FOURTH REPORT
The Committee on Standards and Privileges has
agreed to the following Report:—
RESTRICTIONS ON THE INITIATION OF PARLIAMENTARY
PROCEEDINGS:
A CONSULTATION PAPER
1. The "advocacy rule"[4]
bans lobbying by Members for reward or consideration. Reduced
to its essentials, it is as follows:
(i) A Member may not take money for speaking,
voting or taking any other form of action in the House.
(ii) A Member may not initiate any parliamentary
proceeding which relates specifically and directly to the affairs
of a body (or of a wider group) in which he has (or expects to
have) a pecuniary interest.
(iii) But when participating in a parliamentary
proceeding initiated by another Member, a Member may speak freely
so long as he does not seek to confer benefit exclusively on a
body in which he has (or expects to have) a pecuniary interest.
2. By way of illustration, a Member with an interest
in (say) the engineering industry (for example, because he is
employed by, or receives some other registrable benefit from,
an engineering company) —
(i) may not take money to promote the interests
of the company in the House;
(ii) may not table questions or apply for adjournment
debates about the industry;
(iii) but he may speak in a debate on the industry
initiated by another Member (in which case he must declare his
interest), and may ask a supplementary to a question on the industry
tabled by another Member.
3. The Committee on Standards in Public Life, then
chaired by Lord Neill, made recommendations about the advocacy
rule in its Sixth Report, Reinforcing Standards.[5]
Evidence given to the Neill Committee indicated some concern that
the rule might be making it more difficult for knowledgeable Members
to contribute to the House's debates as effectively as they might.
The Neill Committee said:
"In recommending in the First Report a ban on
agreements between MPs and mult-client consultancies, we were
concerned to avoid a situation in which MPs could be presented
as participating in 'a hiring fair'. We retain that concern. On
the other hand, we are anxious that the rules should not unnecessarily
inhibit the ability of MPs to become well informed and to use
their expertise and experience effectively. Bearing in mind the
evidence that we have heard about the present guidelines on 'initiation'
and the ban on paid advocacy, we believe that they are operating
unnecessarily harshly and that they should be amended. We recommend
that the ban on paid advocacy should remain in place, but that
the restriction on initiation should be removed and the guidelines
relating to participation extended to include both participation
and initiation. The effect of this would be that an MP who had
a personal interest would be permitted to initiate proceedings
in the same way that he or she is able to participate in proceedings
under the current guidelines, but that MP (a) would not be able
to engage in 'paid advocacy' or seek to confer benefits exclusively
on a particular individual or body and (b) would be required to
register and declare the benefit in accordance with the guidelines.
We recommend a further safeguard (c) that, reinforcing present
practice regarding the declaration of interests when tabling a
written notice, in addition to registration and oral declaration,
the MP would also be required to identify his or her interest
on the Order Paper (or Notice Paper) by way of an agreed symbol."[6]
4. Our predecessors in the last Parliament considered
the Neill Committee's recommendations and agreed that there was
a case for excepting overseas travel from the operation of the
advocacy rule. Their recommendation to that effect was included
in their report on Proposed Amendments to the Rules relating
to the Conduct of Members[7]
on which the House has yet to take a decision. But the last Committee
was reluctant to propose any more general changes to the rule
on the ground that the Neill Committee's recommendation
"would amount to a considerable relaxation of
the current guidelines, as it would allow the initiation of any
parliamentary proceeding which did not seek to confer benefit
exclusively upon the body or individual with whom the Member
had a registrable connection. The prohibition could therefore
be avoided by framing questions, amendments, &c., in general
terms; for example, a Member remunerated by an oil company would
not apparently be precluded from moving an amendment to the Finance
Bill to benefit all oil companies. In our view to relax
the rules to such an extent would fatally undermine the ban on
paid advocacy which we have agreed we need to retain."[8]
5. We have now received further representations about
the restrictions on initiation from the Speaker and from a number
of other Members. It was widely felt that the rules were operating
too harshly when a Member with registered interests in arable
farming decided that he would be unable to perform effectively
as an Opposition spokesman on agriculture because of the way the
advocacy rule was applied. We have accordingly looked at the rule
afresh.
6. It is not the intention of the rule, nor is it
our wish, to make it more difficult for the House of Commons to
call the Government to account by restricting the Opposition's
choice of frontbench spokesmen or by impeding well-informed Members
from contributing to the House's debates. The evidence which is
now available suggests that the rule may now be having these effects.
We are therefore seeking the views of Members and others on two
possible options for relaxing the guidelines on the application
of the advocacy rule which would enable Members to initiate a
range of parliamentary proceedings which they are currently prevented
from doing. These options are described below.
7. If the guidelines are relaxed, it would be more
important than ever that the fundamental rules of conduct which
the House has laid down should be upheld with undiminished vigour.
