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Memorandum submitted
by the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards
Complaint against
Mr Kenneth Clarke
1. Mrs Lynn Riley, of Chepstow,
Monmouthshire, wrote on 28 February 1997 to a Member of the House,
alleging that Mr Kenneth Clarke MP had failed to register `the
free trip and accommodation he received from the Bilderberg Group
... unlike Tony Blair who attended the same meeting'. She enclosed
a letter from Mr Clarke dated 6 September 1995 in which he states
that `my recollection is that I paid for my flight but that I
was accommodated while I was there'. The Member passed the correspondence
on to me.
2. The Bilderberg Conference
is an annual conference which was established in 1954 at the invitation
of Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands at the Hotel de Bilderberg
in Oosterbeck, the Netherlands. Its main founder was the Polish
political philanthropist Joseph Retinger and its members include
political leaders, statesmen, academics, businessmen, bankers,
and union leaders from Western Europe and the NATO countries.
They discuss the political, economic and military problems of
Europe and the world. The conference in question was held in
Greece in April 1993, at a time when Mr Clarke was Home Secretary.
3. Had Mr Clarke not responded
to Mrs Riley as he did, I would have held that there was no prima
facie evidence to support the complaint.
4. Mr Clarke repeated to
me his recollection that he paid his own air fare but that his
accommodation costs were met. He had since checked with the conference
organisers who confirmed that it was in accordance with their
policy at the time for participants to meet their own travel costs;
and that although they no longer kept complete records, they thought
that the accommodation had been paid for by sponsors unknown,
organised by their Greek members.
5. Mr Clarke subsequently
explained that he and Mr Blair considered that they were attending
the conference as representatives of the Government and the Opposition
respectively, and stated that `I was quite confident that I was
at the time meeting the rules applying to Ministers, and it did
not occur to me that the new rules concerning registration could
apply to this visit'.
6. The conference took place
shortly before the House approved, in June 1993, a number of detailed
changes to the rules on registration and guidance which had been
recommended by the former Select Committee on Members' Interests
towards the end of the previous Parliament. Before that date,
Members were required to give details on their registration forms
of `overseas visits relating to or arising out of membership of
the House where the cost of any such visit has not been wholly
borne by the Member or by public funds'. A guide to the new rules,
published in September 1993, provided the following amplification:
`Where only part of the costs was borne by an outside source (for
example the accommodation but not the cost of travel) those details
should be stated briefly'. The new rules, which applied for the
first time to the Register of Members' Interests published in
January 1994, also contained a list of specific exemptions from
the requirement to register overseas visits.
7. As Mr Clarke correctly
pointed out, neither he nor Mr Blair registered their attendance
at the conference on their return. Mr Blair did so two years
later in 1995, following a complaint to the former Select Committee
that he had failed to register that visit, together with an earlier
visit to Washington as a member of an All-Party Group. The Committee
in their Report[1]
acknowledged that certain aspects of the Rules had been the subject
of widespread misapprehension and recommended that no further
action should be taken in respect of the complaints made against
Mr Blair.
8. Mr Clarke's recollection
that he paid his own travel expenses is borne out by the conference
organisers, and there is no reason to suppose that this was not
the case. His accommodation expenses, on the other hand, do appear
to have been met by his hosts. The Bilderberg Conference does
not fall within a category which is exempt from registration and
it follows that, in accordance with the rules both before and
after June 1993, the partial benefit that he received ought to
have been registered.
9. I do however consider
that any breach of the rules was of a relatively minor nature,
and note that the former Select Committee concluded that no further
action was needed in respect of Mr Blair's delay in registering
the same visit. I also accept that:
(i) Mr Clarke saw himself
as attending the conference as a representative of the Government,
and had been careful to observe the requirement under Questions
of Procedure for Ministers `to ensure that no undue influence
was involved';
(ii) as, to the best
of Mr Clarke's knowledge, it was the conference organisers who
had paid for his accommodation, the receipt of such a benefit
could not realistically have been thought likely to influence
his actions as a Member of Parliament.
11 July 1997
1 Second
Report of the Select Committee on Members' Interests, Session
1994-95, HC 706. Back
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