Examination of Witnesses (Question Numbers
60-79)
SIR CHRISTOPHER
KELLY KCB
4 FEBRUARY 2010
Q60 Mr Walker: What is it? I do not
know what it is but you have talked to these people.
Sir Christopher Kelly: Between
the two choices you offer me of course they want MPs who do the
job for which they elect them: to represent them in Parliament,
look after their interests, scrutinise legislation and do all
of the things that MPs do.
Q61 Chairman: Behind Mr Walker's
question is the point that we do not know what people require
of their Members of Parliament, we do know that essentially all
MPs are in different categories and in many respects do different
jobs. There is no job description and they have to make it up
for themselves. Some work hard and some do not; some do this and
some do that. It is the job of IPSA to find answers to these questions.
How on earth can you decide how to remunerate them?
Sir Christopher Kelly: That is
a good question. You could decide how to remunerate them if you
wrote a job description for Members of Parliament and insisted
that every one of them followed it. I would personally regret
that. We have been told by a lot of people that Members of Parliament
do their jobs in different ways, some more assiduously than others,
but I suspect that an attempt to prescribe what Members of Parliament
should do would be something most of your colleagues would resent
and it would lead to a less effective House of Commons.
Q62 Mr Burrowes: You said in your
report that the system should give MPs the resources they need
to do their difficult jobs. Does that include increased salaries?
Sir Christopher Kelly: To my mind
there are two important things. One is that the confusion between
expenses and salaries should end. It should be absolutely clear,
unlike the past, that expenses should be reimbursed only if they
are properly incurred et cetera. Second, there is a quite separate
question about whether or not salaries should be increased. In
many ways one of the most important recommendations we made was
that IPSA should be given responsibility for determining salaries,
not on the basis of my giving you a glib answer now about whether
you should be paid more but on the basis of a proper independent
assessment, accepting all the difficulties of assessing it as
the Chairman indicated, of the kind that the Senior Salaries Review
Body has performed in the past. That would be done in the knowledge
that when recommendations are produced they are not then interfered
with either by the House of Commons or the Prime Minister of the
day for whom any increase in the salary of a Member of Parliament
will always be difficult. I believe that responsibility for that
recommendation should be handed to IPSA as an important part of
ensuring that the situation that has developed in the past does
not recur.
Q63 Mr Burrowes: I recall that when
you first came before us you indicated a willingness to consider
an increase in salaries. Given the matter you have been looking
at—the whole issue of expenses—without accusing you
of being glib, do you have a view that on balance there should
be an increase or reduction in salary?
Sir Christopher Kelly: If I gave
you a view it would be a personal one and the Committee has not
taken evidence on the right level of salary. I believe the right
way to do it is by way of the process that will now happen which
does not single out head teachers, police superintendents or any
single job where salaries have increased by a lot but looks across
the board. If that independent review did come to the conclusion
that MPs' salaries were too low and should be increased that should
be accepted.
Q64 Mr Burrowes: Is that a personal
view?
Sir Christopher Kelly: Absolutely.
Q65 Mr Burrowes: In the first evidence
session of the inquiry into expenses you hit out at MPs for lacking
principle and exploiting expenses for personal gain. Now you have
been through that inquiry how many did exploit the system for
personal gain and lack principles?
Sir Christopher Kelly: I genuinely
do not know the answer to that, and in many ways what has happened
has been extremely unfair to large numbers of your colleagues.
Tom Legg's report will presumably go into it in more detail. My
impression is that a significant number have behaved with integrity
throughout and have been unfairly tarred with the same brush.
Q66 Mr Burrowes: What is "significant"?
Sir Christopher Kelly: A number
of others have been widely criticised for what they did, but particularly
for some of the older Members what they did was in the context
of an impression they had been given that £24,000 was an
entitlement. If it is an entitlement you can bung in any old expenses
vaguely related to accommodation that add up to £24,000,
which was presumably how people thought it was reasonable to claim
for duck houses, manure and everything else.
Q67 Mr Burrowes: You have highlighted
individual examples. A year ago I accept that we could talk in
generalities, but you have now looked at this line by line and
Member by Member.
Sir Christopher Kelly: It has
not been our job to do that; it has been the task of Sir Thomas
Legg.
Q68 Mr Burrowes: Nevertheless, you
have held an inquiry and you must have developed a broad view
of it. In June you talked about it in terms of generic numbers
when referring to the values of selflessness, integrity and honesty
and said that if they had been followed by more MPs over the past
few years we would not be in the situation we are in now. Therefore,
you formed a judgment about a number of MPs, so it would be useful
to set out now those who according to the headlines lacked principles.
Sir Christopher Kelly: I am genuinely
unable to answer that in quantitative terms. To get back to what
I said right at the beginning in response to the Chairman chiding
me, I believe that all of you are guilty of having gone along
with a system which you must have known was flawed even if you
were not personally guilty, although I suspect most of you were
as unaware as everybody else until the Daily Telegraph
revelations in particular of the extent to which people were exploiting
the system for personal advantage.
