Jack Dromey
Introduction
1. In this Report we consider a memorandum from the
Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards, reporting on his consideration
of a complaint made against Jack Dromey, the Member for Birmingham,
Erdington. The complaint was that Mr Dromey failed to register
in time payments made to him in respect of his employment as Deputy
General Secretary of the Unite the Union (hereafter 'Unite') from
May 2010 to October 2010. There was a subsequent, related, complaint
that Mr Dromey had failed to declare his interest in several debates
where it would have been appropriate to do so. The complaints
were made by the Member for North West Leicestershire, Andrew
Bridgen.
2. The Commissioner's memorandum is appended to this
Report. In accordance with the established procedure, we supplied
Mr Dromey with a copy of the Commissioner's memorandum and asked
him if he wished to give evidence to the Committee, orally or
in writing. Mr Dromey has written to the Committee, indicating
his willingness to give evidence, but expressing his acceptance
of the Commissioner's findings, and apologising for his breaches
of the rules. Those letters are also appended to the Report. We
did not consider it necessary to take oral evidence.
The Commissioner's findings
REGISTRATION
3. At the time of his election in May 2010 Mr Dromey
was the Deputy General Secretary of Unite. Members are required
to register their financial interests and are responsible for
notifying changes in their registrable interest within four weeks
of each change occurring.[1]
The categories of registration most pertinent to Mr Dromey's case
are Category 2, remunerated employment etc, and Category 11, Miscellaneous.
Under Category 2 Members must register "the precise amount
of each individual payment made, the nature of the work carried
on in return for that payment, the number of hours worked during
the period to which the payment relates and [...] the name and
address of the person, organisation or company making that payment."[2]
4. Mr Dromey's Register entry of 4 June 2010 under
the heading of "2. Remunerated employment, office, profession
etc" was as follows:
Deputy General Secretary of Unite Union. I am leaving
this position and have declined my salary in the meantime.
Mr Dromey had intended to leave the position, and
to accept no payment at the time when the Register entry was made.
Things then changed. As Mr Dromey told the Committee "the
Union asked me to continue my employment to deal with a particular
internal matter of great importance that only I could deal with
and this continued longer than we had anticipated and as a consequence
I agreed to accept my subsequent salary in the interim."[3]
5. Mr
Dromey continued to work for the union for between 10 and 15 hours
a week (except when on holiday) until 30 October 2010. The Commissioner's
memorandum indicated that during this period, Mr Dromey received
payments for his work as follows:
a salary payment in May which Mr Dromey repaid to
the union;
on 4 June 2010 a payment of £7,098 for 40-60
hours work in June 2010;
on 6 July 2010 a payment of £13,977 comprising
£8,736 for 40-60 hours work in July 2010 and £5,241
for holiday pay for the period January to July 2010;
on 5 November 2010 a payment of £7,098 for 95-135
hours work in August to October 2010; and
on 5 November 2010 an ex gratia payment of £30,000
on leaving his position as Deputy General Secretary of Unite.[4]
Mr Dromey also had use of a telephone and of a car
provided by Unite. A sum of £4,145.90 was deducted from the
November payment, which represented the price of his car, since
"In accordance with the normal practice for Officers leaving
the Union with the Union's consent, Mr Dromey was allowed to purchase
his car at a fixed percentage of list price depending upon the
age of the car." [5]
6. Mr Dromey registered the ex gratia payment of
5 November 2010 on 7 July 2011, making a new entry in the Miscellaneous
category:
11. Miscellaneous
I received an ex gratia payment of £30,000 on
leaving my position as Deputy General Secretary of Unite. (Registered
7 July 2011)
This followed a meeting with the Registrar of Members'
Financial Interests, which Mr Dromey sought at his own initiative.
