HC Deb 16 October 1996 vol 282 cc853-61 5.25 pm
Mr. Andrew Miller (Ellesmere Port and Neston)

I beg to move, That the matter of alleged improper pressure brought to hear on the Select Committee on Members' Interests in 1994 be referred to the Committee on Standards and Privileges. The motion was facilitated by Madam Speaker's statement yesterday. I must stress, first, that the issue reflects no personal animosity towards the Paymaster General, the hon. Member for Havant (Mr. Willetts). Indeed, he and I have rarely spoken except to talk about my old school, Hayling Island county secondary, which is in his constituency.

Secondly, I should like to make it clear that I shall not draw any conclusions about the particular allegations. That is, in my view, the role of the Select Committee on Standards and Privileges. It is, however, my intention to bring the allegations to the attention of the House in the hope that the principle of my argument is fully understood and that the House will agree to refer the matter to the Committee on Standards and Privileges.

Page 135 of "Erskine May" argues that when a breach of privilege or contempt occurs, the House should exercise its penal jurisdiction sparingly, and only when satisfied that to do so was essential in order to provide reasonable protection for the House, its Members or its officers from improper obstruction or attempt at or threat of obstruction causing, or likely to cause, substantial interference with the performance of their respective functions. The articles in The Guardian and other newspapers on 5 and 6 October 1996 suggest that there is a prima facie case and evidence requiring investigation. It may help the House if I remind hon. Members of the specific allegations made on 5 October.

The Guardian claims: Enclosed in the letters sent to the party leaders—and to the Speaker of the House of Commons, Betty Boothroyd—are copies of a document obtained by the newspaper as it built up its defence to the libel action mounted by the disgraced former minister and the lobbyist. The pair abandoned their action, paying part of the paper's costs earlier this week. The Guardian believes the document shows how the Conservative Party has, through senior party and government members using the mechanisms of Parliament, conspired to prevent a full and public airing of the facts about the behaviour of Mr. Hamilton and Mr. Greer. The Observer, on 6 October, claims to quote from a memorandum. Again, I will read it exactly. The paper says: The memo says: 'Said No. 10 had got in a muddle about Committee on Members' Interests. They claimed it had cleared Neil Hamilton but actually this was only on a complaint about remarks of his, not on the new allegations. He is now expecting to receive a formal complaint about Hamilton receiving money, etc. He could: (1) argue now sub judice, get committee to set it aside or (2) investigate as quickly as possible, exploiting good Tory majority at present. We were inclined to go for (1) but he wants our advice". Also on 6 October The Sunday Times developed the story saying: Last night Johnson Smith, a member of the committee that will now investigate the charges against Hamilton, said he could well have discussed the case with Willetts but denied exploring any attempt to help the former Minister.

Mr. Alfred Morris (Manchester, Wythenshawe)

I congratulate my hon. Friend on the quiet dignity with which he is making his submission today. In doing so, as he knows, I speak as a member for quite some time of the Privileges Committee of the House. Will he accept, as I am sure he does, that if a buck has to stop, it may not necessarily stop with the particular hon. Member against whom allegations are made?

Junior Whips, Madam Speaker, as you know, are not soloists. Their work is very carefully choreographed.

Madam Speaker

Order. If this is an intervention, it must be pertinent and to the point or a question. It must not be a speech. Will the right hon. Gentleman please come to the point?

Mr. Morris

Their work is choreographed. I am saying that the Patronage Secretary may be involved. Others higher up may be involved. It may be that this has to be a very wide-ranging inquiry, not just about one hon. Member.

Mr. Miller

I respect my right hon. Friend's contribution to the Privileges Committee and other aspects of the House, but I shall not be drawn on other issues of that nature. If the House approves the motion, it will be a matter for the Committee on Standards and Privileges.

I have related to the House the detailed allegations in the press. Hon. Members may well ask whether, if they are all true, it is a matter for the Whips. The point is very simple. There must be a clear distinction between the functions of the Whips in areas of legitimate party management and, separately, in their role when Parliament acts in a quasi-judicial capacity.

