§ 69. Mr. SkinnerTo ask the Lord President of the Council whether he will propose new rules for the Register of Members' Interests; and if he will make a statement.
§ Sir Geoffrey HoweI myself have no proposals to make at this stage.
The Select Committee on Members' Interests has, however, undertaken to report in the near future on the resolutions agreed by the Defence Committee in relation to the declaration of interests of Chairmen and members of Select Committees; to conduct a broader review of registration and the declaration of interests; and to consider whether to define the requirements of the register more precisely, so that Members' interpretations of the rules would be more consistent and their entries more comprehensible.
§ Mr. SkinnerIs not the parliamentary register far weaker than that applying to local authority councillors? Is not it a scandal that, at a time when 19 Tory ex-Cabinet Ministers in the past 11 years have picked up 59 directorships between them, we do not have an appropriate register to deal with the matter? Surely it is time that we had not just a register but a system of full-time Members of Parliament with one job and one job only? It seems strange to many people outside the House 19 that Members of Parliament cannot get by on £26,000 per year when many old age pensioners and others do not have two ha'pennies to rub together.
§ Sir Geoffrey HoweAs so often, the hon. Gentleman starts off by referring to a topic with which the House as a whole is concerned—the management and consideration of Members' interests, which is being considered in the ways that I have described—but goes on to destroy what began as a tolerable case by putting his points so intemperately as to lose any credibility whatever.