APPENDIX: REPORT FROM THE SUB-COMMITTEE
ON LORDS' INTERESTS
Mr Eric Joyce MP has complained that three Members
of the House, Lords Boyce, Guthrie of Craigiebank and Inge, took
part in a debate in the House on 22 November 2007 in which
they failed to declare a relevant interest as required by the
House's Code of Conduct.
The complaint is that the three Members of the House
argued in a debate on the Armed Forces that the Government and
Ministry of Defence should spend significantly more money on defence
equipment but failed to disclose in the debate that they were
directors of defence supply companies.
The Chairman of the Sub-Committee on Lords' Interests
wrote to the Members concerned to say that he had referred the
matter to the Sub-Committee. He received in reply a letter from
each of the Lords concerned, acknowledging that, whilst they had
registered the interest in question, they ought in their speeches
to have declared the interest. They apologised for the oversight.
In the opinion of the Sub-Committee the three Lords
in question did infringe the code of conduct by failing to declare
a relevant interest.
However, the Sub-Committee believes that the three
Lords were speaking in the debate as experts in the field of defence
with relevant high-level personal knowledge of defence issues.
It is precisely the contribution of such experts that makes House
of Lords debates well-informed and valuable. The Sub-Committee
do not believe that the intervention of the three Lords was motivated
by any consideration other than their perception of the national
interest. Given that they have apologised for their failure to
declare a relevant interest, we believe that the matter should
now be closed.
All Members of the House might usefully take the
opportunity of this episode to remind themselves of their obligations
under the code of conduct, and therefore we set out the relevant
extract from the code below.
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