House of Commons Hansard Debates for 18 May 1995

Ms Angela Eagle (Wallasey): I declare that I am a sponsored member of Unison, which entails no personal remuneration but a payment of £600 a year to my constituency in accordance with the Hastings agreement, which is also a published document.

I commend the work of the Nolan committee, particularly the speed with which it has done its work, the clarity with which it has expressed itself, the openness of its deliberations and the fairness with which it has approached its task. I also commend the right hon. Members for Bridgwater (Mr. King) and for Bethnal Green and Stepney (Mr. Shore), who sat on the committee, for their speeches tonight, both of which were extremely thought provoking and raised important questions of detail with which the House will have to grapple--I hope, shortly.

I welcome the report and its recommendations. I also welcome the three-year remit that the Prime Minister has given the Nolan committee and the fact that it can return to these issues if the House makes no progress.

I wish to concentrate mainly on the section of the report that deals with Members of Parliament. That means not that I underestimate the importance of the rest of the report but that tonight I wish to concentrate on an area about which the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster said very little in his opening speech. He properly dealt with the Government's and the Executive's view, but the crux of many of the issues lies within the House and concerns the conduct of hon. Members.

I hope that, in replying to the debate, the Leader of the House will outline the mechanism by which he proposes to make progress on some of those recommendations--the time scale, perhaps--and the Government's view. I recognise that it is a matter for hon. Members to decide, but the Government must have a view and I should like to know what it is.

The Nolan committee was right express concern about

"the very substantial increase in the number of Members of Parliament employed as consultants".

The report identifies the fact that 168 Members share 356 consultancies between them. That is a relatively new matter, which seems to be snowballing with the growth of lobbying firms. We must ensure that the mechanisms that we have in place are modern and efficient enough to deal with changes that occur outside the House. Although we sometimes need to cherish our traditions, we must be ready to change them if the need arises.

I support the proposed ban on multi-client lobbying companies, which was long overdue. The idea of transparency when a company has a multiplicity of clients is

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almost impossible to achieve and I hope that the House will take immediate action to put that into effect. I also welcome the recommendation that the House should set in hand without delay a broader consideration of the merits of parliamentary consultancies. My instinct, although I wish to listen to the debate, is that they, too, should be banned. I agree with Nolan that we should look at three quid pro quos if there is to be a ban. First, resourcing for Opposition parties should be much better so that they do not have to rely as much on briefings from lobbying companies. That is done in Germany, for example, where the civil service helps to service opposition parties as well as the Government. We need to look at that issue as legislation becomes increasingly complex.

Secondly, we must consider higher remuneration for Members of Parliament, an issue referred to today by hon. Members on both sides of the House.

Thirdly, we must consider the wider issue of proper resourcing for this legislature. The Executive spends massive sums; I believe that it spends more on advertising than it costs to run the whole of Parliament. I do not see how we can do our job as a legislature properly, looking after how the Executive runs the country, when we have, as a member of the Privileges Committee pointed out, such tiny resources to do that job.

I also agree with the suggestion that the agreement between anyone who has an arrangement with an outside commercial interest and remuneration received as a result should be disclosed. Most of our constituents would not accept the argument that the size of the payment has anything but a direct bearing on the potential strength of that interest. Our constituents are looking for us to make those declarations.

It may seem a rather odd thing for a member of the Select Committee on Members' Interests to say, but I whole-heartedly and unreservedly welcome Lord Nolan's recommendation that the Committee should be abolished. I do not say that with any great joy, but I have served on that Committee since I was elected and it has been a tough and unpleasant duty. Many other members of the Committee probably share that feeling. I cannot go into detail about what is going on on that Committee, but it has been wrecked by the Government's decision to appoint a Whip to it. As a result, we are without an effective system of policing the Register of Members' Interests, just at the time when we most need it. The independent element suggested by the Nolan Committee, albeit sublimated by a Sub-Committee of the Privileges Committee, is an ingenious means of trying to deal with the real difficulty that we have come across in the past few months. Those months have been difficult for me and every member of the Committee. You might be interested to know, Madam Speaker, that you are being touted as the new commissioner for ethics. That is an interesting proposal, but I am also attracted by Lord Nolan's solution. The main thing about which I am concerned is that Parliament should take fast action to implement some of the extremely important Nolan committee recommendations.