The investigation undertaken by the Committee on Members' Interests under the chairmanship of the right hon. Member for Wealden (Sir G. Johnson Smith) was of a quasi-judicial nature. In Britain, it is accepted that when a body is considering matters in a judicial or quasi-judicial manner, it is fundamentally wrong to exert or seek to exert political or any other form of pressure on it. That would apply equally to a local authority planning committee or an Old Bailey jury.

The same principle applies in Parliament. Therefore, if the allegations are true, they are very serious. It seems to me that the Committee should demand to see all the papers referred to in the newspapers. I would also urge that the inquiry be totally open.

Hon. Members must realise that the public hold us in very low esteem. That is due in part to the so-called sleaze issue. If the alleged interference actually occurred, we cannot hope to restore any of that public confidence in the integrity of the House unless we take firm and decisive action. We have a duty and a responsibility to do that. Now let us ensure that there is the fullest unfettered inquiry into the allegations.

5.34 pm
The Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. Tony Newton)

I rise simply—and briefly—to express the hope that the House will agree to the motion and remit the complaint to the Standards and Privileges Committee for its consideration and advice. The House will understand, however, that as Chairman of the Committee that would examine the matter if the House were to make that decision, it would not be appropriate for me to make further comment this afternoon.

5.35 pm
Mrs. Ann Taylor (Dewsbury)

I also shall be brief, not least because I am also a member of the Standards and Privileges Committee and I would not want to prejudge any inquiry. I shall simply say a few words to welcome the opportunity for such a reference.

The Committee has already embarked on an inquiry into allegations that have been made relating to Members' interests. It has done so as a matter of urgency. However, there is still some misunderstanding of the dual role of the Committee. It exists to raise issues concerning Members' interests, but it also deals with any complaints about privilege. Therefore, without reference to a Committee that relates specifically to privilege, and not just to Members' interests, certain aspects of recent allegations would not be subject to investigation. That would be most unsatisfactory. I hope that the House will agree that it would be wrong for the Committee to be restricted in any of its investigations.

On Monday, you, Madam Speaker, said: the reputation of the House as a whole has been called into question."—[Official Report, 14 October 1996; Vol. 282, c. 463] I agree, and I am sure that hon. Members on both sides of the House share your strong concern. It is essential, therefore, that all the matters should be investigated as quickly as possible. However, it is also vital that the investigations are thorough and complete. I know that my colleagues on the Committee are as keenly aware as I am of their responsibilities in the matter.

I hope that those who may be called to give evidence or to provide documentation will also be aware of their overriding responsibilities to the House and that everything that the Committee needs by way of evidence or documentation will be forthcoming. Unless that is the case, the matters will not be resolved. I trust, therefore, that everyone will co-operate fully with the inquiry of the Committee on Standards and Privileges.

5.37 pm
Mr. Tony Benn (Chesterfield)

The House wishes to reach a rapid conclusion on the matter and I am sure that that is right, but as we are considering the reputation of Parliament, I want to put two separate points to the House. First, was the reputation of Parliament damaged by what some of its Members did? I am not concerned with that. Secondly, has the reputation of the House been damaged by the way in which the House has handled the matter? In my view, that is the real problem that the House has absolutely failed to confront.

The matter arose more than two years ago. At the time, I was on the Privileges Committee—the Committee on which I was proudest to serve. As the House may recall, I was not prepared to sit on a secret Committee and I was duly removed on a motion of the Leader of the House. I am very glad that I was not on a Committee that was bound to secrecy because many of the problems have arisen because of that secrecy.

Why does the House not rapidly legislate to deal with the standards required of Members of Parliament? If I offered somebody £1,000 to vote for me in an election, I would be guilty of a corrupt practice. I would be taken before an election court. That court would report to the Speaker and the House would endorse the decision of the court because we have the final say. When we are elected Members of Parliament, why are we not governed by legislation? If somebody offered me £1,000 to table a question—nobody ever has—should that not be subject to legislation on the representation of the people by an extension of the law?

