REGISTER OF MEMBERS' INTERESTS
INTRODUCTION TO THE NOVEMBER 2002 EDITION
This edition of the Register, the second for
the Parliament elected in June 2001, records Members' Interests
at 26 November 2002. It takes account of recommendations of the
Committee on Standards in Public Life in May 1995 and decisions
of the House of Commons taken in July and November 1995 and May
2002.
In July 1996 the House of Commons approved the
publication of a Code of Conduct for Members of Parliament with
a Guide to the Rules relating to the Conduct of Members.[1]
The Code and Guide were revised in May 2002 in accordance with
a decision of the House following recommendations of the Committee
on Standards and Privileges in their Ninth Report of Session 2001-02
(HC 763). Together the Code and Guide, which have been circulated
to all Members, set out in detail the rules governing the registration
and declaration of Members' financial interests, and provide guidance
on their application.
The Register was set up following a Resolution
of the House of 22 May 1974. The maintenance of the Register is
one of the principal duties laid on the Parliamentary Commissioner
for Standards by House of Commons Standing Order No. 150.
Purpose of the Register
The main purpose of the Register is to provide
information of any pecuniary interest or other material benefit
which a Member receives which might reasonably be thought by
others to influence his or her actions, speeches or votes
in Parliament, or actions taken in his or her capacity as a Member
of Parliament".[2]
Members are required to keep that overall purpose in mind when
registering their interests.
The new Register
The new Register differs in some important respects
from its predecessors. The changes recommended by the Committee
in its Ninth Report and agreed by the House on 14 May 2002 are
designed to simplify the Register, to clarify what is, and what
is not, registrable, and to remove from it minor amounts and non-pecuniary,
non-material items which do not come within the main purpose of
the Register. In particular a threshold for registration has been
adopted, defined in multiples of 1% of a Member's salary, except
for sponsorship (category 4) where the threshold has been brought
into line with the requirements of the Electoral Commission, namely
£1,000.
As well as sharpening the focus of the Register,
the changes agreed by the House also increase the rigour of the
registration requirements in some respects. Thus certain benefits
received by partners are now included as well as those received
by spouses, and the rules relating to interests in shares now
take account of their actual rather than their nominal value.
In accordance with the wishes of the Standards & Privileges
Committee and the House, Members have been discouraged from registering
under Category 10 unremunerated positions (eg directorships of
charitable trusts, professional bodies, learned societies or sporting
or artistic organisations) as these are not relevant to the main
purpose of the Register. Further, Members have been discouraged
from re-registering previously registrable items if these fall
below the new threshold. Whilst the Register therefore contains
fewer items than it used to, the result is that it focuses more
clearly than hitherto on those pecuniary interests which may reasonably
be thought to influence a Member's actions in Parliament. It remains,
of course, a duty on Members to declare any interests, which are
relevant, for example to a debate in which they are participating,
irrespective of whether or not those interests are registrable.
Form of the Register
I have continued to take into account the recommendation
of the Committee for Standards in Public Life that the entries
should be improved to give a clearer description of the nature
and scope of the interests declared. However, subject to the Rules,
each Member is responsible for the content and style of his or
her own entry.
Relevant Remuneration
Members have been required since 1974 to register
their sources of paid outside employment, but until 1995 there
was no requirement to disclose the amounts of remuneration. There
is still no general requirement to register the amounts.
However, the House of Commons resolved on 6 November 1995 that
any Member who has an existing agreement or who proposes to enter
into a new agreement involving the provision of services in
his or her capacity as a Member of Parliament must deposit
it with me in writing. The agreements, which are available for
public inspection, must include the fees or benefits of more than
£550 (1% of a Member's salary) payable, in bands of up to
£5,000, £5,001_£10,000 and thereafter in bands
of £5,000, and these figures are shown in brackets after
the Register entries. A Member is not required to deposit an agreement
where he or she is paid for media work related to his or her parliamentary
duties but is required to register the amount earned in the same
way.
The rule against lobbying for reward or consideration
Members of Parliament are prohibited from lobbying
on behalf of outside bodies or persons from whom they receive
any form of payment in excess of 1% of their parliamentary salary,
if such lobbying is designed to result in a benefit exclusive
to the body providing the payment. The Guide to the Rules relating
to the Conduct of Members makes it clear that continuing benefits,
i.e. directorships, other employment and sponsorship, can be divested
to release a Member from the restrictions imposed by this rule,
provided that there is no expectation of renewal. In the case
of any `one-off' benefits such as visits and gifts recorded in
this Register, the rule applies for the period of a year from
registration. The date of registration appears against the benefit.
In their Fourth Report of Session 1997-98[3],
the Committee on Standards and Privileges confirmed that the same
time limit should apply to single sponsorships.
The categories of registrable interests
The form supplied to Members for the registration
of their interests is divided into ten sections.
1. Remunerated directorships
In this section Members are required to register
any remunerated directorships which they hold in public or private
companies. Members are also required to register directorships
which are unremunerated if the companies are associated with or
subsidiaries of a company in which the Member holds a remunerated
directorship.
2. Remunerated employment, office, profession
etc.
