The Conduct of Lord Laird
Background
1. The Committee for Privileges and Conduct has
considered a report by the House of Lords Commissioner for Standards
on the conduct of Lord Laird (at Annex 1). The Committee has also
considered a report by the Sub-Committee on Lords' Conduct (at
Annex 2).
2. The procedure in cases such as this is set
out in the Guide to the Code of Conduct. Under this procedure,
the Commissioner investigates allegations against Members. He
reports his findings to the Sub-Committee, which, if the Commissioner
has found the Member to have breached the Code, recommends any
action that the Member concerned should take and any sanction
that the House should apply. The Sub-Committee does not reopen
the Commissioner's findings, which are reported without amendment
to the Committee for Privileges and Conduct. The Member may then
appeal to that Committee against the Commissioner's findings or
the Sub-Committee's recommended sanction, or both.
Summary of the case
3. This case arose out of a request by Lord Laird
that the Commissioner for Standards should investigate his conduct
in connection with two separate sets of allegations. The first
set of allegations arose from the Sunday Times articles
in which undercover journalists purported to act for consultants
working on behalf of a South Korean solar energy investor. These
allegations are the same as those in the cases of Lords Cunningham
of Felling, Mackenzie of Framwellgate and O'Neill of Clackmannan
(though no article was in fact published about Lord O'Neill of
Clackmannan). The second set of allegations arose from a BBC Panorama
programme in which undercover reporters purported to act on behalf
of a group called the Society of Friends of Fiji. No other Members
of the House of Lords featured in that Panorama programme
(but one MP did—the House of Commons Commissioner's investigation
into that MP has not yet concluded.)
The Commissioner's findings
4. The Commissioner found that Lord Laird breached
the Code of Conduct in three respects.
5. All three of the Commissioner's findings relate
to the requirement in paragraph 8(b) of the Code that Members
must always act on their personal honour. In particular, the findings
are that Lord Laird demonstrated a clear willingness to negotiate
an agreement which would have involved him breaching the Code.
The findings are:
· first, that Lord Laird attempted to negotiate
an agreement with the undercover Sunday Times journalists
which would have involved him in helping to create an all-party
group at the behest of the consultants in return for payment or
other reward;
· secondly, that Lord Laird attempted to
negotiate an agreement with the undercover Sunday Times journalists
which would have involved him providing parliamentary services
in return for payment or other reward;
· thirdly, that Lord Laird attempted to
negotiate an agreement with the undercover Panorama reporters
which would have involved him helping to create an all-party group
at the behest of the client in return for payment or other reward.
6. The facts are set out briefly in the report
from the Sub-Committee on Lords' Conduct and in detail in the
report from the Commissioner for Standards.
7. The Sub-Committee on Lords' Conduct has considered
the case and recommended that Lord Laird be suspended from the
service of the House for four months.
Lord Laird's appeal
8. Lord Laird appealed against all three findings
and against the recommended sanction of four months' suspension.
The Committee's role
9. The role of the Committee for Privileges and
Conduct when there is an appeal is set out in paragraph 133 of
the Guide to the Code:
"On appeal, the Committee will not reopen
the Commissioner's investigation. Rather members of the Committee
will use their judgment to decide whether, on the balance of probabilities,
they endorse the conclusions of the Commissioner; they will also
consider whether or not the recommended sanction is appropriate."
10. Accordingly, the Committee has considered
the reports of the Commissioner and the Sub-Committee. The Committee
has also considered Lord Laird's written appeal and met to hear
oral evidence from him. Lord Laird's written appeal and the full
transcript of the meeting with him are printed with this report
(at Annex 3).