We should be discussing the rights of the electors, not the reputation of Parliament as if somehow we were preserving an old monument. When people elect a Member of Parliament, they should know that Members of Parliament can be relied upon to defend their constituents and present their own opinions honestly to the House. If people think that, when an hon. Member is elected, he has a marketable product at his disposal—his influence—we will enter an area that has been dealt with in the past in respect of corrupt elections.

When elections were contested in the old days—I am talking about the 19th century—the House used to deal with the matter in Committees like the Privileges Committee. The result was that the Government majority on the Committee always upheld their own candidates, so the House decided to transfer the responsibility to an election court.

I had a funny experience when I was once taken to an election court and disqualified by it—not for a criminal offence, but for the fact that there had been a biological change in my blood supply, which two judges contended disqualified me from sitting in the House of Commons, where I had been a Member for 10 years. There was not a jury, just two judges. The election court heard the evidence for two weeks and reached the marvellous conclusion that removed me from this House. That is how the matters before us should be dealt with. Parliament has abandoned the responsibility to make clear in law which rules govern it.

A code of practice and so on in the House is perfectly proper, but gets us into another difficulty. Whatever hon. Members may or may not have done—I am not a muck-raker and never have been—it is not at all certain that it was illegal. Perhaps some of the practices, which we would all regard as very undesirable, are perfectly legal. Why are they legal? That is the problem that the House has dodged.

There should of course also be full disclosure. When people vote for a parliamentary candidate, the candidate's interests should be on the polling card issued by electoral registration officers so that people know exactly what they are. Disclosure is a safeguard.

My final point also arises from my own unhappy experiences. I do not believe that the House has the right to remove elected Members of Parliament because it does not like what they have done, even if it is not illegal. The House has no right to remove its own Members. They can be removed only by law. The law has to be clear. If a Government contractor is disqualified, which he can be under the House of Commons Disqualification Act 1975, why should other people who are engaged in the business of promoting some private interest for money not also be disqualified?

It is not in doubt that the matter will go before the Standards and Privileges Committee, but how long it will take to deal with it I do not know. It is always possible that the Government might not survive the Queen's Speech, in which case it is possible that the business of this Committee, like that of many other Committees, will drift into another Parliament when it is long forgotten. I am not absolutely sure that the election will be after the Committee has reported. If the report is likely to be published before the election, I can imagine other Whips asking whether they really want it all to come out on the eve of polling day, and a similar type of influence may be brought to bear.

One objection is that the time scale is wrong. It is two and a half years since the matters came into the public domain and the House has absolutely failed to deal with them in the way it should: a quick and open examination of the evidence and an immediate move to legislation so that electors know the law relating to their Members of Parliament just as they know that which relates to their candidates.

I ask the House to consider that suggestion, not because I am trying in any way to stir argument about the merits of the motion, which my hon. Friend the Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Mr. Miller) moved with proper parliamentary dignity, but to draw attention to the fact that the issue should not be one that sells newspapers due to access to leaks. The matter should not be used for that or party political advantage because who knows what would come up if there were a proper examination. It should be used to ensure that the people who send us here know that we are governed by law and that they can be as near as certain that if breaches occur they will be dealt with by the courts and not Committees that inevitably, by necessity, have a Government majority.

5.43 pm
Mr. Simon Hughes (Southwark and Bermondsey)

>: My right hon. and hon. Friends and I warmly welcome both your statements, Madam Speaker, of Monday and Tuesday and the motion tabled by the hon. Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Mr. Miller), which we support without reservation. We also clearly welcome the fact that the Leader of the House and the shadow Leader of the House want expeditiously to refer the matter to the Committee. That is a welcome start. I subscribe entirely to the views expressed by the right hon. Member for Chesterfield (Mr. Benn) about declaration of interests for those standing for elections and about legislation. I share the hope of that outcome.

