APPENDIX 2
Letter to the Chairman of the Committee
on Standards and Privileges from the Rt Hon Margaret Beckett MP,
President of the Council and Leader of House of Commons
STANDARDS AND
PRIVILEGES: CONSULTATION
ON REVISIONS
TO THE
CODE OF
CONDUCT
I am responding to the Committee on Standards and
Privilege consultation on proposed amendments to the rules relating
to the conduct of Members—rules quite properly based on
the expectation that Members should have high standards of integrity
and that the Code should set the framework against which those
standards are to be assessed and assured.
The Committee may recollect that last April Sir George
Young and I wrote drawing out our concerns about the application
of the rules and the process of investigation. I welcome the opportunity
which this report now provides, for all members of the House to
engage with these issues. I understand that some Members of the
House regret that the Committee has not publicly included in its
Report its response to the Committee on Standards in Public Life's
expressed concern that the guidelines (in this case, on initiation
of parliamentary proceedings) may be "operating unnecessarily
harshly and they should be amended".[51]
When we wrote, among our concerns were procedural
muddle and fairness, the possibility that there might be "fishing
expeditions" when breaches of the rules had not been established,
uncertainties and anomalies in the rules, and retrospective application.
Most importantly, we were concerned that the result of a series
of decisions on individual cases was leading to gradual extension
of the ambit of the rules without the House having expressed a
view. Such a process of extension may well lead to Members inadvertently
and in all innocence falling foul of a new interpretation of the
rules. The rules should of course be tightened when there is good
reason for it. My concern is both that the rules are becoming
unclear, and that their gradual extension may unjustifiably restrict
Members' ability to take part in legitimate activity. I enclose
a note which outlines my concerns in great detail.
8 February 2001
51 Sixth Report of the Committee on Standards in Public
Life, cm 4577, para 3.96. Back
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