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Mr. Andrew Mackinlay (Thurrock): I had to re-read that.

Mr. Rooker: So did I--as, indeed, I have in the past.

As I have said before, I think that it would be difficult to legislate for a full-time House, but these are non-statutory criteria operating against some of our fellow citizens.

The fourth category is

"offices whose holders are required to be, or to be seen to be, politically impartial."

That covers many of the examples that we are discussing today.

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As I have said, in 1985 a Conservative Back Bencher described the process as highly undesirable. He questioned the payment levels involved in disqualification, and claimed--I believe there were some grounds for his claim--that people were disqualified when it was not possible to test whether they should be, because of the lack of scrutiny. He called for a Select Committee to look at the draft resolution each time, and report to the House before it came to us for approval. If it were a statutory instrument, that would be possible: the Select Committee on Statutory Instruments could examine it, and take advice and evidence.

I agreed with that Member of Parliament then, and I agree with him now. So why do we have amendments Nos. 16 and 38? The amendments are not numbered on the Order Paper--for our inconvenience--but they are numbered 16 and 38 in the set of notes with which we have been provided. They are listed at lines 42 and 43 on page 1898 of the Order Paper, and at lines 72 and 73 on page 1899, and both are promoted by the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food. It so happens that the Minister--the right hon. and learned Member for Grantham (Mr. Hogg)--is the Member who spoke from the Back Benches in 1985, and said that this was a wholly undesirable process. The House is almost empty and there is plenty of time, but I am not hunting for the right hon. and learned Gentleman. I prepared my speech three days ago, well before I knew about next week's censure motion.

Amendment No.16 covers the

"Chairman of an Agricultural Land Tribunal or a member of a panel appointed under paragraph 14 or 15 of Schedule 9 to the Agriculture Act 1947."

The new entry will bring up to 306 office holders into the schedule--306 more citizens who cannot become Members of Parliament. We are given the same old argument that such people must be politically impartial in the execution of their judicial functions.

The new entry in amendment No. 38 is

"Any director of Horticulture Research International in receipt of remuneration."

That, too, is promoted by the Minister of Agriculture.

I have a question, the answer to which I have not been able to discover fully, even from our experts in the Library. Horticulture Research International was set up on 1 April 1990, in response to the recommendations of a Government study. Why were the 10 paid directors who have been added to schedule 1 today not included in 1993, when the schedule was last updated? What has happened since that has caused them to be on this list, although they were not on the earlier list? It is possible that, although the organisation was set up in 1990, no one was paid until after 1993; that is what I have not been able to establish by looking at the annual reports in the Library.

Mr. Peter Bottomley (Eltham): It may be worth emphasising, for the benefit of those who read the report of the debate, that it is possible to give up such a position before taking a seat in the House.

Mr. Rooker: Earlier--the hon. Gentleman probably was not in the Chamber yet--I drew attention to one of the paradoxes that are involved in the legislation. Most of those who are barred from membership--more than 1 million

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people--can become eligible for parliamentary seats by giving up their posts, but that does not apply to someone who has been an ordained priest in the Catholic Church. That cannot be wiped out: those people are banned for life, whatever happens in the future.

There is a procedure--although I do not know the details--in respect of, I believe, the armed forces and the police. I understand that a little sub-committee at the Home Office, comprising six former Members of Parliament and a couple of other people, adjudicates on whether people can give up certain positions in order to stand for Parliament. Its purpose is to ensure that frivolous people are not trying to get out of the armed forces, as probably the most famous example did many years ago--but I shall not go down that byway. The hon. Member for Eltham (Mr. Bottomley) is right: people can give up their posts voluntarily.

What worries me most are the inconsistencies and apparent unfairness. I have mentioned people who serve on industrial tribunals, part-time judges and local councillors who serve on the bench. The criteria and rules applying to those people are not the same, and there seems to be no good reason for that.

Mr. Mackinlay: I agree with everything that my hon. Friend has said, but let me ask a rhetorical question: would not members of industrial tribunals face a real dilemma if they intended to stand for Parliament in a few weeks' time? They would have to resign before the election, because they cannot resign after they have been elected. That strikes me as demonstrably unfair. Having resigned from the tribunal, an unsuccessful candidate for election would have to be beholden to the Secretary of State for Education and Employment: it would be for the Secretary of State to reinstate that person.

Mr. Rooker: It is some five years since I signed the nomination papers to be a parliamentary candidate, but I have a feeling that a candidate has to sign a statement that he is not excluded by the terms of the House of Commons Disqualification Act. Being on the list means that a person cannot be a legal candidate, which is why I question how Bruce Kent could possibly have been a legal candidate in the last election. Clearly, under the 1801 Act, he could not have taken his seat in the House if he had been successful.

The House is so slothful in bringing its procedures up to date that we would be forced to face the issue only if someone succeeded in an election in those circumstances. As my hon. Friend the Member for Newham, South will confirm, however, shortly after the election of a Member of Parliament we had to pass a retrospective motion enabling him to remain a Member, all because he had given a few hours' paid service as a medical adviser to a medical tribunal. I think that it was the late Lord Winstanley--I hope I am not doing him a disservice; I believe that he is now deceased--who served as a Liberal Member of Parliament, representing, I think, Colne Valley.

The House could rectify the position if something like that happened, but there would be one hell of a row, particularly as we have not set up proper procedures to ensure that there is fairness, openness and logicality in the way in which we disqualify more than 1 million people from being Members of the House.

Mr. Mackinlay: Was it not absurd that, in 1979, Dame Sheila Roberts was elected to the European Parliament in

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the Conservative cause, was a successful candidate for London South West and then found that she was disqualified? In what was a technical anomaly, there was no such mechanism for her position to be rectified, as in the case of Dr. Michael Winstanley, the former Member for Cheadle and then for Colne Valley. There had to be a by-election, at enormous public cost, which Dame Sheila again subsequently won--with a diminished majority, but she won. It was an absurd circus for that Conservative Member of the European Parliament to be elected, to be disqualified and then to have to stand again, all because there had not been true and reasonable understanding of the ground rules and no mechanism was in place to remedy what was demonstrably an error.

Mr. Rooker: It all comes down to the fact that there is not really a consolidated list and a formal structure whereby that list can be scrutinised and we have all the people who are disqualified from membership of the House. We are dealing here, it is true, with the schedule to the main Act, but the Act, as I have said more than once, is not the only Act that disqualifies people from membership of the House. In an open, accessible and pluralistic Parliament, there should be good grounds, as we approach the 21st century, to review wholesale disqualification, some of the rules of which, as I say, go back to the early part of the 19th century. Such a review is long overdue.

Having considered this in some detail in recent times, having considered the matter in a different capacity and having discussed it with one or two of my colleagues, it is something that a new Government would consider. That may be done by a Select Committee, by someone who is independent or by the Nolan committee.

This has grown like Topsy. It is shot full with anomalies, inconsistencies, unfairnesses and illogicalities. It is right that there has to be some sort of disqualification procedure; it is clearly necessary for the natural categories of disqualification: the police, the civil service and armed forces. However, matters have got out of hand when the list can be added to by ministerial discretion, where there are no clear criteria. What is more, the House has failed to set up a proper scrutiny procedure so that we can go through these things in detail, instead of having to deal with them in just an hour and a half this evening.

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