The Strauss committee sat in 1969 and produced a relevant recommendation, which was not even debated in the House. That is why it is important that we are seen by the public, who expect us to take action on the Nolan recommendations, to be serious in our approach. We do not have to be sloppy or look like we are panicking, but we must make faster progress than the House is used to

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making on such issues. We must fight to reach a consensus on how to deal with them seriously. If it all comes down to party politicking, on one side of the House or on the other, we are doomed to failure. We must strive for consensus to make rapid progress.

The report of the Nolan committee gives us the chance to make such progress. It is no longer acceptable for Members to serve in the House but not to take the necessary action for years. Such action would leave festering resentments and some misapprehensions among our constituents to destroy the foundation of our democracy and our legitimacy in this place.

I would welcome an assurance from the Leader of the House that the extremely tight, but good, timetable for the implementation of the recommendations relating to the House and with reference to Members of Parliament, will be adhered to. Lord Nolan wants 21 of the 32 recommendations to be put into effect now and 10 of them to be put into effect by the beginning of the next Session. That will include setting up new committees and some difficult detailed work, which I hope that the Select Committee on Members' Interests will be able to undertake. Lord Nolan asks for just one recommendation to be implemented by next year.

I hope that we will stick to that timetable. I look forward to the Leader of the House offering us a serious plan of how we will proceed now the debate has been held.

9.13 pm

Mr. Quentin Davies (Stamford and Spalding): I remind the House of the interests that I have declared in the Register of Members' Interests.

Two absolutely fundamental principles should underlie this debate and one would hope that they are shared across the House. First, we have an absolute fiduciary responsibility to those who sent us here to act in the interests of our constituents and in the public interest. From time to time there may be trade-offs between those two interests and trade-offs between the short-term and the longer-term national interest. We must handle those trade-offs and make honest judgments about them.

But one thing is clear. No other influences--no private interests or partial affections, to use the words that are used here every day at 2.30 pm--should influence our deliberations or decisions in any way. That is an absolute principle. Therefore there should be no ambiguity about the question whether it is proper for outside bodies--to use the evocative phrase used by my hon. Friend the Member for Hampshire, North-West (Sir D. Mitchell)--to advise Members of Parliament as to the way in which they should conduct themselves in this place, what questions they should table and what matters they should speak about, let alone the way in which they should vote. For that reason, I was grateful to the Nolan committee for drawing my attention to the recommendations of the Strauss committee. Reading those recommendations on that subject, I wished that they had been accepted when they were made. I hope that they will be.

The other fundamental principle must be that the regulation of the House-- establishing proper rules of conduct and enforcing them, when necessary-- must be the responsibility of the House alone. It is wrong to suppose that that responsibility can be assumed by the Executive branch of Government. It was shocking that the Leader of

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the Opposition appeared to consider today that it was a responsibility of the Prime Minister. To slough off our responsibility on to the Executive branch would be a

subversion--indeed, a perversion--of the constitutional balance. The Leader of the Opposition's question today gave us a horrifying preview of the attitude that a future Labour Government would take to Parliament and to the constitution.

As it is our responsibility, we must get this issue right and, as has been eloquently said on both sides of the House, we must not act in haste and repent at leisure. We need to use the Nolan report as something of, as it were, a consultant's report--if I am still allowed to use that word in a positive sense in the debate. Any institution, any business, any organisation, may from time to time wish to appoint outside consultants to advise it on the future conduct or course of its business.

The report should form, not the whole agenda, but part of the agenda for a careful examination of these issues by a competent House of Commons committee. That might be the Privileges Committee, the Select Committee on Members' Interests, a merged committee involving both of them, or a new ad hoc committee. We need to consider those matters in considerable detail and on the basis that decisions must be made in the House--they cannot be abdicated to an outside committee or commission, no matter how distinguished a member of the judiciary heads it, or to the Executive.

I have said the most important thing that I wanted to say. Having said that, perhaps I may add some brief comments to the suggestions made by the Nolan committee. The committee has obviously done some thorough work on the subject, and its conclusions need to be treated seriously but, as I have said, that can in no way relieve us of the responsibility for considering the merits of those proposals and considering the issues in the broadest possible way.

