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Mr. Campbell-Savours: No, the hon. Gentleman has moved on.
Mr. Robert Maclennan (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross): The hon. Gentleman read out the rule of the House and the test that has to be applied. It is not a subjective test as to whether the hon. Member for
Billericay (Mrs. Gorman) felt that she was moved by her role as a landlord to take a particular view of the Rent Acts; it is an objective test to do with pubic perception. In making his case, the hon. Gentleman seems completely to have lost sight of that fact.
Mr. Howarth: I am sorry, but I do not think that public perception is such a readily identifiable objective test.
I do not believe that, given my hon. Friend's consistently proclaimed position on the matter in question and on deregulation in general, one could possibly suggest that her ownership of properties in south London--whether she did own them or not--was a factor that influenced the way in which she behaved in the House. I used to represent a mining constituency and participated in many mining debates in which coal miner after coal miner spoke passionately on an issue in which they clearly had an interest. Of course, they declared it, but no one sought to belittle them because they spoke with passion about an industry in which they had a close and personal interest.
Mr. Bill Tynan (Hamilton, South)
rose--
Mr. Howarth:
I will give way once more and then I must get on and finish.
Mr. Tynan:
I am reluctant to speak, but I am saddened by the tenor of the debate. Hon. Members who have decided to participate are doing so for the best reasons--to sustain a Member of the House who is in trouble. I appreciate why they are doing it. However, although I am relatively new Member, I also appreciate the fact that the House created a procedure providing for a Committee to investigate such cases. I ask the House to recognise not only that such a Committee was established in this case, but that it attempted in fairness to ensure that justice was done. I ask hon. Members to accept that the Committee should be treated with the respect that its deserves.
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Alan Haselhurst):
Order. I have been indulgent to the hon. Gentleman, who is a new Member, but he should remember in future that interventions must be brief.
Mr. Howarth:
I quite understand why the hon. Member for Hamilton, South (Mr. Tynan) wished to intervene. He is a new hon. Member, and I am sure that we all welcome him as Lord Robertson's successor.
I appreciate that the Committee is an all-party one. I have made the point before that, formerly, the Committee was presided over by the Prime Minister of the day and composed entirely of very senior hon. Members. That is the way it should be. I do not believe that new hon. Members should be members of the Committee. However, I do not wish to deal with what we should do about the future, but simply to consider the specific case and the dangers that might arise if the House were to approve the Committee's report.
As I said, the proposed penalty is draconian. We have to ask ourselves what damage has been done to the House by my hon. Friend. Perhaps the real damage is that she failed to take advantage of the assistance of one of my
right hon. and learned Friends, who--for a very small fee, or perhaps a very large fee--might have been enabled her to deal more expeditiously with the Committee.
The proposed penalty is not only draconian, but wholly out of proportion to any damage. It also sits very uncomfortably with decisions made in cases involving prominent Labour Members. As for perceptions, the danger for Labour Members is that the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, the right hon. Member for Hartlepool--who is a very senior man--was able to preside in investigations of the company affairs of another Minister without declaring to his own private secretary that he was in receipt of a very substantial loan from that other Minister--
Maria Eagle (Liverpool, Garston):
Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Howarth:
I shall not give way.
Within a year, the right hon. Gentleman was not only back in the Government, but in the Cabinet. However, my hon. Friend--who had a lapse of memory, did not remember all the details, and perhaps gave the Committee a bit of a hard time as well--will have imposed on her the most draconian penalty that the Committee has dished out since the general election. That is unfair, and that is why the House, should it decide to support the Committee on the proposed penalty, will be making a grave decision.
Mr. Malcolm Bruce (Gordon):
I had not intended to speak in the debate--I am the newest member of the Standards and Privileges Committee--but I have become extremely concerned about the tone of the debate. The hon. Member for Aldershot (Mr. Howarth) asked what damage the hon. Member for Billericay (Mrs. Gorman) has done to the reputation of the House. I tell him that Conservative Members, in this debate, are doing more damage to the reputation of the House than the hon. Lady has done.
The speeches by Conservative Members--with the honourable exceptions of the shadow Leader of the House and the former Attorney-General, the right hon. and learned Member for North-East Bedfordshire (Sir N. Lyell)--have been made in the manner of Mark Antony, suggesting that the Committee was honourable, but then seeking to undermine not only the Committee's judgment and work, but the process. We should be very cautious on that particular point.
I dissent entirely from the suggestion made by the hon. Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell). This is not a judicial procedure, and a suggestion that it should be treated as such is quite contrary to the purpose of the Committee and the way in which the House judges its business. The suggestion that people do not sit in judgment on their peers is a denial of what life is mostly about. People are always sitting in judgment on their peers. How on earth do people get promotion, demotion or the sack other than by being disciplined by their peers and people with whom they work?
The House has determined that we wish to establish standards of conduct by which we judge ourselves. The last thing that we want to do is put that process in the hands of barrack-room lawyers outside the processes of the House.
The issue in this case was whether the hon. Lady had a registerable interest to declare and had failed to declare it. It is that simple. The Committee concluded that she had and that she then tried to hide the fact.
This is the first report in which I have been involved. I was very impressed by the time and the trouble that was taken to ensure that every fact was considered objectively and in detail and that everybody had their say. Where there were doubts, we went back over the ground to ensure that we did not proceed until we had secured agreement.
Mr. Dalyell:
Who are the barrack-room lawyers outside the House whom we are supposed to have suggested?
Mr. Bruce:
I do not know. It was the hon. Gentleman who wanted to bring in the lawyers. My suggestion was that the procedure was best kept within the House and not handed over to judicial process. Some of the senior Conservative Members who have spoken were disingenuous if they were seriously suggesting that that would be an appropriate way forward. They have done a disservice to the House, the Committee and our proceedings by suggesting that, because they know that they were trying to throw up a smokescreen. I hope that the House will move to a decision on the basis of this appropriate and detailed Committee report, which has been considered very carefully and has the support of hon. Members on both sides.
Dr. Norman A. Godman (Greenock and Inverclyde):
Like the hon. Member for Gordon (Mr. Bruce) and my hon. Friend the Member for Hamilton, South (Mr. Tynan), I had not intended to take part in the debate. I just want to say a couple of things and I promise to be brief.
Many Labour Members have a deal of affection and respect for the hon. Member for Billericay (Mrs. Gorman). I remember the time when she and I--in the company of others--were almost involved in a plane crash in South Australia. In those dreadful minutes before we crash-landed, she behaved with immense courage. I was white-knuckled at the time. However, she has been ill served by her defenders this afternoon.
If the motion is passed, I know that the hon. Lady will behave with the same dignity and rectitude as were shown by my hon. and old Friend the Member for Dundee, West (Mr. Ross) when he was rightly suspended for what he has admitted this afternoon was a transgression.
5.47 pm
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