1 Review of the year
1.1 The year began with the Dissolution of the House
on 12 April 2010 for the general election, which took place on
6 May. The election brought 227 new Members to the House—some
35% of the new Parliament. This is a greater proportion than in
any Parliament since 1997.
1.2 In any new Parliament one of our first tasks
is to arrange briefings for new Members, and then to compile the
first Registers of the Parliament. My office must explain to new
Members the standards expected of them and the detailed requirements
of the House as regards registration and declaration. Then they
must receive and collate Members' initial Register entries. We
published the first Register of All-Party Groups on 30 July 2010,
followed by the Registers of Members' Secretaries and Research
Assistants and of Journalists. The first Register of Members'
Financial Interests of the 2010 Parliament was published on 20
September 2010.
1.3 Following the expenses disclosures of 2009-10,
major new arrangements came into effect after the election for
the financial support of Members and their offices, passing responsibility
from the House to an independent body. In last year's Report I
described the passage of the Parliamentary Standards Act 2009
and the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act 2010, and the
establishment of the new Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority
(IPSA), which assumed responsibility after the general election
for paying Members' salaries and determining and paying their
expenses. IPSA laid its new expenses scheme for Members before
the House on 29 March 2010 and the new rules came into force on
7 May, the day after the general election. Those rules have since
been subject to modifications. The first of these was announced
on 25 May, and further amendments were made on 16 June and on
3 September. On 5 January 2011 IPSA launched its consultation
on the first annual review of the Members' expenses scheme. Following
this consultation IPSA published a new edition of the scheme on
25 March which included a number of further adjustments.
1.4 As well as providing for IPSA, the Parliamentary
Standards Act 2009 made provision for a statutory Commissioner
for Parliamentary Investigations to look into complaints about
the misuse of Members' allowances. The Constitutional Reform and
Governance Act 2010 modified this and replaced that Commissioner
with a statutory Compliance Officer. The office of the Compliance
Officer marked a change to my remit. Previously, complaints about
the misuse of expenses paid by the House had fallen to me to consider.
Such complaints are now received by the Compliance Officer unless
they relate to a period before the current Parliament.
1.5 The role of Compliance Officer has some similarities
with my own, but it also differs in that my decisions are not
subject to a formal review procedure, while the Compliance Officer's
decisions are subject to review by the courts. The Compliance
Officer also has the power to require repayments, while my remit
does not extend to sanctions. The Compliance Officer has the power
to refer complaints to me, for example if they appear to entail
a breach of the Code of Conduct. The arrangements for such referrals
will be set out in a joint statement to be drawn up between IPSA
and the Compliance Officer, which will set out how they will work
with me and others, including the Metropolitan Police. I have
had informal contacts with the Interim Compliance Officer about
those working arrangements, including the circumstances in which
he might refer a complaint to me for inquiry, and I have been
consulted formally about the agreement which is being drawn up.
I look forward to the publication by IPSA of the joint statement.
1.6 My work on complaints inquiries continued in
2010-11. I brought forward from 2009-10 some 25 active inquiries.
Nineteen of these related to Members' use of the allowances or
facilities of the House. During the Dissolution of the House for
the general election from 12 April 2010, I was not able to continue
with my inquiries since I was no longer able to work under the
authority of the House. I therefore wrote to all the Members under
inquiry and to all those who had complained about them, to explain
that my investigations would be suspended until the new Parliament
had assembled. I wrote to them again on 18 May to say that I was
resuming my inquiries. My work on the consideration of complaints
is described in more detail in Chapter 3.[1]
1.7 I am pleased to report that, on 2 December 2010,
the new Parliament considered and approved the proposal that I
had put to the previous Committee on Standards and Privileges,
that I should in future publish more information on my consideration
of complaints against Members of Parliament.[2]
Until then I had issued statistical information only in my Annual
Reports, and information about completed inquiries had been published
only about those inquiries on which I reported formally to the
Committee by way of a memorandum. I now publish each month statistics
on complaints I have received and considered, together with information
on complaints which I had not upheld or rectified during the previous
month. I consider the impact of this change, and the amendments
to Standing Order No. 150, in more detail in Chapter 2 of this
Report.[3]
1.8 The House also approved two other resolutions
on 2 December 2010. These followed recommendations made by the
Committee on Standards in Public Life, in the course of its review
of Members' expenses and allowances, which were subsequently supported
by the Committee on Standards and Privileges. The first of these
extended my remit so that in future I should have the power to
inquire into a matter without having first received a complaint
about it. This extension to my remit will, for example, enable
me to act on a referral from IPSA's Compliance Officer.
