Select Committee on Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards Report

4  The Other Registers

4.1 It is not surprising that most attention focuses on the Register of Members' Interests. However, my office is also responsible for maintaining, under the direction of the Committee on Standards and Privileges, three other Registers, relating to Members' secretaries and research assistants, Parliamentary journalists and All-Party Groups respectively. This work is expertly and conscientiously done by the Assistant Registrar, consulting the Registrar as necessary. In recent years the volume and complexity of this work has grown and there is increasing interest in what the other Registers reveal. As recorded in previous reports, I have also begun to receive complaints about alleged failures to comply with the requirements of these Registers.

4.2 The origin of the keeping of these Registers lies in the mid-1980s. Ten years after the introduction of the Register of Members' Interests in 1974, the Select Committee on Members' Interests (a predecessor of the Committee on Standards and Privileges) conducted an inquiry into concerns about parliamentary lobbying and recommended that:

"When they are approached, Members of the House must be able readily to identify the source and true nature of the approach. Equally the full purposes of those with access to Parliament should be known. We are convinced that greater openness would now be beneficial in certain areas."[33]

4.3 To meet those concerns the Committee concluded that registers should be set up for Members' staff, journalists and All-Party Groups. The Committee's recommendations were subsequently agreed by the House on 17 December 1985 and the first registers were published in 1986. The form and substance of each register are detailed in the sections below.

Members' Staff Register

4.4 Those holding a parliamentary pass as a Member's secretary or research assistant are required to register any other occupation or employment from which they receive income exceeding half of one per cent of a Member's salary from the same source in the course of a calendar year, if that occupation or employment is in any way advantaged by the privileged access to Parliament afforded by their pass.[34] They also have to register any tangible gift (e.g. glassware) and any other benefit (e.g. hospitality, service or facilities provided) which they receive, if the value of the gift or benefit exceeds that sum and the gift relates in any way to their work in Parliament.

4.5 The number of staff on the register rose slightly, from 1553 on 31 March 2006 to 1612 on 31 March 2007. The number of those registering an interest rose from 327 to 357.

Journalists' Register

4.6 Those holding a pass as a lobby journalist accredited to the Parliamentary Press Gallery or for parliamentary broadcasting are required to register any occupation or employment from which they receive income exceeding one per cent of a Member's salary from the same source in the course of a calendar year, if that occupation or employment is in any way advantaged by the privileged access to Parliament afforded by their pass.[35]

4.7 Turnover on the register is low. Of the 385 journalists on the register as at 31 March 2007, 61 had registered interests. This compares with 375 and 76 respectively at 31 March 2006.

All-Party Groups' Register

4.8 The membership of All-Party Groups consists mainly of backbench Members of the House of Commons and Lords but may also include ministers and non-parliamentarians. There are two types of group: subject groups (relating to a particular topic, e.g. forestry) and country groups (relating to a particular country or region).

4.9 Inclusion on the Register of All-Party Groups is compulsory for any group which includes Members of the Commons from more than one party and has at least one officer who is from the Commons. Such groups are required to register the group's title and the names of its officers. Financial and material benefits received by the group as a whole must also be registered, where the group receives during a calendar year one or more benefits from the same source whose total value is £1000 or more. Lastly, the group must register the name and paid employment or occupation outside Parliament of any staff servicing the group who hold a parliamentary pass, if that occupation or employment is advantaged by the passholder's privileged access to Parliament.

4.10 Groups that qualify for inclusion on the Register of All-Party Groups may also apply for inclusion on the Approved List. Both are compiled by my office. By being on the Approved List, a group qualifies for certain entitlements, largely to do with use of the House's facilities.[36] Additional rules apply to groups on the List. For example, they must hold annual elections for their officers and must also register the names of a minimum of ten Members from the Government party and ten from the Opposition parties. All but 8 groups are on both the Register and the Approved List.

4.11 In paragraph 24 of my memorandum to the Committee on Standards and Privileges on Lobbying and All-Party Groups,[37] I referred to the fact that the distinction between the Register and the Approved List is frequently the source of confusion and that proposals to end the distinction and amalgamate the two documents had been approved by the Administration Committee but had not yet been put to the Committee on Standards and Privileges. These proposals were considered by the latter Committee, and approved by it, in October 2006. I expect the Committee on Standards and Privileges to recommend the necessary changes to the House in the autumn of this year, as part of a wider package relating to the follow-up to its Ninth Report of Session 2005-06.[38]

4.12 The number of registered groups as at 31 March 2007 was 500, the highest number ever recorded, as opposed to 422 in March 2006. The usual pattern is for the number of groups to be at its highest towards the end of a parliament, then to drop after a general election (when all groups have to re-register), before rising again to equal or exceed the previous Parliament's total. Of the 2007 total, 129 were country groups and 371 were subject groups whilst the corresponding figures for 2006 were 111 and 311. The number of groups registering the receipt of financial or material benefits rose during the same period from 259 to 295.

4.13 The continuing increase in the number of All-Party Groups is imposing a growing strain on the meeting and other facilities of the House and, as regards registration, on the resources of my office. The Administration Committee announced prior to the 2007 summer recess that it is to undertake a review of the administrative regulations surrounding such groups (regulations which, in the form of the rules relating to the Approved List, my office administers on behalf of that Committee). I look forward to contributing to this review in the autumn of 2007, and hope that, through close liaison between the Administration Committee and the Committee on Standards and Privileges, a way can be found of modernising the current regulatory framework which will preserve the contribution such Groups make to the life of Parliament whilst avoiding them imposing an intolerable burden on the facilities and resources of the House, and at the same time ensure the necessary degree of transparency about how they operate.