First, I have some hesitation about publishing the financial earnings of Members of Parliament derived from activities relating in some way to advice on politics or on Parliament. I suspect that that recommendation is driven more by the media's thirst for prurient information of a personal kind than by any other consideration. The essential thing is that interests should be declared; the amount of remuneration is not especially material.

Secondly, it is difficult to maintain the distinction, suggested in the report, between consultancies, or activities outside the House that have some political or parliamentary aspect, and other outside activities.

When I entered the House, I continued for some time to do my previous job as a director of a merchant bank in the City. In no way was my job changed, except in the time I spent on it. Many of the clients with whom I dealt would not have had the faintest idea that I was a Member of Parliament. If one is sitting at the boardroom table and a fellow board member says, "You are a politician, you must have some idea about Government policy on this matter or on that Bill which is due to come before Parliament", one cannot say, "I am afraid that part of my contract makes it illegal for you to ask me that question". I think that it will be extremely difficult to maintain this distinction, and I hope that the Committee of the House which examines the matters in detail will consider that point very carefully.

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Finally, I am particularly concerned about the recommendations on the composition of Standing Committees. I must declare an immediate interest as I have been delighted to serve for a number of years on the Finance Bill Committee. If the Nolan proposals were adopted, I--with my City background and other interests--would presumably be excluded from serving on that Committee, as would accountants, tax lawyers and others with a professional background in finance. We would be excluded from contributing to that legislation.

I can only assume that the recommendation was made by a committee whose members have never bothered to pick up a Finance Bill. If they had, they would realise that only a very specialised category of the human race is likely to take an intelligent interest in a matter that is so dry and so technical. If we were prevented from contributing to debates about subjects of which we have professional knowledge, we would be a great deal less useful to the public whom we are here to serve.

9.20 pm

Mr. Harry Barnes (Derbyshire, North-East): I have two interests to declare which appear in the Register of Members' Interests: I travelled to Dublin as a guest of the Irish Government and I visited Malta as a guest of the Maltese Government. Anyone who knows me will know that I am not in either Government's pocket.

I wish to raise a matter which has not been discussed in the debate today, although it was alluded to by my hon. Friends the Members for Norwich, South (Mr. Garrett) and for Warrington, North (Mr. Hoyle). There is a serious argument that hon. Members should be full-time Members of Parliament with no paid outside interests. That would alleviate the problem of outside influence and pressure from commercial and professional bodies. A majority of the public sent that message to the Nolan committee, but only one Member of Parliament--me--put that view to the committee.

Time is short, as the Front-Bench spokesmen wish to sum up the debate. I therefore simply refer hon. Members to the evidence that I gave to the Nolan committee. The case for having full-time Members is a solid one, and four main arguments have been produced against the counter-view which appears in the Nolan report. They suggest that the committee is wrong to reject the notion that Members of Parliament should not accept employment outside the House. I think that we should have full-time Members of Parliament in a modern democracy. 9.22 pm

Mr. Jeff Rooker (Birmingham, Perry Barr): I am glad that my hon. Friend the Member for Derbyshire, North-East (Mr. Barnes) has had an opportunity to refer to the question of full-time Members of Parliament. He was able to speak for only a few minutes, but he raised an issue to which no one has alluded in the entire debate. There was a time when I might have agreed with my hon. Friend and I discussed the issue when I gave evidence to the Nolan committee. It is certainly worthy of debate and it should not be dismissed out of hand. There is a case to be made for having full-time Members of Parliament and I am glad that my hon. Friend has had a chance to put it on the record.

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I attended six or seven of the morning sittings of the Nolan committee and I listened to the evidence of about 18 witnesses. Having listened to the questions, it did not take long to work out which way the committee would jump. In many ways, therefore, its recommendations did not come as a complete surprise. It was similar to Select Committee proceedings, where one can work out how Committee members are thinking from the questions that they ask.

I only wish that the Chancellor of the Duchy had attended more often, instead of coming along only to the session at which he gave evidence. It would have been useful for him to listen to the questions asked by the committee and the answers given by the witnesses. Had he done so, he would not have made the speech that he gave today. I wish, too, that the right hon. Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (Sir E. Heath)--the Father of the House--had sat and listened to the evidence sessions of the Nolan committee. Clearly, he does not even understand the present rules governing the Register of Members' Interests. I respect and admire the right hon. Gentleman, but he trivialised the beginning of today's debate with arguments about the price of a bottle of port, which was ludicrous and demeaning on the part of a former Prime Minister.