Lord Laird's submissions
11. Lord Laird argued in his oral and written
submissions that, by referring to some insulting remarks made
by Lord Laird to the reporters about Members of the House of Lords
(see paragraph 25 of the Commissioner's report), the Commissioner
had "set the tone" for his inquiry and shown himself
to have been prejudiced against Lord Laird (Q2). Lord Laird said
that because such remarks did not and could not constitute a breach
of the Code, the Commissioner should not have raised them. By
introducing matters that were not relevant and by commenting that
these matters reflected no credit on Lord Laird, the Commissioner
had, according to Lord Laird, revealed "a level of bias"
(Q2). It seems to the Committee however that the Commissioner
was required to examine Lord Laird's unflattering remarks about
Members of the House in order to reach his conclusion that they
fell outside his remit. He had to raise them in order to dismiss
them. He could not have proceeded in his investigation or reached
his conclusions in any other way. We conclude that the Commissioner's
comments about Lord Laird's remarks about the House and its Members
cannot reasonably be regarded as showing prejudice.
12. In his appeal Lord Laird disputed the Commissioner's
first finding, namely, that there was strong evidence that Lord
Laird had demonstrated a clear willingness to negotiate an agreement
which would involve him in helping to set up an all-party group
in return for payment by the consultants who were in fact Sunday
Times journalists. Lord Laird argued that the evidence clearly
showed his total opposition to creating an all-party group. However,
we find Lord Laird's submissions difficult to reconcile with statements
such as "everybody else is a bloody chairman of an APPG [all-party
group], why can't I be a chairman of an APPG?", "it's
better to have one [i.e. an all-party group] than not have one",
and with his answer to the reporter when asked whether he might
be able to help them to set up an all-party group "Oh, I
would have thought so" (see Commissioner's report, paragraphs
32-33). We acknowledge that there is evidence showing that Lord
Laird was not an enthusiastic promoter of all-party groups. But
his opposition seems to us to have been based on tactical considerations
that an all-party group would not achieve what the prospective
employer wanted (p175), and was not based on the principle that
helping to set up a group in return for payment was prohibited
by the Code (Q3).
13. Lord Laird submitted that there is no evidence
that payment or other reward was mentioned in connection with
establishing the all-party group (Q4). However, we found persuasive
evidence to the contrary. For example, in the initial email from
the undercover Sunday Times journalist suggesting a meeting
with Lord Laird, the journalist stated that there would be "an
extremely generous remuneration package including a quarterly
bonus" (p105). In paragraph 42 of the Commissioner's report
he quotes Lord Laird saying to the consultants "if I'm employed
by you good people". Lord Laird also told the undercover
journalists "I'd like to be able to help you guys, for a
minor consideration, of course" (p73).
14. Lord Laird also argued that paragraph 38
of the Commissioner's report (which found Lord Laird had failed
to act on his personal honour) was inconsistent with paragraph
39 (which found that Lord Laird had not reached an actual agreement
which would involve providing parliamentary services in return
for payment). In our view, Lord Laird does not here appreciate
that the expression of a clear willingness to breach the Code
is in itself a breach of the Code, even if no actual agreement
is achieved or no money changes hands. We conclude that on the
balance of probabilities the Commissioner was correct in finding
that Lord Laird expressed a clear willingness to negotiate an
agreement which would have involved him helping to establish an
all-party group in return for payment, in breach of paragraph
8(b) of the Code.
15. We turn now to the Commissioner's second
finding: that Lord Laird attempted to negotiate an agreement with
the undercover Sunday Times journalists which would have
involved him providing parliamentary services in return for payment
or other reward. This finding is based on Lord Laird's comments
to the journalists which "taken as a whole create a distinct
picture" of willingness to accept payment for parliamentary
services (paragraph 52 of the Commissioner's report). The comments
include, for example, "… we can run debates, we can
take part in debates … put down amendments in debates; …
putting down questions, or writing to the minister." According
to Lord Laird, these comments were nothing more than a description
of the role of a Member of the House of Lords, and that in explaining
what Members did, he was merely trying to be helpful and informative
(Q9). Lord Laird also pointed out that there was no contract for
the provision of parliamentary services or any memorandum that
could lead to a contract or any verbal agreement as to what such
a memorandum or contract should contain. He said that his conversation
with the journalists was at times muddled but was exploratory
and that he promised nothing (see his appeal document at Annex
3).
