diminish public anxiety. Wisely, as the need for immediate action is clear, the committee proposes a process--not yet a statutory framework--to be implemented and scrutinised for its effectiveness over a period of time. Members of Parliament are particularly indebted to the committee for the speed and thoroughness with which it accumulated its evidence and formulated cogent proposals.The underlying principles that the committee advances seem to be compelling. First, those in public life should be guided by certain standards which, when considered together, put the public good before private personal advantage. Secondly, those who choose the course of public service must take responsibility for their own actions and should be guided in those actions by clear codes of conduct to which they and their peers have given assent. Thirdly, as it is not reassuring to people at large that those public servants should be prosecutor, judge, jury and executioner in their own causes, it is right to appoint independent outside officers to oversee and advise on the effectiveness of the self-regulatory system. Fourthly, it is recognised that corruption does not live in the sunlight. The blinds must be lifted.
The recommendations of the Nolan committee founded on those principles seem to be sensible and the immediate necessary step to remove justifiable public concern. Regrettably, however, there are two omissions. The first was alluded to by the Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee, the right hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Mr. Sheldon), and I shall not linger on it. Non-departmental public bodies should all be subject to scrutiny, by either the National Audit Office or the Audit Commission. I welcome the recognition in the Nolan committee report that
"The absence of automatic public scrutiny does seem to us to represent an anomaly."
I hope that that will be dealt with in the committee's future work.
The second major omission was imposed on the committee by the Prime Minister: consideration of the funding of political parties. All political parties should, in the public interest, be required to disclose substantial funding by individual trusts, private companies and others not required by law to seek the consent of shareholders or members to political donations. The existing arrangements are a potential source of corruption. It has been argued that such bodies and individuals have a right to privacy and to withhold their identification from the public. I cannot see why people should be embarrassed about giving financial support to a political party. The democratic process needs to be funded. The public right to know should override an individual's sensitivity about the revelation of his identity. I take it that few individuals would be reluctant to reveal their identity to the party being funded. The purchase of influence or reward is unacceptable and it is an evil that can be stopped only by openness. No doubt the policing of an open system would present problems, but they are not insurmountable.
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I welcome and support the committee's particular recommendation about the Register of Members' Interests. I believe that Parliament is helped by the direct knowledge that Members can bring to it from their personal involvement with the outside world. If all hon. Members spoke only with second-hand experience, our debates would be somewhat diminished. There is, however, a consequent need to declare clearly the nature, extent and value to a Member of his outside connections.Perhaps a more controversial recommendation, and certainly the most controversial one according to today's debate, is the appointment of a parliamentary commissioner for standards. His proposed role would assist Members of Parliament to perform their duties and in no way supplant their responsibilities. He would assist in drawing up the code of conduct and by maintaining the register, advising new Members and conducting preliminary investigations into complaints. I can only speculate about what effect the presence of such an officer would have had upon some of the more colourful episodes that we have observed, even within the past 48 hours, and that have been described before a rather astonished public.
The proposed amendments to the adjudicating role of the Select Committee on Privileges should help to ensure that the rules of natural justice are followed.
Liberal Democrats have advocated that changes should be made to the rules governing the employment of Ministers after they leave public office. I believe that the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster was somewhat too complacent when he said to the committee:
"It is still right to leave decisions about these matters to the judgment of the individuals concerned."
The life of a Minister may be "nasty, brutish and short", but that is taken into account by politicians when they embark upon that course. From my rather modest experience in that sphere, I do not believe that Ministers become unemployable after they demit office, but the appropriateness of the employment should be subject to external scrutiny. I therefore welcome what the Government have said about that today.
The arrangements for potential whistleblowers in the civil service are also to be welcomed. They will help to limit any attempts to bring improper political pressure to bear upon their independence. Liberal Democrats are unhappy about the growth in Government reliance upon quangos and the evident abuse of powers of political patronage not only to ensure that those quangos are run by agents of like mind to the Government, which is certainly understandable, but that they are used to reward political cronies. The proposals to require the disclosure of political activity and independently to oversee the appointments processes in all Departments is therefore to be welcomed warmly.
Although many of the jobs in the hands of the quangos should be carried out properly by accountable, elected individuals--a point on which I am in complete agreement with the Father of the House--the proposed changes should help to change the more unattractive aspects of the quango culture.
The Nolan committee's recommendations should be accepted. When the Leader of the House replies to the debate, I hope that he will suggest how he proposes to put the issues for decision before the House, particularly those affecting the conduct of Members of Parliament. Of course I understand the desire of the Government to hear the views of the House, but we are entitled to hear from
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the right hon. Gentleman, as Leader of the House, how he proposes to scrutinise the proposals in detail and give effect to them with a view to meeting the timetable recommended by the Nolan committee. Great importance should be attached to that timetable because an integral part of the committee's recommendations was that matters should be dealt with urgently.I do not think that there is any point in arguing about whether nine tenths or three tenths of the proposals are capable of being implemented before the end of the year. What is clear is that the Nolan committee expected Parliament to act speedily.
The Ministers who are participating in the debate do so in a double role-- as Members of the House, who are leading the discussions in the House, but also as members of the Government. We are entitled to hear their answers to our questions in both those roles.
On behalf of my party, I endorse warmly the work of the committee and express my thanks to all those who clearly laboured long and hard to produce this valuable report.