I refer to the speech by the right hon. Member for Bridgwater (Mr. King). Like some of my hon. Friends, I was on the receiving end of questions from the right hon. Gentleman when we gave evidence to the Nolan committee, and I learned a good deal from his questioning. I was advancing proposals for a much more rigorous register than the current or the proposed one, but I too was searching for something that was practical and acceptable to the House. It is no good going for the extreme view; the House would not stand for it. Nor can we carve up a solution between Front Benchers--nobody would want that. The right hon. Member for Bridgwater did a first-class selling job for the work of the Nolan committee. Towards the end of his speech he said, tellingly, that the House cannot walk away from this issue. That is a crucial point. We walk away from it at our peril. This has not been a partisan debate. It is only natural, as the Government have been in power for 16 years, that there should be more Conservative Members with consultancies and hence more Conservative Members who feel aggrieved and under threat. They should not feel threatened by the Nolan report's recommendations. The House can take a sensible view and then implement it quickly. Taken together, the changes proposed are sensible.

This is probably the most important constitutional change since I entered the House 21 years ago. It may even be the most important since the granting of the universal franchise. We in this House expect our fellow citizens to obey laws whether they agree with them or not; yet for several years the House, while expecting Members to obey its resolutions, has crucially failed on occasion to take action when its rules have been disobeyed. We all know of such cases. By and large, we have proved ourselves incapable of putting our own house in order. That is the ultimate proof that self-regulation can be self-delusion.

The public are anxious about Members of Parliament in general, even though they support us in our constituencies. We cannot escape the fact that 64 per cent. of people believe that we are on the make, even though

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that is not true. Certainly I would not claim that it was true. This view that the public have has arisen out of isolated incidents, and that is the problem that we all have to face. I can think of no other reason for the public perception than the fact that there has been the odd case of impropriety in recent years.

This view has arisen not just because there is now more openness about our proceedings, which are carried on the wireless and on television. There must be another reason, and it is the fact that we have neglected the fundamentals. While we insist on knowing all the details of legislation and on poring over every dot and comma, while we pass--too many--laws to restrict and instruct our fellow citizens, as a Parliament and as the supposed grand inquisitor of the nation we have continued to live with old- fashioned procedures and modern myths. One of those myths is the idea that ours is the oldest and most democratic Parliament in the world. People repeat that ad nauseam, but although we may once have been the mother of Parliaments, the world has changed since then and we have failed to change with it.

It was said earlier that we are the highest court in the land, so we should be left alone. I would argue that we are the highest court in the land, but we should not be a law unto ourselves because we are the law makers. That is the distinction that I draw. I do not understand why some hon. Members find the House under threat if we look for something other than complete self-regulation.

Time is short, but I shall refer to paragraphs 57 to 59 in the report. They are to be found on page 31. It is not easy to find one's way through the report because the paragraph numbers start differently at each chapter. Paragraph 57 reads:

"We are well aware that some will consider that we are over-reacting to a few isolated cases . . . Others will feel we should have gone further, and moved immediately".

Paragraph 58 states:

"It is clear that, while some cases have been so bad as to require direct action even under the existing rules, there are problems of principle and practice over the separation of public and private interests, which damage the standing of Parliament. Neither we nor the media have invented the problems."

That is the reality. The Nolan committee did not invent the problems, and the media did not invent them either.

Paragraph 58 continues to remind us that

"the 1969 Strauss report was shelved without debate".

I remind the House that the 1976 Salmon royal commission was shelved without a debate. The introduction of the Register of Members' Interests was resisted until the Poulson scandal forced the hand of the then Labour Government of 1974. It has taken 20 years since then to get the register fully operational, even though we may criticise it now. We know that in recent years some senior Members have refused to comply with the register.

Paragraph 58 adds:

"The overall picture is not one of an institution whose Members have been quick to recognise or respond to public concern." Paragraph 59 reads:

"On the other hand we do not believe that the position is so grave that it has to be addressed outside the framework of the House's own rules."