I should like to make four points about procedure. First, I agree with the point made by the right hon. Member for Manchester, Wythenshawe (Mr. Morris)—it is clear that it would be entirely inappropriate to investigate the activity of an individual or two without looking at those who may be connected to them. Out of fairness to all hon. Members, the Committee must consider all those who, by implication, as well as other ways, are associated with the allegations.

Secondly, it would be extremely unsatisfactory if this matter remained in Committee and was not reported to the Floor of the House before the end of this Parliament. Although it is obviously not entirely within the Government's control, the election could be as late as May next year. I hope that the Leader of the House, as the Committee Chairman, and Committee members will try to ensure that the Committee does its job as quickly as is compatible with its important task. Speed is important because justice and truth delayed is justice and truth denied to the public at the next election.

Thirdly, Sir Gordon Downey will produce his own report. We understand that he has been working hard already. That report must enter the public domain. It is important that advice from the Officer of the House charged with investigative and other responsibilities is a public document. If we are to restore public confidence in our procedures, as your statement, Madam Speaker, sought to establish that we would, that document must be published.

Fourthly, and perhaps most important, I hope that the Leader of the House will make it clear—obviously not now at the Dispatch Box, but by another method later tonight—that the vote in Committee will be free of party line. I also hope that, when the matter comes back before the House, there will be a free vote with no party line. It would be entirely unacceptable if any report and any subsequent motions that came before the House were accompanied by any party political attempt to determine the result of a vote. Indeed, it would be incompatible with the request that the Committee investigate.

The sooner the Leader of the House can make it clear to the public that that is what will happen, the sooner the Committee will command the necessary public confidence to assist the restoration of the House's reputation. It is vital that the matter is not dealt with in a party political way and that all hon. Members are free to speak and vote independently of the party to which they belong.

5.47 pm
Mr. Dennis Skinner (Bolsover)

I wish that I could get excited about the idea that the House of Commons, with all its mumbo jumbo, by sending the matter to a Committee of the House of Commons, will resolve it and satisfy the public. The truth is that the public know that self-regulation is wrong.

I have stood up in the House with many of my hon. Friends countless times to say that it is wrong for the police to investigate their own complaints and that investigation should be done by some outside body. We say it about the Stock Exchange, Lloyd's, and even about hospital trusts, which now investigate the complaints that we send in. Previously, another health service body used to investigate them. Somehow or other, for this place, it is right for a Committee to deal with such matters.

I read the other week that our Labour Front-Bench team—new Labour or whatever it is—were on the point of calling for a judicial inquiry. I thought that that was a smart move. Somehow or other they backed off. They should have stuck to their original proposition. There has been a litany of Select Committees. Although on some Committees hon. Members beaver away out of the glare of publicity about some matter before them—I recognise that much work goes into them—I do not approve of Select Committees. I am not on any; I do not believe in them. I do not believe in the system of sloppy consensus and the all-party embrace.

On this issue, the public are watching. They do not know about what takes place on many other Select Committees, but they know about this one. They think that the House of Commons should do better, and that the matter should be dealt with by somebody outside. There should be a judicial inquiry.

Just imagine what the story is about. It is about a Tory Whip being told, presumably by one of the higher-ups in the Government, to finger a Committee—to ensure that it uses its Tory majority to get the right result. I was not surprised when I read about that in The Guardian. What surprised me was the fact that the Whip—

Mr. Brian Sedgemore (Hackney, South and Shoreditch)

Put it on paper.

Mr. Skinner

Yes, the fact that he put it on paper. Then, because the Whip put it all on paper and handled the matter sensitively, he was promoted. That was what surprised me.

Cynic though I may be, I must point out that when the Committee is set up again, it will be another Tory-dominated Committee. The Tory Government have a majority of one, so they tell me, and the two people principally involved in the allegations are the hon. Member for Tatton (Mr. Hamilton) and the Paymaster General, the hon. Member for Havant (Mr. Willetts). Can the House imagine in its wildest dreams—I cannot—that the Tory Government who are hanging on for a May general election will throw away their majority by coming to any conclusion other than to save the skins of two of their Members of Parliament? I do not believe that they will do anything else.