Overlap between the Registers

4.14 Overlap between the various Registers kept by my office is an increasingly common occurrence. Subject to the different financial thresholds that apply to each of the registers, examples arise when:

a)  Hospitality (eg relating to overseas visits) is received by an All-Party Group. This should be registered on both the Groups' and Members' register (and may also currently need to be registered with the Electoral Commission, depending on its value to each individual Member).

b)  An external organisation or individual subsidises a staff member's salary. This should be registered on both the Staff and Members' register, and if the staff member acts as part of the staff to an All-Party Group, on the Groups' register as well.

c)  An external organisation or individual subsidises the attendance of a Member and of their staff at a particular event. Where the relevant financial thresholds are exceeded, this should be registered by both the Member and the staff member concerned.

4.15 It is important that Members keep in mind the potential need for entries to be made in more than one of the Registers arising from the same set of circumstances.

Access to the Registers

4.16 The three registers are not published in hard copy form but are published on Parliament's internet website.[39] A paper copy of each register is also held at the House of Commons where anyone may inspect it by arrangement. An updated edition of each register is usually issued every 4-6 weeks when the House is sitting.

Complaints

4.17 During the period covered by this report I received two complaints relating to the Register of Members' Secretaries and Research Assistants and one relating to the Register of All-Party Groups.

4.18 Of the former two complaints, one concerned the alleged behaviour towards a member of the public of a person employed by a Member of the House. Such complaints are, initially at least, a matter for the complainant to raise with the employing Member, and I so advised the member of the public concerned.

4.19 The second complaint alleged that two people employed as special advisers to a Minister had failed to record the fact that they were special advisers in the Register. One of the two people concerned had worked for the Member long before he had become a Minister; had held a Parliamentary pass throughout that period; and continued to do some work for him in a purely parliamentary capacity. The other had simply acquired a Parliamentary pass (rather than a civil service pass giving access to the Parliamentary estate) by analogy with the first. It was evident that there had been no deliberate attempt to mislead, not least because one other person employed in the same office who also held a Parliamentary pass had registered his position as an adviser. I ruled that:

a)  where a person employed as a special adviser held a Parliamentary pass sponsored by a Member, their position as a special adviser should be recorded in the Register as a form of employment likely to be advantaged by the possession of a pass. The entries of the two people concerned in the case were adjusted accordingly.

b)  where a person employed as a special adviser did not also undertake work of a Parliamentary character which made necessary the possession of a Parliamentary pass, it was more appropriate that they should be issued with a civil service pass sponsored by their Department rather than a Parliamentary pass sponsored by the Member.

Steps were taken to advise all concerned how to proceed for the future and the complainant was informed accordingly.

4.20 In June 2006 I received a complaint that one All-Party Group with a focus on a particular country was in breach of the House's rules in that there had been irregularities in the conduct of its AGM and that, following the AGM - at which a change in the officers of the Group had occurred - it had insufficient qualifying Members to continue on the Approved List. I did not uphold the complaint in relation to the AGM but did uphold that relating to the number of qualifying Members and the Group was consequently removed from the Approved List. Following the Group's AGM in 2007, it proved that it possessed sufficient qualifying Members to meet the House's requirements, and the Group has now been reinstated on the Approved List.

Wider Matters

4.21 I have already mentioned in Section 1 the report published by the Committee on Standards and Privileges in May 2006, following a complaint by the Editor of the Times, and the subsequent consultation process about my recommendations for strengthening the regulation of All-Party Groups.[40] This is likely to result in proposals being put before the House shortly.

4.22 While complaints relating to the 'other' Registers continue to be rare in comparison with complaints relating to failures by Members to comply with the registration requirements laid down for them, they have in the past five years become a reality. In practice they have been handled in a similar way to complaints against Members. The Committee's Ninth Report of Session 2005-06 represented the first case of a formal report to the House exclusively relating to a complaint concerning a Register other than the Register of Members' Interests.

4.23 It is important that there should be no doubt about the procedural authority for what has now become established as settled practice. At present Standing Order No. 150(2)(e) does not make explicit that the Commissioner's duties include the investigation of complaints relating to the 'other' Registers. I hope that, when the House considers recommendations arising from the Committee's Ninth Report, it will take the opportunity to put the matter beyond doubt by bringing the wording of the Standing Order into line with current practice.

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33   Select Committee on Members' Interests, First Report, Session 1984-85, HC 261 Back

34   Over £300 during the period of this report  Back

35   Over £600 during the period of this report  Back

36   If a group on the Approved List allows voting rights to people who are not Members of either the Commons or the Lords, it is known as an Associate Parliamentary Group. Otherwise it is known as an All-Party Parliamentary Group. Back

37   Appended to the Ninth Report of the Committee of Session 2005-06, HC 1145 Back

38   Ibid Back

39   They can be consulted at http://pubs1.tso.parliament.uk/pa/cm/cmregmem.htm. Requests to consult a hard copy of the registers should be made to the main Committee Office at the House of Commons by calling 020 7219 4300 Back

40   See paragraphs 1.11-1.12 above and the Committee's Ninth Report of Session 2005-06, HC 1145 Back

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Prepared 25 October 2007