Response
to Memorandum submitted by the Parliamentary Commissioner for
Standards in respect of complaint lodged by Mr Tristan Donovan
Thank you for the opportunity to respond to this
memorandum. You have been supplied in the memorandum with copies
of correspondence between the commissioner and myself so I do
not propose to reiterate my position at length. The following
comments are thus intended only to respond to the memorandum itself
and to summarise my position.
My comments are as follows:
1. The total cost of printing and distributing
this leaflet was £4157.95. As in previous years, I sought
to minimise the cost of this to the public purse, notwithstanding
that had I omitted the advertisements, all of this could legitimately
have been claimed under parliamentary expenses. I have issued
such a leaflet each year and in some other years, have submitted
no claim at all. The claim in respect of this leaflet was for
£985 to cover the residual shortfall after advertising revenue
had been taken into account, around only 24% of the total cost.
2. It is common ground that there is no issue
with any part of the leaflet with the exception of the advertisement
placed by Ms Sharon Bowles, so perhaps ironic that had this advert
not been included and a higher claim made against public funds,
no complaint would have arisen.
3. I ask the committee to accept that my motivation
in including this advert, and indeed all others, was to minimise
the call upon UK public funds. I think it would be unfortunate
if that approach were to be discouraged as a result of this complaint.
4. In respect of the advert itself, I have conceded
that I did not seek advice from the DFA on this and, obviously,
rather wish I had.
5. I did however establish that the content of
the advertisement, paid for out of funds made available by the
European Parliament, was permissible under that scheme, a fact
that the Commissioner has had confirmed informally by officials
of the EU parliament (page 28 lines 10-12). Whilst I accept that
that does not it itself mean that the rules of the UK parliament
have been followed, I would argue that this fact should nevertheless
be taken into account and given some weight.
6. That said, the question is whether the advertisement
in question breaches the House's rules. I accept that Paragraph
5 of the DFA's supplementary guidelines, quoted in the memorandum
on page 31, refers to the presence of "political or campaigning
material…in any part of a publication", but would argue
that the fact that the piece in question was clearly labelled
as an advertisement should nevertheless be taken into account
and given some weight.
7. As regards the content itself, you will have
noted that I dispute that this does constitute a breach of the
rules. It must be permissible to feature a local MEP, and I understand
that the use of a party label is also permissible. Nor, I would
argue, can efforts to reduce packaging be regarded as inappropriate,
so I presume that the objection rests on the reference to the
then Lib Dem leader Sir Menzies Campbell.
8. In my letter of 4 September to the Commissioner,
I draw attention to the fact that this reference is far less political
than some elements which are expressly permitted in publications
fundable from UK parliament public funds, including the use of
pictures showing candidates wearing rosettes, the use of party
logos and the colour-coding of leaflets, none of which featured
in my leaflet.
9. I would argue that, particularly given the
relatively recent changes to the rules to allow proactive communications
to be funded from parliamentary allowances, initially the IEP
and now the Communications Allowances, the lines between permissibility
and impermissibility are not yet clear, and given what is expressly
permitted, as referred to in the paragraph above, it was not unreasonable
to assume that the mention of a party leader would also be permissible.
10. In his report, the Commissioner raises several
new points which I have not previously had the chance to respond
to. On page 34, the Commissioner provides support for his conclusion
that one part of Mr Donovan's complaint should be upheld by emphasising
the use of the word "local" to describe Sharon Bowles.
I confess that I do not understand the objection, nor why that
description should have weighed heavily with the Commissioner.
Ms Bowles is as local an MEP as it is possible to get, given the
nature of the electoral system currently in use for European Parliament
elections. Whether Ms Bowles is "local" or not does
not seem to me to be relevant to the issue at hand.
11. The Commissioner also suggests that the fact
that Ms Bowles is of the same party as myself "arguably imports
a party political element into his newsletter" and points
out that other MEPs of different parties did not feature in advertisements.
12. I would argue here that the fact that Ms
Bowles features does not in itself import a party political element.
That must turn on how she features.
13. Nor is it fair to draw attention to the absence
of advertisements from MEPs of other parties (page 34). No publication
can be expected to run advertisements from individuals or organisations
hostile to it—would the Daily Mail run an advertisement
for the Daily Express?—but that does not mean that any advertisement
that does appear, in this case from Ms Bowles, is therefore automatically
political.
14. To conclude, I should mention that at the
time the complaint was lodged, I had not actually claimed the
£985 in question and it would of course have been open to
me not to have done so, at which point the complaint would have
fallen. I did not in fact submit the claim until very recently,
as I wanted to wait for the outcome of this process, but finally
did submit it given the long delay in paying the publisher that
had ensued, and on the advice of the Fees Office.
15. I chose to allow the complaint to run, firstly
because I do not believe I have broken the rules for the reasons
given in my letters to the Commissioner and in the paragraphs
above, but secondly because I think it may be helpful for the
committee to be able to consider further both the definition of
political material in respect of permissibility under this scheme,
and the inter-relationship of the House's scheme with that of
the European Parliament and perhaps other elected bodies as well.
16. Lastly, I draw your attention to the fact
that both the Director of Finance and Administration and the Commissioner
recognise that this is not a clear-cut case. The DFA notes (page
12, line 24) that in his view, "this is a difficult and novel
case." Later (page 13, line 25) he adds: "The issues
are not straightforward and there is therefore a case for saying
on this occasion, should Mr Baker seek reimbursement of the costs,
that this should be made." And later still (page 20, line
26) he opines: "If you determine that there has been a breach
of the rules, it is a relatively minor one."
17. The Commissioner (page 28, line 71) describes
this as "not an easy case". He also reaches his view
that it has crossed the line into impermissibility only "on
balance" (page 33, line6).
I am grateful for the opportunity to set out these
further thoughts.