That is my point. I do not think that we are going outside those rules. It is true, of course, that there must be checks and balances.

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The original discussion paper of the Nolan committee, entitled "Issues and Questions", led it to be concerned about parliamentary sovereignty. As I said in my evidence to the Nolan committee, I do not want to be misunderstood by anybody. I am honoured to be a Member of this place and to represent the area where I was born and raised, but I do not accept that Parliament should be sovereign over all matters. I am for a written constitution and reform. In a unitary state, political power should be divided and should not reside in one institution, however old and democratic it may be. There should be written codes agreed and enforced by the House and written laws agreed and enforced by the courts, and both should apply to Members. I was pleased to read in the Nolan report that the committee had taken up the point that the Salmon commission raised in 1976, which is that there appears--there is a dispute about this--to be a gap in statute law, with the result that the bribery, or attempted bribery, of a Member in his or her parliamentary capacity is outside that law. We were asked to take up the matter in 1976 but we never debated the Salmon report. That was a scandal. I raised the issue as a Back-Bench Member when the Labour Government were in office. I raised it again when there was a change of Government in 1979. The issue has remained with us for 20 years and I hope that the Government will now take it on board. The Nolan report asks us to review the matter.

We seek to retain power at the centre of government, in what is still one of the most secretive government systems. As a result, defects in our system have not been taken up. Instead, they have built up in the absence of a relief valve. The pressure has increased. The defects have become worse and worse over the years. Last Friday, The Daily Telegraph reported:

"a moment of panic following a spat of minor scandals involving Tory backbenchers and Ministers last year, causing the Prime Minister to establish the Nolan Committee."

My argument is that we have not examined these issues for years, with the result that "minor scandals" have caused a blunderbuss of a commission to be established. I believe that standards have been falling for years and the time is long overdue for them to be reconsidered.

The Nolan inquiry has done an excellent job. I shall not argue about whether the report goes far enough. The report is a package. It has been assembled by a committee of people who have experience of public life both inside and outside the House. They have submitted unanimous recommendations for us to take account of and act upon for the good of the public. We would be crazy to dismiss their recommendations or try to put them into a siding.

The report has shown that in respect of the civil service and the quango state there has been something wrong in the conduct of public affairs. The committee has done civil servants a real service. I have read the report from cover to cover. Civil servants can work more easily and have a greater comfort factor in the way in which they carry out their functions if all the Nolan report's recommendations are implemented, along with, of course, the changes introduced by the Government. I accept that they are taken in tandem, but that is a great bonus for our civil servants.

Our argument, as The Times said on Friday, is that the regulation that we are being asked to accept as Members of the House is minimal. The Times described it as a "light touch", although one would not think so from some of the

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extreme language, based on old-fashioned myths, suggesting that somehow 700 years of parliamentary sovereignty is under attack. That myth is peddled by those who seek to mislead people outside the House about the powers of the House and the nature of British society. Even so, I accept that this is the first outside interference in hundreds of years in the conduct of the House, but in a very narrow area. However, the changes do not interfere with our prime functions. First, they do not interfere with our ability to represent our constituents in the House. Secondly, they do not interfere with our ability to hold the Government and the Executive to account. Thirdly, they do not interfere with our ability to be the forum of the nation where ideas good, bad and tasteless can be tossed around this cockpit of debate. Nolan interferes with none of that in any way, shape or form, so I cannot see why extreme language describing the House as being under attack is being used.

Acceptance of the Nolan recommendations means, as I told the inquiry, that Parliament ceases to be the absolute arbiter of the public interest boundaries. We have no right, as 651 elected citizens on behalf of our fellow citizens, to be the sole arbiter of the public interest boundaries in every walk of life in Britain. It is not on, it is unacceptable and we are not qualified, even by election, to carry out that function. We have to share that and it has to be shared between ourselves and other interest bodies in society. Society has become more complex and technical. It is as though over the years the House has not wanted to know about that or be part of it. That is one reason why, over the years, the House has ceded so much power to Whitehall over the decades--it can deal with the technicalities, so do not bother us with that kind of change in society. That has been partly caused by the make-up of the House not being full of people like myself--qualified engineers. Therefore, we should embrace change and do so quickly. We should agree the detailed changes to the Standing Orders and related matters well before the House rises for the summer recess.

