Examination of Witnesses (Question Numbers
20-39)
SIR CHRISTOPHER
KELLY KCB
4 FEBRUARY 2010
Q20 Mr Prentice: You have not given
any thought to the process?
Sir Christopher Kelly: I have
not.
Q21 Chairman: You say that you would
not have liked to do the Legg process. Had you done it would you
have conducted it in the same way?
Sir Christopher Kelly: I do not
know. That is a very hypothetical question and I honestly do not
know the answer to it.
Q22 Chairman: To put it differently,
many complaints from MPs centre on what they regard as the retrospective
character of this exercise. Applying the seven principles of public
life, of which you are the guardian, does that claim stand up?
Sir Christopher Kelly: When individual
MPs sign claims saying these expenses were wholly, necessarily
and inclusively incurred in order to perform their duties and
it was necessary to claim x thousands of pounds for cleaning
and gardening it is a difficult judgment whether one should reopen
it in cases where, looking back on it now, people think such claims
are excessive. I have already made that clear and I am not sure
what else I can say.
Q23 Chairman: But he said never mind
what the rules were and how they were applied at the time; one
should go back to the underlying principles. I am asking you:
is that is the proper way to proceed?
Sir Christopher Kelly: I can only
say what I have said before which is that I believe that is a
very difficult thing to do.
Q24 Mr Liddell-Grainger: One of the
things Professor Kennedy is doing is talking to members of the
public, MPs, staff, officials and others. With the greatest respect,
do you believe you should be going out to talk to a much broader
circle than perhaps you are to see what people out there think
generally?
Sir Christopher Kelly: In relation
to what—MPs' expenses? We went through exactly the same
process in relation to MPs' expenses as he is going through now,
so I am not sure I understand the question.
Q25 Mr Liddell-Grainger: I have just
been looking at the members of your Committee. As far as I can
see there is only one who has been in private practice, that is,
PricewaterhouseCoopers; everyone else has come from the public
sector, for example a senior police officer and a civil servant.
Would it be sensible to have people more like Sir Ian Kennedy
who have come from private practice? They have Jacquie Ballard
and another gentleman who has come from private practice. Do you
believe you need more people who come from the business sector?
Sir Christopher Kelly: The manner
of appointing to my Committee is the normal public appointments
process. The term of office of a number of members comes to an
end this year and I think the point you make is a very reasonable
one.
Mr Liddell-Grainger: Given what you have
just said do you believe you should say that next time you would
like to have retired company directors or whatever?
Chairman: Bankers?
Q26 Mr Liddell-Grainger: Possibly
they understand expenses—bigger, overseas ones in particular—more
than we do. Would you be pushing to get a broader spread?
Sir Christopher Kelly: The appointments
are not for me, although I sit on the panel. When the time comes
to write the job specification and advertisement I shall certainly
want that to be written, as I think it was before, to attract
the widest range of expertise. These jobs are not always attractive
to everyone you might want to fill them.
Q27 Mr Liddell-Grainger: I attended
one of Kennedy's sessions. I had never met him but knew him by
reputation because of his work in Bristol. I was intrigued. He
had two people, one of whom was a former Member of Parliament,
who were very much of the view that something was rotten but in
the interests of natural justice we had to get through it to make
sure it was fair and we did not put off sectors of the community
from coming into the House, for example women with young children.
I thought it was a very fair and balanced view but a lot of it
came from their personal experiences of working within the private
sector. Quite often we speak to civil servants. No disrespect
is intended; we esteem Sir Christopher because he has written
a report and we must all listen to it. Do you believe we can do
it in a different way or not?
Sir Christopher Kelly: I would
repudiate the suggestion that members of my Committee are somehow
less in touch with real life than people with previous experience
in the private sector. They include among others a very distinguished
social worker.
Q28 Mr Liddell-Grainger: I am not
sure that counts. We as MPs deal with social workers and find
them quite difficult. I take the point on board, but do you think
you should have a retired senior director of, say, Shell, BP or
something like that?
Sir Christopher Kelly: We would
welcome as diverse a range of experience on the committee as we
can get.
