Examination of Witnesses (Question Numbers
80-97)
SIR CHRISTOPHER
KELLY KCB
4 FEBRUARY 2010
Q80 Paul Flynn: The question is as
old as democracy. Who guards the guardians? We all agree that
the guardians have not been guarding the guardians very successfully,
but do you not believe that ideas about disclosing tax returns
and the requirements in Argentina are splendid ones? We know that
in many parts of the world politicians enrich themselves greatly
in all this.
Sir Christopher Kelly: As a general
principle I am all in favour of transparency. Whether or not that
is a step too far or a necessary one I do not know.
Q81 Kelvin Hopkins: Last year I was
complimentary about your predecessor; I said that he had a Calvinistic,
puritanical attitude, which was entirely appropriate, but it was
not popular. He tried to intervene in this area but was apparently
warned off. I should like to know who warned him off. I have my
suspicions. I believe you have done a good job and by and large
I accept your recommendations though I may argue over one or two
details. I think it has been a long time coming. You were left
with what turned out to be an unexploded bomb; many years ago
Robin Cook described it as such. You have had the problem of defusing
it in a way. Do you believe your predecessors have left you with
an unwelcome task?
Sir Christopher Kelly: Speaking
as a citizen, I would have much preferred Parliament to sort out
this issue for itself some years ago so democracy would not have
been damaged in the way it has.
Q82 Kelvin Hopkins: The concern is
the damage to democracy?
Sir Christopher Kelly: Yes, and
the reputation of this House and the many individuals of great
integrity working within it.
Q83 Kelvin Hopkins: Turnouts at elections
have been going down for some years. In 2001 it was 59 % which
was way below the sorts of turnouts we had in the 1960s, 1970s
and 1980s. To what extent is this a hook on which to hang people's
disapproval of what politicians have been doing in recent years
and their unhappiness with them? It is not just about expenses;
it is also about unhappiness with politicians?
Sir Christopher Kelly: Indeed.
Expenses cannot have helped. I said earlier that one of the points
made to us most strongly was that people valued independence of
mind. Another interesting point was they did not believe that
when people offended against high standards they were brought
to book. This is not just a question of MPs; they say this in
general about people in public life, so one aspect is what happens
to people in these circumstances.
Q84 Paul Rowen: Your annual report
and the report of this Committee last year raised the issue of
whistle-blowers. There are now stronger provisions in place to
protect whistle-blowers.
Sir Christopher Kelly: I agree,
not least because you have raised this point in the past. We do
include whistle-blowers in this, but the point I was making was
that some of our recommendations were about the way in which the
Committee on Standards and Privileges exercised its functions
and the range of sanctions at its disposal. As I understand it,
that committee has taken the decision to propose to the House
that the resettlement grant should be withheld from one Member
of Parliament. We suggested that the Committee on Standards and
Privileges should have on it independent members to give greater
competence to address precisely this point, namely whether when
peers judge peers they are being sufficiently robust in forming
judgments. That protects both the public and in this case MPs
against a suspicion that they are not being judged appropriately
and robustly.
Q85 Chairman: I want to ask about
the dangers of overkill. Often when we respond to issues we set
up vast structures that turn out in the long term not to be very
helpful and we have to change them again. Heather Brooke, the
redoubtable campaigner for transparency in this area, said not
long ago that you do not make a system more effective by increasing
the number of regulators; you improve it by making the lines of
authority clear, simple and transparent so everyone knows exactly
who is responsible for what but instead the muddle is getting
muddled. If you look at it we now have quite a dense network of
people who have a finger in the pie. One wonders whether we could
simply have made the rules simpler and the position more transparent
with a simple audit.
Sir Christopher Kelly: Up to a
point I agree with that. One of the things we may very well do
before the end of my term in office is conduct an inquiry that
looks at precisely that issue. I make two comments. First, I agree
with Heather Brooke almost to the end of the quote you made. Second,
I would also emphasise as I tried to do in the report the importance
of leadership. What matters is culture. You can have as many codes
of practice as you like but what really matters is the culture,
and leadership is very important in cultural issues.
Q86 Kelvin Hopkins: Your seven pillars
of wisdom or principles are: selflessness, integrity, objectivity,
accountability, openness, honesty and leadership. I am not quite
sure about the term "leadership"; it does not quite
fit with the others. Perhaps you would expand on that.
Sir Christopher Kelly: They are
the Nolan principles rather than mine, although I endorse them.
Leadership is in many ways the most important one because in issues
of standards it is culture that matters. If high standards are
not led from the top of an organisation and people see that they
are not rewarded and recognised for high standards then human
nature being what it is you will not have them.
Q87 Kelvin Hopkins: You are really
talking of moral leadership?
Sir Christopher Kelly: It is moral
leadership and also an insistence on the way in which organisations
conduct themselves.
Q88 Mr Liddell-Grainger: What is
your pension per year?