Q69 Mr Burrowes: In the foreword
to your report you distinguish between healthy scepticism and
deep-rooted cynicism towards public life. What do you believe
is the public attitude? Is it focused now on deep-routed cynicism
or healthy scepticism?
Sir Christopher Kelly: We have
not done our usual survey since all of this started. I cannot
give you a quantitative answer; I can give only a qualitative
one based on the number of letters we received during the course
of the inquiry and through the focus groups. On the basis of that
we are well beyond healthy scepticism and are now in a situation
that is a matter of concern to me, as I am sure it is to you,
which is the reason for the earlier questions about what needs
to be done to restore trust and confidence.
Q70 Chairman: I pick up one point
you made in answer to Mr Burrowes' question. You referred to MPs
having abused the system and so on. I know that you do not want
to comment on the scale of it because that is not what you have
done, but on the Today programme this morning there was
a discussion involving the Chairman of the Members Estimate Committee.
He was asked whether he thought this would impact on the general
election and people standing in it. He said he thought it would
not; everything would be caught up in the normal battle of policy
and party. Listening to it I wondered whether he was right. That
is what normally happens, but is it not the case that when people
find out things about the character of people who offer themselves
for election they want to make judgments about them? Let us say
someone does some work in your house and you find that over quite
a long period that individual has been systematically overcharging
you. When that person comes back again he will probably not get
any work, will he? Should not the same be true of Members of Parliament?
Sir Christopher Kelly: There is
a distinction. If some of what you read in the newspapers or the
reports of the Committee on Standards and Privileges about individual
MPs was true and they were standing for election in a constituency
of which I was part of the electorate, speaking personally I would
not want to vote for that individual irrespective of party. That
is a judgment about what has been revealed about individuals.
I would expect to find a number of people in that category. Of
more concern to me is the generic issue which is: is there likely
to be a larger vote for extremist parties because of dissatisfaction
with the more mainstream parties? On that I have no particular
expertise to offer, but I imagine that the polling you and your
parties are doing may cast more light on that than my personal
view.
Q71 Mr Prentice: Knowing what you
know about all this, do you expect to see successful prosecutions?
Sir Christopher Kelly: I read
the same press as you. I have no idea what the quality of the
evidence is.
Q72 Mr Prentice: What about the long-term
implications of the expenses scandal? Do you believe good people—I
hate to use the term but everyone knows what I mean by it—will
want to stand for Parliament given the increased transparency
and being in the spotlight and so on following the publicity we
have all had, or are they likely to prefer to do something else
with their lives?
Sir Christopher Kelly: Again,
you are asking for a personal opinion and all I can offer is that.
A number of people must be thinking: do they want to subject themselves
and their families to the kinds of vehement and unpleasant attacks
that have taken place? I suspect there is nothing new in this;
you have been subjected to that sort of thing in the past.
Q73 Mr Prentice: This is unprecedented.
Sir Christopher Kelly: In principle
it is nothing new. People will want to consider that. I hope they
will feel when Ian Kennedy has finished his task that as far as
expenses are concerned there is now a system that is clean, robust,
properly audited and transparent and therefore they should have
nothing to fear from that particular aspect of the way they do
their work.
Q74 Mr Prentice: Do I take it from
what you have just said that this maelstrom in which we have been
involved for the past six months or so will not deter people from
standing for Parliament? You say it will not have an effect?
Sir Christopher Kelly: That was
not what I said; I said I had no idea whether or not it would.
Q75 Mr Prentice: All I ask is your
personal view.
Sir Christopher Kelly: I am sure
some people will think twice about whether to expose their families
to this sort of attack. It is not unusual for people in political
life to be attacked unfairly, although this has been extreme in
terms of the number of people, but it is important for precisely
the reason you give that we start the new Parliament with a completely
clean sheet with no suspicion or possibility of abuse. That ought
to be a comfort to those who think of standing.
Q76 Mr Prentice: One of the suggestions
is that only very wealthy people will be able to stand for Parliament
because they really do not give a toss. Have you given any thought
to the publication of tax returns? It happens in some jurisdictions,
for example in the United States. Would you like to see a situation
where in Britain if people stand for election they publish their
tax returns? If not, why not?
Sir Christopher Kelly: I would
have to think about it.
Q77 Mr Prentice: I will give you
a few moments.
Sir Christopher Kelly: Earlier
this week I was visited by a delegation of Argentinean legislators
who asked me a similar question, except that in Argentina politicians
and senior civil servants do not have to publish their tax returns
but they make a statement of their wealth at the point they take
up office and when they leave.
Q78 Mr Prentice: Bring us back from
the Argentine to the United Kingdom.
Sir Christopher Kelly: As always
there is a balance to be struck.
Q79 Mr Prentice: You do not want
to answer?
Sir Christopher Kelly: I do not
want to answer off the cuff a question to which I have not given
a great deal of thought, frankly.
Chairman: I think that is a perfectly
proper response, though not one politicians like.
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