16. This submission must be weighed against what
Lord Laird clearly anticipated could follow from his conversations
with the supposed consultants and what he could do in Parliament,
as revealed in the following exchanges:
Lord Laird: … The point is, it's done on
a—Some of the guys, for instance, in the Lords where I will
get them to put down questions for me.
Female Reporter: You get them to put down questions?
Lord Laird: Yeah, and then I put down questions
for them. And then what you do is sort of er—
Female Reporter: And what's the reason for getting
them to do it and not doing it yourself?
Lord Laird: Well, because if I'm employed by
you good people and I put down a question which is related to
you guys making money, I'd have to put a—I can do it, but
I have to put an "I" beside it because I've got an interest.
Female Reporter: Oh I see, and that draws a lot
of attention and—
Lord Laird: Well, it's fine, and you get the
same answer. It's better not to do it that way. It's better to
do it through another guy, … (p104).
We believe that these exchanges show that Lord Laird
envisaged a financial relationship with a possible future employer
and, knowing that tabling questions on behalf of the employer
was against the Code, intended to get round this obstacle by asking
what he described as "a coterie" of other Members to
put his questions for him (Q8). Moreover, as we have already stated,
a clear willingness to breach the Code is in itself a breach of
the Code, even if no actual agreement is achieved. We believe
that Lord Laird's intention in reciting all the things he could
do as a Member of the House was to make himself more attractive
to his potential employer and to enhance his value to them. We
are therefore satisfied on the balance of probabilities that the
Commissioner correctly found that Lord Laird attempted to negotiate
an agreement with the undercover Sunday Times journalists
which would have involved him providing parliamentary services
in return for payment or other reward.
17. We turn now to the Commissioner's finding
about the Panorama conversation. Lord Laird submitted that
there is no evidence to show that he demonstrated a clear willingness
to negotiate an agreement which would involve him in helping to
create an all-party group on Fiji in return for payment or reward
by the consultancy which featured in the Panorama programme.
He said that the only reference to payment was in relation to
the cost of setting up an all-party group and asks us to believe
that he would have been prepared to work without payment (QQ6,
16). We do not believe that the evidence supports Lord Laird's
contention. There is the statement quoted in paragraph 69 of the
Commissioner's report where Lord Laird said: "if the client
wants an APPG we'll get him one with a bow on it", which
Lord Laird explains by saying that he was making a joke to someone
he thought was a fellow professional in public relations (Q5).
There is also Lord Laird's statement in paragraph 85 of the Commissioner's
report that "the point is, if I take this on … I would
be doing it for monetary reward", and he referred to himself
as "the guy they pay". Moreover, there is evidence that
Lord Laird even indicated how much he might expect to be paid:
"you're probably talking about starting at £2,000 a
month anyway … That would be the sort of minimum if I were
to do anything." (p210) Lord Laird said in oral evidence
that £2,000 was in any case "a very small fee in public
relations terms" (Q6). In the light of this evidence and
on the balance of probabilities we affirm the Commissioner's finding
that Lord Laird attempted to negotiate an agreement with the undercover
Panorama reporters which would have involved him in helping
to create an all-party group at the behest of the client in return
for payment or other reward.
The Committee's decision
18. The Committee has decided on the basis of
the material in the Commissioner's report and in Lord Laird's
written and oral appeal that the Commissioner reached the correct
conclusions in finding that Lord Laird expressed a clear willingness
to breach the House's Code of Conduct, contrary to paragraph 8(b)
of the Code that Members should always act on their personal honour.
The Committee has therefore affirmed the Commissioner's findings.
The Committee has considered the sanction proposed by the Sub-Committee
and taken account of the information about Lord Laird's medical
condition in the confidential medical reports that he submitted
first to the Commissioner and then to us. Given the serious nature
of Lord Laird's misconduct, we confirm the recommended sanction
of four months' suspension.
19. We do not therefore uphold Lord Laird's
appeal. We recommend that Lord Laird be suspended from the service
of the House for four months.
| 