One change that we must make, which I do not think is mentioned specifically in the Nolan report but which is crucial in view of its recommendations about the Privileges Committee, is that that Privileges Committee must be given the power to sit during a recess. It is unbelievable that, as far as I am aware, it is the only Select Committee that has no authority to sit when the House is not sitting. The delay that the two Members in the recent cash for questions affair suffered was one reason why they felt an injustice. The matter was raised last June or July, but it was Easter before the House dealt with it. Why? Because for all the weeks that the House does not sit, the Committee of Privileges was not doing any work because it had no power or authority from the House to do so. That must be corrected forthwith. It could be corrected by a motion tabled by the Leader of the House next week. It is crazy not to make that change in the new situation.

Mr. Sheldon: Will my hon. Friend give way?

Mr. Rooker: No, I am sorry; I apologise, but I shall be taking time from the Minister.

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Mr. Sheldon: Will my hon. Friend give way?

Mr. Rooker: Yes, briefly.

Mr. Sheldon: Please, will my hon. Friend include the Public Accounts Committee, which also does not have the power to sit when the House is not sitting?

Mr. Rooker: As it is the only Select Committee on which I have ever served in 21 years, yes. I learned more about the machinery of Government in my two years on that Committee than I have in a decade or more on the Opposition Front Bench. Yes, of course that must be the case.

I also believe that the House should regularly review the changes that we institute. We should begin ourselves to think about the implications of the changes for current and future Members. We should not have to wait for someone else to do that. We can think ahead and see the implications of the changes, because that will be important to the way in which we do our work.

I hope that Ministers will not fall over when I say that I do not put all the blame on the Government. Like some of my hon. Friends, I have experience of sitting on both sides of the Chamber. We are a transient group of Members, holding our places on trust on behalf of the people, and no one, from the highest to the lowest, has anything to gain by seeking to make cheap, narrow and partisan points in relation to the changes that we debate, the changes that we propose to introduce and the changes that I hope we shall introduce following Nolan. Nothing is to be gained from such behaviour; we would merely further demean ourselves in the eyes of the public and raise the percentage of those who think we are on the make from 64 to 74 per cent.

The evidence from Nolan is that the public have seen through us and that they do not like what they see. The conduct of policy and the conduct of politics must change and be seen to change. Failure on our part will have the consequence of tearing at the fabric of society. That is a measure of the esteem in which we are held. If we do not do these things, people outside. will be torn asunder. They may not think much of us, but they will think a lot less of us if we do not deal with the changes.

The current membership of the House must be able, with honesty, rightly to claim that we left the political process in better health than we found it. We can start by implementing Lord Nolan's recommendation.

9.40 pm

The Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. Tony Newton): When proposing this debate a week ago, Ihad envisaged and intended that it would provide the opportunity for a wide- ranging debate. I am not sure that I had anticipated it ranging quite as wide as occurred in the speech of the hon. Member for Birmingham, Perry Barr (Mr. Rooker). It went well beyond some of the matters that were covered by the Nolan committee, but it was entertaining for all that, and it would have given many people, apart from myself, pause for thought. I can say only that it is clear that he is a well-qualified engineer.

I especially agree with the hon. Gentleman's point about enabling the Privileges Committee not to get into the position that it was in during the last summer recess. I hope that I carry with me at least one its members who

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I can see in my sights. There are, however, obvious difficulties, which we should not ignore, about getting together during the summer recess a body that consists of 17 people. There is no magic answer, but the hon. Gentleman's point needs and deserves further consideration.

Mr. Sheldon: The Public Accounts Committee as well.

Mr. Newton: If that is a bid for further action from the Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee, having said what I have just said about the Privileges Committee, it would be ungracious of me not to undertake to consider any proposal that he might make.

Following today's debate, one thing that I am clear about is that it was right for the debate to take place as soon as possible after the Nolan committee report was published a week ago. It was also right to have an opportunity to gauge reaction, as we have had this afternoon and evening, before making firm decisions about how to proceed. My speech will seek to reflect the spirit in which many right hon. and hon. Members on both sides of the House have taken part in the debate.