Q29 Mr Liddell-Grainger: You worked
for Mr Alan Milburn, did you not?
Sir Christopher Kelly: I did.
Q30 Mr Liddell-Grainger: At the time
you found it quite tough. I know he is very outspoken because
I have been at the wrong end of his tongue a couple of times.
You thought that you could not work with the man, which is fair
enough; I am not sure I could do so. There was a good deal of
speculation at the time that your face did not fit, that you had
to go and you were kicked out. Does pressure get to you? Do you
suddenly think you have had enough and you are off? If you do
not mind my saying so, you have a nervous giggle. Will you suddenly
say that you do not like this bunch of spiders and off you go?
Sir Christopher Kelly: I do not
know what response to make to that question; it is rather like
being asked whether I have stopped beating my wife. I do not recognise
at all the account you give of my history with Mr Milburn.
Q31 Mr Liddell-Grainger: You should
because it was the subject of an article in the Financial Times.
Sir Christopher Kelly: I saw that
article and it caused me and my wife a degree of amusement. It
is easier to write history if you are not there at the time and
are not too worried about the facts.
Q32 Mr Liddell-Grainger: Therefore,
the broad Kelly shoulders are in place?
Sir Christopher Kelly: You may
think that working in the Treasury and the Departments of Social
Security and Health does not bring you into contact with stress
and so on, but I have to say that has not been my experience.
Q33 Mr Liddell-Grainger: Compared
with MPs at the moment?
Sir Christopher Kelly: That may
well be true.
Chairman: We need to get back to the
agenda.
Q34 Julie Morgan: I want to pick
up Mr Liddell-Grainger's point. Parliament is very unrepresentative
of the public generally. We do not have many women here and given
many aspects of the workings of Parliament it is quite difficult
for women to cope, particularly if they have small children. Were
the varying circumstances of different MPs part of your consideration?
Sir Christopher Kelly: It was
at the forefront of our minds all the time. I was therefore quite
concerned when the allegation was made that somehow what we proposed
would make the diversity of Parliament more difficult. Having
examined our consciences very carefully I cannot see how anything
we proposed should have that effect if what we are doing is simply
making recommendations to turn the expenses system into what it
should be; that is, one that reimburses MPs for the expense necessarily
incurred in doing their job. If there is an issue about the diversity
of Parliament I do not believe it is something that can be dealt
with by continuing the previous confusion between pay and expenses.
Q35 Julie Morgan: I completely agree
with you that there should be a distinction between pay and expenses.
Though it does not apply to me, if one has small children and
one has the main responsibility in caring for them—on the
whole, women take the main responsibility—and one must work
between the constituency and Westminster, often with very late
night sittings, those are probably exceptional circumstances.
How much regard do you pay to that?
Sir Christopher Kelly: I agree.
We said in the report it was important that flexibility to deal
with those different circumstances should be built into the system.
Q36 Julie Morgan: Therefore, you
strongly agree that there should be flexibility so we can encourage
more women in particular to come forward?
Sir Christopher Kelly: I do very
strongly.
Q37 Paul Rowen: A record number of
MPs—179—are to stand down at the next election. Do
you think the whole saga of MPs' expenses has had a material effect
on that number?
Sir Christopher Kelly: You are
probably in a better position to judge than I am, but it would
not be altogether surprising if that was the case.
Q38 Paul Rowen: We may have over
200 new MPs following the election. What further steps do you
believe need to be taken to restore confidence in what MPs do
as a body?
Sir Christopher Kelly: I think
that starting with a clean sheet and a reformed system of expenses
is a necessary condition for doing that and that is in hand.
Q39 Paul Rowen: Beyond that what
do you say should happen?
Sir Christopher Kelly: As your
question implies, it is by no means a sufficient condition. One
of the points made to us most strongly in the consultation we
undertook in this inquiry and some of the responses to our biannual
surveys was that what the public valued most of all in their Members
of Parliament was independence of mind. I think that takes us
back to some of the things in the report about how to reinforce
the way in which MPs exercise independence of mind and can be
independent of the whips.
| 
