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I welcome the decision to accept amendment 7. Along with removing clause 6, that will help to create the distinction between Parliament and the courts. Most of the many Government amendments changing “rules” to “code” are cosmetic, but that change is acceptable if it helps to remove clause 6.
Amendment 73 should be supported by the Government, as the idea of the register is to show the conflicts that Members have and how they use their time. That principle should apply to Ministers as much as it does to anyone else. One of the roles of this House is to hold the Government to account, so ministerial interests must be in conflict with that role at times. People should be able to judge the roles that Ministers play, and the time that they are able to put into their work.
I have quite a lot of sympathy with amendment 28 and the concerns about professional confidentiality, but I worry about whether it would have the effect that contracts could be drawn so that the word “confidentiality” could take on a wider meaning. If it can be restricted to professional understandings that already exist, I think that amendment 28 could be acceptable.
Mr. Gerald Howarth: I rise to support amendment 73, which is excellent, and I also agree with everything that my hon. Friend the Member for South Staffordshire (Sir Patrick Cormack) said. He was absolutely right that what is sauce for the goose should be sauce for the Government gander. However, with the economy in meltdown and our armed forces engaged in a battle in Afghanistan, it is astonishing that this House should spend so much time on this matter. It is true that there is public concern about expenses and that we had to address that, but the Government have come forward with a completely irrelevant issue relating to Members’ interests. There is no clamour for the complex proposals that they have introduced save among the ardent socialists on Secretary of State’s own Benches, and there are not too many of them.
This provision bears all the hallmarks of a nasty, petty and partisan attempt by the Prime Minister to stoke up hostility towards some on the Conservative Benches, although it will have the added advantage of dragging in some of his right hon. and Blairite Friends whose services clearly are valued by a number of corporations and individuals out there in the public sector. I look at the right hon. Member for East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow (Mr. Ingram), a good friend of mine. I am so glad that he has been properly remunerated for his great talents and skills. If this were not an attempt to stoke up hostility, the Government would have accepted the case for bringing Ministers within the scope of the Bill. If the Prime Minister were not minded to be so venomous about it, logic would demand that Ministers should be brought into its scope. They spend infinitely more time than most of us who have outside interests on doing things other than looking after their constituents. There is therefore no justification for excluding Ministers. I did not think that the Justice Secretary’s little example supported his case.
This draconian measure will impose enormous added burdens on right hon. and hon. Members. We will be required to fill in some sort of time sheet, rather like lawyers, totting up how much time we spend on other interests. We have already seen how Members have fallen foul of the requirement to register interests, not in
most cases because they have been dishonourable or evil, but simply as a result of the pressures on time. It is monstrous that the Government have proposed this complex web of requirements to impose on us.
Failure to record interests accurately will render us all liable to criminal prosecution. It is important that we put it on record that there should be right hon. and hon. Members who have other interests. It is extremely important for Labour Members for, if they do not have other interests, they will be unemployed after the next general election.
This House, as some commentators have noted, does not have enough people with business experience to inform debates in this place. It is left to those with experience in the other place to amend legislation that is pushed through here by people who do not have experience. I have checked with the House of Commons Library and, as matters stand, 7 per cent. of Labour Members have business experience and 38 per cent. of Conservative Members do. It is an indictment of Parliament that so few people have business experience. Therefore, I encourage all hon. Members to have outside interests. It adds to the value of debates in the House.
I conclude by reminding the Committee of a remark made by the Bishop of Durham in another place. He said during debates on constitutional reform:
“it looks as though constitutional change has been done on a wing and a prayer. We on these Benches are very happy to supply the prayer, but we want to be assured of the quality of the wing.”—[ Official Report, House of Lords, 11 June 2009; Vol. 711, c. 767.]
What the Justice Secretary’s action tonight has demonstrated is that the wing is not qualified and is indeed plummeting to earth rapidly.
Mr. Jenkin: I endorse much of what my hon. Friend the Member for Aldershot (Mr. Howarth) said about amendment 73, and what my hon. Friend the Member for South Staffordshire (Sir Patrick Cormack) said. Let me set out the strongest case for Ministers being brought into the scope of the rules on declarations. Just imagine what the inclusion of Ministers would show. If the right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr. Straw) were now the Foreign Secretary, it would probably show that he spent 80 or 90 per cent. of his working time being Foreign Secretary. I do not know how many hours he spends being Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice; I would submit that that must account for 70 or 75 per cent. of his working time. That would seem to be a reasonable proportion of his time to spend on ministerial office. For that, he is justifiably rewarded with extra salary as a Cabinet Minister. I appreciate that he does not draw the Lord Chancellor’s salary. The inclusion of Ministers in the rules on declaration would, at a stroke, legitimise the view that other Members of Parliament without ministerial office would be perfectly justified in taking outside employment for a number of hours for a degree of extra remuneration.