Sir Christopher Kelly: I wrote
it down somewhere and I cannot find it.
Q89 Mr Liddell-Grainger: Can you
write to me?
Sir Christopher Kelly: I can tell
you that it is of the order of £64,000. I cannot see what
relevance it has to anything we are considering here, but I do
not particularly want to conceal it.
Q90 Mr Liddell-Grainger: Bear with
me. When you left the Civil Service did you receive a resettlement
grant?
Sir Christopher Kelly: I got a
standard early retirement package, if that is what you mean.
Q91 Mr Liddell-Grainger: How much
was it all told?
Sir Christopher Kelly: In those
days it was not converted into a capital sum; I had my pension
paid early.
Q92 Mr Liddell-Grainger: You did
not receive a resettlement sum when you left the Civil Service?
Sir Christopher Kelly: As part
of the pension arrangement one receives a lump sum, if that is
what you mean. I guess my pension arrangements look pretty much
like yours, except they were based on a higher salary.
Q93 Mr Walker: My next point is more
a statement than a question, but I hope you find some comfort
in it. Despite all the stuff that has hit the fan over the past
10 months, to put it delicately, what is still great about our
democratic system is that my constituents can see me pretty much
at a week's notice; they have incredible contact with me. If it
is really urgent they can come into the office any day during
the week. I will answer their emails at midnight and weekends.
A Nigerian bishop came to visit me and was staggered and amazed
at the close relationship between Members of Parliament and their
constituents in this country. He said that in Nigeria they were
elected and disappeared for 20 years. Therefore, some good must
have come out of your investigations into the role of Members
of Parliament. Are you still a fan of our democratic process?
Sir Christopher Kelly: Yes.
Q94 Mr Walker: Do you still have
confidence in the relationship between Members of Parliament and
their constituents at the most basic level, ie constituency level?
Sir Christopher Kelly: Since I
was a civil servant for 30 years I have worked with a lot of Members
of Parliament both as ministers and in other capacities and I
have considerable admiration for large numbers of them. In the
course of this inquiry from what I have seen of the way in which
many Members do their jobs, not the way they have dealt with their
expenses, my admiration has grown, if that answers your question.
Q95 Kelvin Hopkins: I am older than
most people here and have seen things change. Forty or 50 years
ago MPs did not do case work; we now do enormous amounts of it.
We have these personal relationships. It has changed. We are unusual
in that respect. For example, in Sweden MPs do not do case work
and have no personal relationships with constituents.
Sir Christopher Kelly: At the
risk of spoiling this mutual admiration I have to say that a number
of people told us in evidence that the case work of an MP was
very important, but were they absolutely sure that all the case
work they did was properly done by an MP as opposed to a local
authority councillor, recognising that he or she might be of a
different political party, or the citizens advice bureau or a
Member of the Scottish Parliament? Issues were raised about the
extent to which the amount of case work now done was absolutely
necessary. I express no view about it myself; I am just saying
that that point was raised.
Q96 Chairman: I take us back to where
we started: the role of the Committee itself. Given the way the
Committee has vindicated itself in the past year, which is not
a view shared by all my colleagues, is it necessary for it to
be, as it were, in constant inquiry mode? A suggestion has been
made that when it was set up the idea was that it would sit there
and be available when issues arose to intervene and conduct inquiries.
It has gone into a mode where it is conducting inquiries continuously
and is thinking what to do next. When the issue of MPs' expenses
arose and I was pressing you to do it you told me you had an inquiry
under way into local government leadership that you wanted to
get on with. It is perhaps a good moment to revisit the model
of operation and consider whether you could do a desk operation,
keeping a general eye on standards issues but standing ready to
go when a particular issue emerged. You would be far more nimble-footed
and responsive than you were in this case.
Sir Christopher Kelly: What you
have described about the way we could operate is quite close to
the way we think we do operate. We do not necessarily assume that
we have to do an inquiry. Indeed, before we started the local
authority inquiry we set up a series of seminars designed to expose
issues in a different way. We continue to do quite a lot of work
all the time either in the public eye or not in which we exercise
some influence over standards. To give you one example, unusually
the Prime Minister's Independent Adviser on Ministers' Interests,
Sir Philip Mawer, produced a report on a minister which initially
was not going to be published. We said we thought it should be
published and next day it was. Therefore, we exercise some influence
in that way. We are a small committee of part-time people with
a very small secretariat. How we best exercise influence and work
with and through other people is a subject of great interest to
me and we discuss it a good deal.
Q97 Chairman: Thank you very much
for this morning. I am not sure that I should wish you a quieter
year, but thank you for all your endeavours this year.
Sir Christopher Kelly: Thank you,
Chairman. My only regret is that I shall not have the pleasure
of appearing before you on another occasion.
Chairman: This is probably the end of
our relationship but it has been an interesting one.
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