7.4 pm
Sir Terence Higgins (Worthing): I begin by declaring the interests that I have recorded in the Register of Members' Interests. In many respects, I agree with the suggestions in the Nolan committee's report, but I feel bound to say that if they are accepted in isolation, there is a serious danger that, far from raising standards in public life, they may lower them because, at the end of the day, it is the individuals who take public office who set the standards. I believe that the House is already facing a considerable recruitment problem. Given the implications of the report, that matter cannot be divorced from the issue of Members' and Ministers' pay. That issue is extremely relevant if we are to recruit to the House people of adequate standard. I shall return to that later. I should like to stress one simple point right at the beginning. The expression "full-time Member of Parliament", which has been bandied today and even appears in the report, is misleading. I doubt that there is a single Member of the House who is not full time in the sense that he fulfils what is a normal working week according to any normal outside standard. Many of those Members with outside interests put in the greatest amount of work in this place, not least, for example, because of their membership of Select Committees, which are an increasingly effective means of holding the Government to account.
I am glad that the Nolan committee has accepted what I suggested in my evidence, when I said that the present arrangements for scrutinising breaches--if I can put it like that--of the normal standards of the House were not working. The split between the Privileges Committee and the Select Committee on Members' Interests is not satisfactory. The Privileges Committee, with its huge membership, takes far too long to convene between one meeting and another. The Select Committee on Members' Interests is not the appropriate body to deal with such breaches.
The Nolan committee's suggestion that we should appoint a Sub-Committee of the Privileges Committee to deal with the matter is entirely right. We must, however, give the structure an opportunity to work. Despite the
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persuasive arguments of my right hon. Friend the Member for Bridgwater (Mr. King), I am, therefore, not convinced that the proposal for a parliamentary commissioner for standards is appropriate.I entirely go along with the initial proposal about the parliamentary commissioner's duties. I agree with the idea that he should be an improved registrar of Members' interests and give advice. The idea that he should carry out independent investigations, however, is not appropriate. I am particularly concerned that page 44 of the report states:
"the commissioner should be able to send for persons, papers and records, and will therefore need to be supported by the authority of a Select Committee with the necessary powers. To give the powers personally to the Commissioner would require primary legislation". I do not like the way in which the committee suggests we should get around that particular business. The power to send for persons and papers should not be delegated by a Committee of the House to some outside individual, however distinguished. I believe that that proposal poses considerable dangers and I sought to explain some of them to the Opposition spokesman, the hon. Member for Dewsbury (Mrs. Taylor).
It is dangerous to have someone independently carrying out inquiries into all types of allegations, and then perhaps publishing his opinions, without the Privileges Committee having a grip on the thing. A new Sub-Committee of the Privileges Committee, able to work quickly and effectively, with all the powers to obtain any evidence that it needs about allegations, should be given a trial before we go along with that other suggestion, which has considerable dangers. I am quoted in the report with approval as saying that transparency in respect of Members' interests is all-important. I profoundly believe that. However, it is the declaration of interests that is important to the House. The House is able to discount accordingly a speech by an hon. Member declaring an interest, the way in which he votes, and so on. That is the way in which we have always gone. A Member either has an interest or does not. I am therefore doubtful about the proposition that it is necessary to quantify. It is not very effective, because what to one person is a large amount of money by way of a consultancy fee may be mere pocket money to another.
Perhaps one should quantify with regard to consultancies that arise from the House, but, as the Nolan committee says, not with regard to outside interests that do not arise from the House. That will be a very difficult line to draw. It will be necessary for the House, and perhaps a Committee of the House, to consider the matter and make proposals to tackle that problem. I doubt that the link between the Front Benchers is an appropriate way of doing it.
I return to my main argument. As the Nolan committee recognises, implementation of its proposals will have a significant effect on Members' ability to have outside income. I believe that, in many ways, the proposals will act as something of a deterrent, especially to those who are elected after the next general election. Therefore, one must consider the matter in its context, and it must be related to Members' pay.
I do not suggest that we should have full-time, well-paid Members of Parliament with no outside interests. They need to have both a sensible level of pay and the ability to have outside interests unconnected with their membership of the House.
Column 527
In that respect, I repeat the evidence and the figures that I gave with regard to what has happened to pay generally. Since I entered the House, real incomes have increased by 80 per cent. Meanwhile, Members' pay has just returned to the level at which it was when I came to this place, and has been below that level, sometimes substantially, throughout the intervening time.Ministers' pay has declined dramatically--the figures are quoted in the report. That of Ministers has declined by 60 per cent. and that of the Prime Minister by 59 per cent. Present Ministers, in real terms, allowing for inflation, are paid half what Harold Wilson and his Cabinet Ministers were paid. That is the extent of the decline. We want people to enter the House who are of the quality to become Ministers. We cannot expect them to do so at present levels of pay. That is a serious problem. The amount that one would now need to pay to recruit that type of person as a commercial director in a middling-size plc is double or more what we pay the Prime Minister. If we are to attract people of real ability into the House, we must consider the fact that someone--perhaps a president of the union--with a good second-class or first-class university degree, who might previously have usually come into this place, can go into the City now and earn more than a Member of Parliament in two years, with the prospect of earning vastly more later.
As the Nolan committee says--indeed, it was said in the final question posed to me when I appeared before it--surely service to the country and to public life is important. Yes; it is profoundly important, and I regard my membership of the House as the greatest honour. Nevertheless, when recruiting people, one cannot disregard the fact that, if one had remained in outside occupation, one would probably be earning five times as much as one has earned in this place--perhaps more. People need to have regard to their family circumstances, and so on.
On timing, it is vital that the proposals in the report should be related to a fundamental review of what is happening to remuneration in this place.
There is a great deal of fuzziness in the report. Many of the issues are not clearly defined. Therefore it is necessary, not for the usual channels, but for a committee to consider carefully the way in which those matters are drafted and the way in which resolutions might be placed before the House.
I make a final argument, because I am running out of time. It is much more important that we should get the matter right than that we should act fast, and it requires very careful consideration indeed by the House and its Committee.
7.14 pm
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