The failure to include Ministers in the rules on declaration seems deliberately to suggest that being a Minister is legitimate, but having a different outside interest, even if it is for the public good, is not legitimate. An invidious atmosphere has been created on the subject of outside interests. That was obviously political, and had absolutely nothing to do with the exposure of the expenses of right hon. and hon. Members by The Daily Telegraph and the
Freedom of Information Act 2000. It was a purely vindictive and political act for the Prime Minister to bring that extra resolution before the House. It was done to create that political atmosphere.
In parenthesis and perhaps not entirely relevantly, I might add that it has always struck me as slightly odd that a Member of Parliament resigns by accepting an office of profit under the Crown. I have never understood why being a Minister does not count as having an office of profit under the Crown. If we are to go on professionalising the House of Commons, as my hon. Friend the Member for Wycombe (Mr. Goodman) said yesterday, we should chuck the Executive out of Parliament altogether, on the basis that to be a Minister is to hold an office of profit under the Crown. That should disqualify Ministers from being Members of the House of Commons.
Mr. Straw: The truth is that being a Minister was an office. It was the case certainly until the 1920s, if not later, as we were reminded last night—
Mr. Straw: Indeed; the hon. Gentleman mentioned that whenever anybody was appointed as a Minister, there was automatically a by-election. That would be a bit risky these days. I can think of many reasons for not having such a system. I understand the strong feelings about what is in paragraph 24 of the new arrangements that come into force tomorrow, but those arrangements are not directly germane to the Bill, which simply provides a framework, particularly given that we will withdraw clause 5(8).
Mr. Jenkin: It would, of course, be churlish of me not to acknowledge that the right hon. Gentleman has agreed to withdraw subsection (8). That is the subject that I want to move on to next. The withdrawing of parts of the Bill should amount to substantial concessions, but although we were initially delighted by what he announced about clause 6, we were not aware that while he was making that dramatic concession, other amendments were being tabled that seemed to undo his concession. I appreciate that there has been progress, but we have taken 10 steps forward and nine steps back. If I may, I shall spend a few moments explaining why I think that.
My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Grieve) accepted my comment that the new subsections (1) and (2) to clause 5, introduced by amendment 74, leave some ambiguity as to whether the code is confined purely to the issue of expenses and declarations, or whether it might go wider. I have since studied the Nolan principles of selflessness, integrity, objectivity, accountability, openness, honesty and leadership. It is not difficult to connect every single one of those principles with the declaration of financial interests. For example, the text on selflessness states:
“Holders of public office should take decisions solely in terms of the public interest. They should not do so in order to gain financial or other material benefits for themselves”,
so that one goes in. The principle of integrity states:
“Holders of public office should not place themselves under any financial or other obligation to outside individuals or organisations”,
so that one goes into the code. The principle of objectivity requires us to make choices for public office on merit. I wonder whether that could be squeezed in somehow. The principle of accountability certainly applies. People in public office should
“submit themselves to whatever scrutiny is appropriate to their office.”
9.45 pm
According to the principle of openness, we should be open about the decisions that we take. On honesty, the code says that we
“have a duty to declare any private interests”.
So a great deal of what is in the Nolan principles overlaps dramatically with what would be a code instead of rules under the Act. The withdrawal of clause 6 does not amount to nearly such a large concession as was originally advertised by the Lord Chancellor.
The concern raised by the learned Clerk about clause 6 referred to the anxiety that
“the maintenance of such a resolution”—
“and the content of what it approves would become, by virtue of Clause 6, a matter which is justiciable by the courts.”
By virtue of being included in the Act, instead of being made by resolution of the House, the code would, by definition, be justiciable. The code relating to financial matters in the Bill will be justiciable by the courts. If it does not conform with the recommendations of the Committee on Standards in Public Life or with the rules, it would, by definition, be justiciable.
I still do not see how the Lord Chancellor has dealt with paragraph 9 of the learned Clerk’s memorandum. Paragraph 9 states:
“It is not clear why this clause is in the Bill.”
It is not at all clear why we should have to substitute “code” for “rules” unless, as we heard, it is purely to satisfy the impulsive outburst of the Prime Minister, who wanted to be able to tell the public, to appease the press and to ingratiate himself with the press, that there would be a statutory code to which MPs would be subject.
Clause 6 may be withdrawn, but clause 10 is still in the Bill. That is the problem that gives rise to the anxiety about a chilling effect on the freedom of speech in Parliament. The inclusion of the code undoes whatever good the withdrawal of clause 6 does, and the Bill remains as unsatisfactory and as dangerous to the interests of our constituents as ever.
Mr. Paul Goodman: Clearly, as I said yesterday, Members of the House are either elected representatives who are free to earn outside, or professional politicians who are not. It is with that thought that I shall address the clause and the amendments. As some hon. Members know, I have become convinced over a period that, unfortunately, the House is heading in the direction of professional politics. That, for better or for worse, is why I have decided not to stand again. I confess that when I made my decision, pessimist though I sometimes am, even I could not conceive of a clause as poor as clause 5.