The meeting covered a number of topics. As the Commissioner's
memorandum says, Mr Dromey's evidence is that at that meeting
on 7 July he told the Registrar "he would need to update
his Register entry in relation to his employment with the union"
and:
The Registrar's evidence is that at their meeting
Mr Dromey's entry under Category 2 (Remunerated employment, office,
profession etc) was not discussed in detail. He told her that
he needed to check something in relation to this entry. She considers
that Mr Dromey's exit package from the union was a complex one
and she understands why he might have wished to check this information.[6]
After the meeting Mr Dromey requested details of
payments received from the union which were not received until
the end of August. The entry under Category 2 remained unchanged
until 4 October 2011, when Mr Dromey wrote to the Registrar to
indicate that it needed to be amended. The amended Register entry
read as follows:
2. Remunerated employment, office, profession etc
Deputy General Secretary of Unite Union, 128 Theobalds
Road, London WC1X 8TN until 30 October 2010. Between the General
Election and 30 October 2010, I received £27,867 in salary
which included pay in lieu of notice. (Updated 4 October 2011)
The Registrar advised him that as the arrangement
to purchase his company car was normal practice and did not relate
to his role as MP it did not need to be registered. The Commissioner's
memorandum notes Mr Dromey's explanation that the TUC and Labour
Party conferences and the September sitting of the House meant
that "September was a very busy month [...] which was why
he did not send the revised entry until 4 October 2011."[7]
7. The Commissioner's overall conclusion on registration
was:
My overall conclusions, therefore, are that Mr Dromey
was in breach of the registration rules of the House by failing
to register within the required time period the payments he received
from June to October 2010 as a result of his employment with Unite,
for failing to register in time the ex gratia payment he received
in November 2010, for failing to register the additional benefits
he received from his employment, for failing to identify the separate
payments he received and the hours he worked and for failing to
notify the ending of his employment with Unite within the required
time period.[8]
DECLARATION OF INTERESTS
8. Mr Bridgen also complained of six occasions on
which Mr Dromey contributed to proceedings without declaring a
relevant interest. The Commissioner has upheld this complaint
in connection with two of these:
Mr Dromey has, however, accepted with hindsight that
he should have declared his financial interest in the contributions
he made to the debates on 16 September 2010 and on 16 June 2010.
The Registrar of Members' Financial Interests agrees with Mr Dromey
in respect of the first of these; and would not argue against
Mr Dromey on the second, although she believes it to be a more
marginal case. My own judgement is that Mr Dromey's interest on
account of his employment with Unite was sufficiently relevant
to have required him to have declared that interest at the beginning
of each of his contributions. He was, therefore, in breach of
the declaration rules of the House in not having done so.[9]
9. We note the Commissioner did not uphold the complaint
that Mr Dromey had failed to declare a relevant interest in the
intervention he made on 22 October 2010 on the Second Reading
of the Lawful Industrial Action (Minor Errors) Bill, on the grounds
that:
While the Guide to the Rules does not specifically
cover this sort of circumstance, I believe it is broadly analogous
to a Member asking a supplementary question, where the Member
is not required to make any relevant declaration. While I consider
Mr Dromey had a relevant interest in relation to the subject matter
being discussed, I think to have declared it as he made his brief
intervention would have had the effect of unnecessarily impeding
the quality and progress of the debate by inhibiting the opportunity
for the sort of cut and thrust between Members which his brief
intervention demonstrated.[10]
Conclusion and recommendation
10. We agree with the Commissioner that failure to
register or declare interests is a serious matter. We note the
Commissioner has put it on record that:
I consider that it is relevant that Mr Dromey was
a new Member seeking to establish himself in the House and in
his constituency. Like other Members, he was under considerable
work pressures. It is also to his credit that he has co-operated
so fully and openly with my inquiry and has taken the first opportunity
to accept that he breached the registration rules and to apologise.
There is no evidence that the breaches I have identified in respect
of both registration and declaration were intentional, and I trust
that Mr Dromey will in future ensure that he gives these matters
the priority which they require.[11]
Mr Dromey has co-operated with the Commissioner's
inquiry, and apologised for his failure to register at the first
opportunity.
11. In his letter to the Committee Mr Dromey says:
I entirely accept that I should have notified the
registrar as soon as my circumstances had changed, updating my
original registration, but I hope you will accept my failure to
do so was entirely unintentional. These were payments were very
long-standing employer in a hectic transitional period the end
of my employment.
I do not offer for one moment this as an excuse but
merely as an explanation. I accept without hesitation that the
registration should have been amended, and although I did subsequently
update my registration, this was clearly too late and in breach
of the rules.
12. We give Mr Dromey credit for taking the initiative
to update his registration, but that initial update was incomplete
in several respects (see paragraph 7 above). Mr Dromey and the
Registrar have since agreed an accurate Register entry:
Category 2: Remunerated employment, office, profession
etc
Deputy General Secretary of Unite the Union until
30 October 2010. Address: Unite House, 128 Theobalds Road, Holborn,
London, WC1X 8TN. In addition to my salary I had the use of a
company car and until 4 September 2010 a mobile telephone.
4 June 2010, received payment of £7,098 for
work done in June 2010
Hours: 40-60 hours.
6 July 2010, received payment of £13,977, comprising
£8,736 for work done in July 2010, and £5,241 for holiday
pay for the period January—July 2010.
