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MEMORANDUM SUBMITTED
BY
THE PARLIAMENTARY
COMMISSIONER FOR STANDARDS
Complaints from Mr
Mohamed Al Fayed, The Guardian and others
against twenty-five
Members
1. Madam Speaker: "I
have a short announcement to make. While the House has been adjourned,
very serious allegations have been widely made about the conduct
of a number of Members. Indeed, the reputation of the House as
a whole has been called into question. As Speaker, I am bound
to be concerned about that. It is not for me to make any kind
of judgment on the merits of the complaints made; but I would
not be doing my duty as Speaker if I allowed this situation to
pass without saying that I believe very strongly indeed that these
matters must be resolved as soon as possible.
I hope that the Committee on
Standards and Privileges will find it possible to make an early
special report to the House, so that the full nature and scope
of any investigations that it undertakes may be made known. If
the Committee or the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards
need additional powers, no doubt the House will be invited to
decide whether they should be granted. I can assure the House
that all necessary steps will be taken to ensure that the Committee
and the Commissioner are adequately staffed for whatever investigation
they may undertake."
[Extract from the Speaker's statement
of 14 October 1996.]
2. My authority for investigating
complaints is set out in Standing Order No. 121B. It is:
"to receive and,
if he [the Parliamentary Commissioner] thinks fit, to investigate
specific complaints from Members and from members of the public
in respect of-
(a) the registration
and declaration of interests, or
(b) other aspects
of the propriety of a Member's conduct,
(c) and to report
to the Committee on Standards and Privileges or to an appropriate
sub-committee thereof."
3. This authority has been
stretched to the limit - but not, I hope, beyond it - during the
course of this inquiry. Some of the allegations were supplied
from a variety of sources and have evolved over a period. These
I had to interpret and translate into specific complaints to put
to the Members concerned. They may not always have been in the
terms which "complainants" would have chosen. But the
last of the allegations from The Guardian,[4]
for example, were not received in final form until the end of
February 1997, by which time much of the evidence was already
in the process of being assembled.
4. Besides myself, the inquiry
team has consisted of Mr Nigel Pleming QC (Counsel), Mr David
Doig (Secretary) and my personal secretaries Deborah Gent and
Philippa Wainwright. I also had some accounting assistance from
the Government Accountancy Service.
5. Because we were concurrently
engaged on the lengthy investigation of allegations against Mr
Michael Howard,[5]
this inquiry did not get fully under way until early 1997 (although
part of the period leading up to then was taken up with the process
of collating the necessary documentation).
6. This report deals with
allegations against a total of 25 Members. In alphabetical order
they are: Mr Robert Atkins; Mr Alan Beith; Mr Vivian Bendall;
Sir Andrew Bowden; Mr John Bowis; Sir Graham Bright; Mr Michael
Brown; Mr Nirj Deva; Mrs Gwyneth Dunwoody; Sir Anthony Durant;
Sir Michael Grylls; Mr Doug Hoyle; Mr Neil Hamilton; Sir Peter
Hordern; Mr Norman Lamont; Lady Olga Maitland; Mr Gerry Malone;
Mr David Mellor; Mr Michael Portillo; Mr David Shaw; Mr Chris
Smith; Mr Tim Smith; Sir Malcolm Thornton; Sir Gerard Vaughan;
and Sir John Wheeler.
7. As indicated in my interim
report to the Select Committee of 19 March 1997, the inquiry has
been a detailed and complex one. Over 60 witnesses provided evidence,
13 oral hearings were held and some 14,000 pages of documents
were examined.
8. A complete list of witnesses
is at Annex 2. A list of the oral hearings is at Annex 3. With
very few exceptions, documents quoted from or otherwise referred
to in the report are attached as Appendices. In some cases, minor
redactions have been made, but only where to publish material
would have unnecessarily infringed the confidentiality of personal
or financial information. The Appendices are listed at Annex 4.
4 For
the detailed chronology of the correspondence with The Guardian,
see paras 28-31 and Appendices 15-27. Back
5 This
report was published as an Appendix to the Fourth Report of the
Committee on Standards and Privileges, HC (1996-97) 359. Back
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