This is the section for registering outside
employment, professions and sources of remuneration not clearly
covered elsewhere in the registration form. This includes membership
of Lloyd's of London; Lloyd's members are required to disclose
the categories of insurance underwritten.
3. Clients
In this section Members are required to disclose
the names of clients (other than companies or organisations already
identified in sections 1 and 2, but including clients of those
companies or organisations) for whom they provide services which
arise out of membership of the House; for example, sponsoring
functions in the parliamentary buildings, making representations
to Government Departments or providing advice on parliamentary
or public affairs.
4. Sponsorship or financial or material support
In this section the Member is required to register
(a) any donation of more than £1000 received by a Member's
constituency association which is linked either to candidacy at
an election or to membership of the House; and (b) any other form
of financial or material support as a Member. This includes any
regular donation in excess of £1,000 per year made by an
organisation or company to the Member's constituency party if
the donation is linked directly to the Member's candidacy in the
constituency or to membership of the House. It excludes constituency
development agreements and other arrangements in which the identity
of the Member is not a factor. Like other one-off benefits, entries
relating to contributions to election expenses or to party leadership
campaigns appear in a single edition of the annual printed Register
and are not repeated.
5. Gifts, benefits and hospitality (U.K.)
This section is for the registration of any
gift or material advantage received by the Member or the Member's
spouse or partner from a United Kingdom source, which in any way
relates to membership of the House. Tangible gifts and other benefits
over £550 (1% of a Member's salary) in value must be registered.
6. Overseas visits
This section covers overseas visits, made by
Members or their spouses or partners, which relate to or arise
out of membership of the House, where the cost of any such visit
has not been wholly borne by the Member or by United Kingdom public
funds. Several categories of visit, made by Members in the normal
course of their parliamentary duties, are exempted from registration.
These include: visits paid for by, or undertaken on behalf of,
the Government or an international organisation to which the United
Kingdom Government belongs; visits with or on behalf of a Select
Committee of the House; visits undertaken under the auspices of
recognised international parliamentary bodies; visits arranged
and paid for wholly by a Member's own political party; visits
paid for wholly by an institution of the European Community; and
visits as part of an Industry and Parliament Trust fellowship,
the Armed Forces or Police Parliamentary Scheme or the National
Council of Voluntary Organisations MP Secondment Scheme. Here
again, the threshold for registration is now £550.
7. Overseas benefits and gifts
This section is subject to the same rules as
section 5, but covers gifts and benefits from overseas rather
than UK sources.
8. Land and property
The requirement in this section is to register
land or property worth more than £55,000 (100% of an MP's
salary)_other than any home used solely for the personal residential
purposes of the Member or the Member's spouse or partner_or from
which in aggregate an income in excess of 10% of an MP's salary
(£5,500) is derived, for example holiday homes which are
let for rent or other commercial property or land.
9. Registrable shareholdings
In this section Members are required to register
the name of any public or private company or other body in which,
to their knowledge, they have a beneficial interest in a shareholding
of (a) more than 15% of the issued share capital or (b) a value
of £55,000 (the current parliamentary salary) at the preceding
5 April. The requirement extends to holdings in which the interest
is held with or on behalf of the Member's spouse or partner or
dependent children.
10. Miscellaneous and unremunerated interests
This is a discretionary section for the registration
by Members of interests which do not clearly fall within any of
the above categories but which they consider to fall within the
Register's purpose. In accordance with the wishes of the Standards
& Privileges Committee, unremunerated charitable and voluntary
commitments have not been registered.
Administrative arrangements and inspection
Under the authority of the Select Committee
on Standards and Privileges, the Register is published by The
Stationery Office at the beginning of a Parliament and thereafter
approximately once a year. The published Register and its regular
updates are on the Internet and can be accessed as follows:
www.parliament.uk Select Index; select letter
`R' for Register of Members' Interests.
It is the responsibility of Members to notify
changes in their registrable interests within four weeks of the
change occurring; and between its annual printings the Register
is updated, in a looseleaf version. The looseleaf version is open
for public inspection in the Registry of Members' Interests, in
the Committee Office of the House of Commons (Tel: 020 7219 0311).
It may be inspected when the House is sitting between 11 am and
5 pm on Monday to Thursday and between 11 am and 3 pm on Friday.
During parliamentary recesses, and especially during August, the
hours of inspection are more limited. A copy of the current looseleaf
Register is also placed in the Library of the House of Commons
for the use of Members.
Copies of the Code of Conduct and Guide to the
Rules relating to the Conduct of Members may be obtained from
The Stationery Office as House of Commons paper no. 841 of Session
2001-2002, and may be viewed on the Internet at:
www.parliament.uk Select Index; select `C' for
Code of Conduct.
Complaints
Any complaint about the failure of a Member
of Parliament to register interests or uphold the Code of Conduct
according to the rules of the House of Commons should be made
in writing to the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards, House
of Commons, London SW1A OAA.
SIR PHILIP MAWER
Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards
1 House of Commons Paper No. 688 (1995-96). Back
2
First Report of the Select Committee on Members' Interests (1991-92),
para. 27. Back
3
Fourth Report of the Committee on Standards and Privileges (1997-98),
House of Commons Paper No. 181. Back
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