Letter to the Chairman of the Committee
on Standards and Privileges from Lord Neill of Bladen QC, Committee
on Standards in Public Life
I wrote to you in December 2000 with my Committee's
response to your consultation paper on proposed amendments to
the rules relating to the conduct of Members of Parliament. The
Clerk of your Committee kindly acknowledged my letter on 20 December.
I confined my remarks to the questions raised in
your consultation paper which did not include the issues raised
in our Sixth Report relating to the disciplinary procedures. On
the latter subject, we had already exchanged correspondence following
the publication of the Sixth Report. In your letter of 13 October
2000, you agreed to ask your Committee "to look again at
the investigatory, 'trial' and appeals procedures in serious,
contested cases" despite their earlier rejection of our recommendations
in those areas. I did not therefore repeat our advocacy of such
changes when I wrote to you in December on your consultation paper.
However I see from the newspapers of 15 February
2001 that when the Rt Hon John Major MP gave evidence to you earlier
that week, he addressed a wider range of issues than those set
out in the consultation paper. I see from his submission to the
Committee of 26 October 2000 that he calls for a change in the
composition of the Committee on Standards and Privileges and for
the Committee to have access to a Legal Adviser. He also calls
for a formal appeal procedure. I have not yet seen a transcript
of his oral evidence but the press coverage suggests that he raised
other concerns, including the need to reduce the complexity of
the Code and the problem of the 'tit for tat' disputes between
Members of opposing parties.
I agree with the broad thrust of Mr Major's approach
in suggesting that greater reform is required than the comparatively
limited changes proposed in your consultation paper—hence
the chapter in our Sixth Report. When you wrote to me on 4 July,
explaining why your Committee felt unable to accept our recommendations
in the chapter on a revised procedure for serious, contested cases
and an appeals procedure, you suggested that "the involvement
of lawyers has in some cases tended to prolong and complicate
matters unnecessarily". My Committee has observed, however,
that in the recent case of the complaint against Dr John Reid
MP and Mr John Maxton MP, where the facts were disputed, a necessarily
long consideration by your Committee resulted in any event. Furthermore,
if recommendation 3 of our Sixth Report had been implemented,
that investigation would have been governed by the "minimum
standards of fairness", as defined by the Nicholls Committee,
including clarity as to the standard of proof.
Given the breadth of some of the evidence you are
taking in your consultation exercise, we would urge you to reconsider
your response to the Sixth Report. To that end, I would be grateful
if you would treat this letter as a further submission, together
with Chapter 3 of the Sixth Report and our subsequent correspondence
of 4 July and 3 October.
22 February 2001
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