Hours: 40-60 hours
5 November 2010, received payment of £7,098
for work done in August—October 2010
Hours: 95-135 hours
Category 11: Miscellaneous
I received an ex gratia payment of £30,000 on
5 November 2010 on leaving my position as Deputy General Secretary
of Unite. (See entry in Category 2 above.)
The revision has been held over until our proceedings
on this complaint are complete, since we would not expect Register
entries to be significantly revised when we were considering a
complaint. Such revisions would pre-empt our findings, and make
our task more difficult.
13. We consider Mr Dromey's failure to ensure that
the Register gave an accurate picture of his relationship with
Unite is serious. The Register entry suggested Mr Dromey was employed
by Unite for nearly a year after that relationship ended and failed
to record significant payments and benefits from that employment.
14. We note the Commissioner's description of the
work pressures on Mr Dromey, and his acceptance that the breaches
were not intentional. We note that Mr Dromey was a new Member.
We are satisfied that when the original Register entry was made
Mr Dromey had no intention of accepting further payment from Unite,
and that Mr Dromey himself took steps to ensure the Register was
accurate, although these were belated and incomplete. Nonetheless,
we believe Mr Dromey's failure to ensure his Register entries
were updated promptly and fully was a serious breach. There was
no question of this being a small payment for occasional pieces
of work; by his own evidence, Mr Dromey spent several hours a
week on his work for Unite. The payments were significant. The
quantity of work he undertook and the scale of the payment should
have alerted Mr Dromey to the need to consider his Register entry.
While a new Member might not be expected to have the rules at
his fingertips, advice was available.
15. We endorse the Commissioner's view that requiring
declaration of interests in interventions would impede the quality
and progress of debate (although there may be circumstances in
which an interest is so germane that it should be declared even
in such interventions). Mr Dromey failed to declare a relevant
interest in debates on 16 June and 16 September 2010. The Guide
to the Rules is clear that "as well as current interests,
Members are required to declare both relevant past interests and
relevant interests which they may be expecting to have",
and specifies that past interests are those held within the previous
12 months.[12] Mr Dromey's
connection with Unite should have been declared whether or not
the employment remained current.
16. Mr Dromey was sent a copy of the Commissioner's
memorandum on 13 January; on 16 January he wrote to the Clerk
of the Committee, saying "I would first like to place on
record my apology to the Committee that the breaches identified
by the Commissioner, whose conclusions I accept in full."
Mr Dromey also "accepted the Commissioner's findings with
regard to declaring relevant interest in the two debates"
in June and September 2010, and apologised for that breach.[13]
17. This matter was too serious to be resolved through
the rectification procedure. We note that "In the case of
non-registration, rectification requires a belated entry in the
current Register, with an appropriate explanatory note; in the
case of non-declaration, it requires an apology to the House by
means of a point of order."[14]
This ensures the relevant interest and the failure to declare
it is recorded, but is markedly less significant than a personal
statement, announced on the annunciator in advance and heard by
the House in silence. Mr Dromey has indicated that: "if this
case had been rectified by the Commissioner, I recognise that
I would have had to make an apology on a Point of Order on the
floor of the House. This, I would be happy to do."[15]
18. We acknowledge Mr Dromey's co-operation with
the inquiry, and his immediate and repeated apology. Even so,
if Mr Dromey had not been a new and inexperienced Member at the
time, we might well have recommended that he apologise to the
House by means of a personal statement. As it is, since Mr Dromey
has recognised the seriousness of his failure to register and
to declare interests we will accept his written apology as an
apology to the House. We restrict ourselves to accepting Mr Dromey's
offer to apologise by way of a point of order on the Floor of
the House for his failure to declare interests and recommending
that he updates his entry in the Register in the terms already
agreed with the Registrar of Members' Financial Interests, with
the appropriate explanation.
1 Guide to the Rules relating to the Conduct of
Members, HC 735, paragraph 13 Back
2
Guide to the Rules relating to the Conduct of Members,
HC 735, paragraph 24 Back
3
Appendix 2 Back
4
Appendix 1, paragraph 57 Back
5
Appendix 1, paragraph 27 Back
6
Appendix 1, paragraph 58 Back
7
Appendix 1, paragraph 55 Back
8
Appendix 1, paragraph 72 Back
9
Appendix 1, paragraph 70 Back
10
Appendix 1, paragraph 71 Back
11
Appendix 1, paragraph 79 Back
12
Guide to the Rules relating to the Conduct of Members,
HC 735, paragraph, paragraph 73 Back
13
Appendix 2 Back
14
Guide to the Rules relating to the Conduct of Members,
HC 735, paragraph 108 Back
15
Appendix 2 Back
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