1.9 The second resolution related to the recommendation,
originally made by the Chairman of the previous Committee on Standards
and Privileges, that that Committee should in future include lay
members. The House has invited the Procedure Committee to inquire
into the privilege implications of this recommendation, and the
practical considerations involved. That Committee launched its
inquiry on 9 February 2011.
1.10 On 7 February 2011 the House approved amendments
of the Guide to the Rules as they relate to Members' earnings,
and I discuss these in Chapter 4 of my Report.
1.11 On the same date, 7 February 2011, the House
also approved new requirements for All-Party Parliamentary Groups
to register more information about themselves and the sources
of their financial and non-financial support.[4]
These requirements were based on recommendations in a Report by
the previous Committee on Standards and Privileges, which in turn
followed recommendations made by my predecessor in the light of
his inquiry into a complaint about six named All Party Groups
in 2005-06.[5] [6]
Following a period of consultation, the Committee published its
proposals on 16 July 2009.[7]
I welcome the new requirements approved on 7 February, which will
provide greater transparency about Groups and the sources of their
support. I describe these changes in more detail in Chapter 4
of this Report.
1.12 On 7 March 2011 I launched a consultation on
the Code of Conduct for Members of Parliament. The Code is an
important document which sets out the standards expected of all
Members in discharging their parliamentary and public duties.
It is part of the Commissioner's responsibilities, as set out
in Standing Order No. 150, to monitor its operation and to make
recommendations to the Committee on Standards and Privileges.[8]
In addition, the Committee on Standards in Public Life in its
Eighth Report in November 2002 recommended that: "In each
Parliament, the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards should
initiate a review of the Code of Conduct and Guide to the Rules.[9]
The consultation paper was placed on my webpages and I wrote to
all MPs, and former Members of the House in the previous session,
as well as to a number of public bodies with an interest in the
subject matter, to invite them to respond.
1.13 The consultation period closed on 31 May. I
will be considering the responses I received and the issues raised
in the consultation paper before submitting a report on the Code
to the Committee on Standards and Privileges. It will be for the
Committee to consider whether to recommend to the House any changes
to the Code following on from the conclusion of my review.
1.14 In my oral evidence to the Committee on Standards
in Public Life's inquiry into Members' expenses and allowances
in July 2009, I had noted the importance of achieving the right
arrangements for party funding.[10]
I therefore welcomed the announcement on 20 July 2010 of the Committee
on Standards in Public Life's review of the funding of political
parties. I look forward to the publication of that Committee's
Report.
1 See paragraphs 3.9-3.11 for more information on the
impact of the general election on complaints work. Back
2
Committee on Standards and Privileges, Complaints against MPs:
proposal to publish more information, press notice of 27 January
2010 Back
3
Standing Orders Nos 149 and 150, as amended, may be found at
Appendix 1. Back
4
HC Deb, 7 February 2011, cols 99 to 124 Back
5
Committee on Standards and Privileges, Eighth Report of Session
2008-09, All Party Groups, HC 920 Back
6
Committee on Standards and Privileges, Ninth Report of Session
2005-06, Lobbying and All Party Groups, HC 1145 Back
7
Committee on Standards and Privileges, Eighth Report of Session
2008-09, All Party Groups, HC 920 Back
8
Standing Order No. 150(2)(d), reproduced at Appendix 1 Back
9
Eighth Report of the Committee on Standards in Public Life, Standards
of Conduct in the House of Commons, Cm 5663, November 2002 Back
10
Twelfth Report of the Committee on Standards in Public Life,
MPs' expenses and allowances, Cm 7724 , November 2009.
My evidence is available on the Committee's website at http://www.public-standards.org.uk/OurWork/MPs__Expenses___Evidence.html
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