Mr. Quentin Davies: Does my right hon. Friend agree that the matters that we have been discussing are extremely complex? We have had an interesting and wide-ranging debate, but many hon. Members have not been able to take part. Does he agree that there has not been sufficient and full consideration by the House of all the matters before us, and that it would be sensible to set up a committee of the House, or to charge the Select Committee on Members' Interests or the Privileges Committees with considering the matter in detail, taking what evidence they think is relevant and returning to the House with considered recommendations?

Mr. Newton: My hon. Friend is anticipating a point that I wish to come to later in relation to how we might proceed from here. I shall return to it later.

There is no point in disguising the fact that, during the debate, many different points and perspectives have emerged. To a significant degree, however, I am encouraged by what I take to be the three strands of fairly general--I certainly cannot say universal--agreement that have emerged. The first point would certainly not have universal agreement as a number of hon. Members, including the right hon. Member for Chesterfield (Mr. Benn), my hon. Friends the Members for Wolverhampton, South-West (Mr. Budgen) and for Gainsborough and Horncastle (Mr. Leigh), and the hon. Member for Norwich, South (Mr. Garrett) have suggested putting everything in statute, which would go well beyond the Nolan committee's suggestion.

Apart from that, there has been a general welcome for and endorsement of the importance of self-regulation in the House. It has, perhaps, not been fully recognised today that that is persistently stressed in the Nolan report. Paragraph 1 of its conclusions, for instance, places heavy emphasis on the importance of self-regulation and the committee's wish for it to continue. It states:

"Those standards have always been self-imposed and self-regulated because Parliament is our supreme institution."

That is an important recognition of both the position and the reasons.

Other parts of the report make, in effect, the same point. Paragraph 59 states:

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"we do not believe that the position is so grave that it has to be addressed outside the framework of the House's own rules." Paragraph 89 strongly recommends that the House should draw up a code of conduct setting out the broad principles that should govern the conduct of Members.

Paragraph 92 makes an important point, and I shall quote it in full:

"One of the consequences of privilege is therefore that the House of Commons regulates the activities of its Members itself. Where Parliamentary business is concerned, they are answerable to the House and not to the Courts. Because Parliamentary privilege is important for reasons entirely unconnected with the standards of conduct of individual Members of Parliament, we believe that it would be highly desirable for self- regulation to continue."

I believe that that view is widely, and rightly, shared in the House.

Mr. Budgen: Does my right hon. Friend agree that there is a world of difference between regulating the procedures of the House and imposing--by means of a motion in the House--a particular and new condition on all persons who wish to become Members of Parliament? For instance, it would have been wrong, would it not, for the House of Commons to say that no Member of Parliament could be a clergyman in the Church of England. That, rightly, is decided by statute. Surely, when we reach the stage of regulating through the registration of Members' interests--which changes all the terms and conditions of employment--the nation will have an interest in the matter. We are not doing this just for ourselves, as a private club; it must surely be done by the House of Commons--by the legislature, acting on behalf of the whole nation.

Mr. Newton: My hon. Friend links two slightly different points, on which I want to make different comments. First, it has historically been the case for centuries that the House has had rules governing the procedures and conduct of its Members, in various forms. We should think very hard before moving away from that position, especially in the light of the comments made in the report. Secondly--I might have said this to the right hon. Member for Chesterfield (Mr. Benn) had I had a little more time- -there is a clear distinction between putting into law, as the House of Commons Disqualification Act 1975 does, a list of offices held that disqualify, and what would come much closer to a list of criteria needing to be interpreted and considered by the courts before it could be decided what was and was not in order. I hope that I have made my concern reasonably clear without labouring it too much, because I must now make progress.

My second encouraging conclusion is that there is a general acceptance of a need for change, in the direction--I choose my words carefully--of the report's recommendations. Substantial reservations are expressed about particular proposals, and considerable emphasis is placed on the need for clarification; but few would argue for no action at all. There has been much echoing of the words of my right hon. Friend the Member for Bridgwater (Mr. King) today, and one phrase that has been quoted more than once since he spoke is, "We cannot walk away from it."

Thirdly, the debate has pointed to a whole range of questions arising from the report's recommendations which have to be addressed and answered before specific resolutions in a clear and workable form can be put to the House for debate and decision.

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