We draw particular attention to three of them:
— the Resolution of 6 November 1995 which
provides that no Member may "advocate or initiate any cause
or matter on behalf of any outside body or individual" in
return for any form of reward;
— the provision in the Code of Conduct
which requires Members to "avoid conflict between personal
interest and the public interest and resolve any conflict between
the two, at once, and in favour of the public interest";
— the Resolution of 22 May 1974 which requires
each Member to declare any relevant interest "that he may
have had, may have or may be expecting to have".
8. One possible option is to adopt the recommendation
put forward by the Neill Committee, the effects of which are illustrated
below. (Changes are shown in italics.)
(i) A Member employed by, or with some other
interest in, an engineering company would have to register the
interest in the Register of Members' Interests.
(ii) He would have to declare it orally in any
relevant proceeding, and declare it in writing when tabling any
question, notice of motion or amendment to which it was relevant
(in which case an appropriate symbol would appear on the Order
Paper or Notice Paper).
(iii) He would not be allowed to take money to
promote the company's interests in the House.
(iv) He would be allowed to initiate proceedings
relating to the engineering industry—to table questions,
to apply for adjournment debates, and to move amendments to bills
which affected the industry.
(v) He would be able to participate in proceedings
relating to the industry initiated by another Member.
(vi) When initiating or participating
in any proceeding, he would be able to speak freely provided he
did not seek to confer benefit exclusively on his company.
9. Our predecessors were not attracted to this option
for the reasons given in paragraph 4 above, namely that it would
allow a Member remunerated by a company involved in a particular
industry to move amendments to bills from which all companies
in that industry would benefit; he would fall foul of the rules
only if he sought to confer benefit exclusively on the
company which remunerated him. Whilst we do not regard this objection
as decisive, we recognise that it has some force. In this Report
we therefore put forward for consideration an alternative proposal,
which is that Members should not do anything in the House the
main purpose of which is (or might reasonably be thought to be)
to advance disproportionately either their own interests
or the interests of any outside organisation with which they have
a registrable or declarable connection.
10. Perception is as important as motive. We would
expect the Commissioner, in applying a "disproportionate
advancement" rule, to have regard to what a reasonable person
would regard as the expected or foreseeable consequences of a
Member's action. The Commissioner would have to assess the relative
weight of the benefit to be conferred as between the body in which
the Member had a registrable or declarable interest and the other
bodies which stood to benefit, in order to determine whether the
benefit to be conferred on the former was disproportionate to
the benefit to be conferred on the wider group.
11. A "disproportionate advancement" rule
would of course only apply in situations where some interest was
actually being advanced. An application for an adjournment debate
would of itself not bring such a rule into play (although the
Member's speech in the debate might, depending on what he said).
It is in cases such as this where no interest is being promoted
by the initiation of a proceeding that the present absolute ban
is hard to defend.
12. The effects of the proposed "disproportionate
advancement" rule are illustrated below. (Again, changes
are shown in italics.)
(i) A Member employed by, or with some other
interest in, an engineering company would have to register the
interest in the Register of Members' Interests.
(ii) He would have to declare it orally in any
relevant proceeding, and declare it in writing when tabling any
question, notice of motion, or amendment to which it was relevant
(in which case an appropriate symbol would appear on the Order
Paper or Notice Paper).
(iii) He would not be allowed to take money to
promote the company's interests in the House.
(iv) He would be allowed to initiate proceedings
relating to the engineering industry—to table questions,
to apply for adjournment debates, and to move amendments to bills
which affected the industry.
(v) He would be able to participate in proceedings
relating to the industry initiated by another Member.
(vi) When initiating or participating, he
would be able to speak freely, unless the main purpose of his
action was (or might reasonably be thought to be) to advance disproportionately
the interests of his company.
13. Both these proposals would liberalise the current
rules and allow Members to put down questions, motions and amendments
and apply for adjournment debates which currently—and perhaps
unnecessarily—they are prevented from doing. Of the two,
our preference is for that put forward with the authority of the
Committee on Standards in Public Life, which would be clearer
and therefore easier to apply. The "disproportionate advancement"
rule might on the other hand be less open to abuse. We invite
comments from Members and others on each of these and on the status
quo.
14. Any comments on the proposals set out in this
Report should be sent to the Clerk of the Committee on Standards
and Privileges to arrive not later than Monday 4 February.
Comments may be submitted by e-mail to sandalla@parliament.uk
or by fax to (020) 7219 6864 or (020) 7219 5441.
15. If the House were to agree to relax the rules
in this area, we would regard it as a very serious breach of the
rules of the House if a Member failed to register or declare an
interest which was relevant to a proceeding he had initiated.
4 See
paras. 53-61 of The Guide to the Rules. Back
5 Cm 4557,
January 2000, paras. 3.77-3.96. Back
6 Ibid,
para. 3.96. Back
7 Fifth
Report, Session 2000-01, HC 267. Back
8 Ibid.,
page xix. (Letter from Mr Robert Sheldon to Lord Neill.) Back
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