Let me explain my reasoning. First, the Secretary of State has said consistently, throughout the proceedings on the Bill, that we need the Bill in order to quell public anxiety over expenses, but it ought to be obvious to every Member of the House, including those who have just entered it, that the clause has nothing at all to do with expenses. It is to do with the declaration of financial interests. If the Secretary of State had wanted a Bill concerned merely with expenses, he could have had it quickly yesterday and that would have been an end to it. But no, we have to have this Bill and this clause.
The clause places before us a series of rules that will apparently be replaced by a code. My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Grieve) and my hon. Friend the Member for North Essex (Mr. Jenkin) have just been through all the arguments, and it is not ultimately clear whether “rules” is to be replaced by “code”—the most likely explanation is that the Prime Minister has promised a code and that is an end of it—or, as my hon. Friend the Member for North Essex just argued, whether the courts will be given the power to rule on the clause, thereby obviating the removal from the Bill of clause 6, which was offered to us as a concession yesterday.
Furthermore, I do not know what will replace clause 5(8), if anything. Some Members may know because the Justice Secretary has been scurrying back and forth to speak to them. However, we do know what remains and looks likely to be punishable by the courts under clause 9. Nevertheless, we do not even know whether what the Bill seeks to give effect to, namely the provision whereby we have to declare in detail every hour that we work outside this place, will stand or be replaced by whatever Sir Christopher Kelly brings forth.
I thought I heard the Secretary of State say this afternoon that, if Sir Christopher comes forth in due course and says, “I do not much like any of this,” it may all have to be replaced anyway. I thought also that I heard my hon. Friend the Member for North Essex say that Sir Christopher, in conversation with him, seemed to intimate that he was not happy with every aspect of the Bill, raising the further question why it exists and why the clause exists.
Underneath that tangled mess, which is so tangled that my description is even more tangled than it normally would be, lies a simplicity. As other hon. Members have said, the Government are creating an atmosphere of illegitimacy around outside interests. That is the purpose of clauses 5 and 9, and the ceiling that has been descending year upon year on outside interests, ever since the Nolan report and probably further back, is being ratcheted down under this Bill. It is essentially unjust, because the one group of people who will not have to declare how much time they spend working on business other than those of their constituents are, of course, Ministers. If there were any justice, they would accept the amendment tabled by my right hon. and hon. Friends, so that Ministers had to declare how many hours they spent moonlighting outside this place—to use the language that they frequently throw at us. But of course, they will not accept it.
Either we are to be elected representatives who are free to work or, if we are to be professional politicians, we will have to separate the Executive and the legislature, and being an MP will be a full-time job. I do not expect the Justice Secretary to address that argument fully or
completely openly. I understand why the Leader of the House cannot be present, but, notably, the Justice Secretary has been sent in because, with his usual combination of charm and cunning, he is the only Front-Bench spokesperson likely to get the Bill past unsuspecting Government Members who, if they are still here after the next election, will find that it bites as much on them as on any other Member.
My closing words, however, are not to the Justice Secretary but to my Front-Bench team. If, as may be, there is a Conservative Government after the next election, they are going to inherit this mess, and they are going to have to make a fundamental decision themselves, despite all the political difficulties. The question is, are they going to allow the boat to continue to drift all the way down to the professionalisation of politics, or are they going to make a stand and allow this House to return to what it should be—namely, a forum in which the clash of interests is represented and debated? If this House does not do that, there is no purpose in it being here at all.
Adam Afriyie (Windsor) (Con): We heard a brilliant contribution from my hon. Friend the Member for Wycombe (Mr. Goodman); I hope that he changes his mind at some point.
On sources of outside income, we have to be absolutely clear that we are talking about jobs undertaken and time spent in addition to our work as Members of Parliament. Clearly, a ministerial job is additional to the duties of a Member of Parliament. Committee chairmanship and, perhaps, the Speaker’s role can also be seen in that light. If we are declaring the number of hours of paid work outside this place, or even inside it, it is completely illogical that we are not declaring the number of hours of unpaid work outside this place, as well as inside it. Fundamentally, if we are arguing that being a Member of Parliament is a full-time job—although I do not make that argument—then, equally, anything that takes a Member of Parliament outside this place to undertake other kinds of employment and use their time in other ways should be declared. If somebody is working for a charity, acting as a school governor, or doing anything that is not remunerated, surely those hours should also be listed. Of course, to do so would be considered completely nonsensical and not particularly relevant. Perhaps that is why the declaration of the number of hours worked or the amount of money received should equally be seen as nonsensical.
Let us take a completely different view. It could well be argued that the fewer the number of hours a Member of Parliament spends fulfilling his or her duties, provided that he or she is efficient, the better. That is a good sign. If a Member of this House can achieve in three hours a day what other Members, or other people, might achieve in eight hours a day, is that not something to be welcomed? Efficiency must come into play. My background is in business, and I can say immediately that people in business—people who are entrepreneurs, who are enterprising, and who are looking for a return and a benefit to their company and to the economy—will look for the most efficient person who can achieve the best result in the fewest number of hours. The whole drive towards the declaration of the number of hours, with the undertone that it is bad to work fewer hours fulfilling one’s duties as a Member of Parliament, is incorrect.
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