Almost every Select Committee that has operated in the glare of publicity has backed the Government. I have watched them all. There was the Committee that investigated the coal industry, and many more. At the end of the day, when the chips are down, we always find that the Tory Government's majority holds sway.

That is why I am not convinced that the road that we are now travelling will resolve the matter. One of my colleagues told me earlier, "Dennis, ask them to make sure that all the papers—not just some, not just those that went to court—are submitted to the inquiry. What is more, would it not be a good idea if all the papers were put in the Library, so that those of us who are not on the Committee can read them?" What about that? Let us have some transparency. That is the new word that everybody keeps trotting out in this place.

The whole story has been a litany of failure. In 1976 we managed to set up a Register of Members' Interests. Some people said, "Stuff it. I'm not putting my name in there." Then the Nolan committee was set up, with some Members of Parliament and a few members of the chattering classes. It was the first time for many years that people had been brought in from the outside. That committee made a marginal proposition to improve the so-called register.

What happened? The Government ran away from some of the proposals, and when the new rules were introduced and it was declared that everybody must declare their income from moonlighting, about 30 Tory Members of Parliament said, "We're not putting our income in."

So the public outside say, "Oh yes? They are going to send the investigation to another Committee of the great and good in the House of Commons. What will happen to it there?" Most of them will draw the same conclusion as I do about where we will be when it is all done. That will probably be after the general election, because the Government will find ways of dragging it out. They will use Whips and every other means to ensure that the process goes on until after the election.

The net result will be that the Government will think that they have swept the whole thing under the carpet, but then something else will happen and people in the press and the other media will say that Parliament has been brought into disrepute. Then the Government will try again to cobble some other form of mumbo jumbo to look after the business in the House.

It ain't good enough. It is time to say that if we want to deal with the matter, it should be done by a judicial inquiry. Then, every Member of Parliament and every member of the public will have the chance to know what is taking place, and to see that the people who run Parliament—and, indeed, every Member of Parliament—are held to account, not by a small Committee in this little greenhouse, this palace of varieties, but by the people outside.

5.53 pm
Mr. David Winnick (Walsall, North)

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Mr. Miller) on what he has done today. However, I would hesitate to approve a motion that did not make it perfectly clear that the Committee would sit in public.

We have been through the argument before, and my right hon. Friend the Member for Chesterfield (Mr. Benn) made the same point when he was excluded from the Privileges Committee. There is nothing in the motion, and no commitment from the Leader of the House, who will chair the Committee, to say that the proceedings will be held in public.

If the Committee does not sit in public, there will not be public confidence. There can be no public confidence if such matters are dealt with as they were by the former Privileges Committee. I hope that that point will be well taken by the Leader of the House and by those who will sit on the Committee.

Until recently, the view expressed by my hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner), that self-regulation was not appropriate, would not have been accepted by most people. Most, including me, would have said that we should regulate our own affairs—indeed, that we had a duty and responsibility to do so. That is a long tradition, and I would have said to my hon. Friend that I disagreed with him about it. I continue to disagree with him, but to a far lesser extent.

The situation is grave. I do not want to exaggerate it or give the impression that people have lost confidence in Members of Parliament altogether and no longer come to our surgeries or write to us. That would be nonsense. We know that when people have problems they often come to us and hope that we will do our best to resolve them, and I do not want to give a different impression, but people's view of Parliament as a whole should alarm us.

This is a narrow motion, and I do not want to broaden the debate—indeed, you would not allow me to do so, Madam Speaker—but the fact that 67 per cent. of the people consulted in a recent opinion poll published in The Guardian believe that we are generally on the make is certainly alarming and disturbing. The effects of the misdeeds, or alleged misdeeds, of one or two hon. Members have spread to the House of Commons as a whole, so we cannot simply dismiss the point of view that the time may come, if it has not come already, when self-regulation is no longer appropriate.

The Nolan committee has already been appointed. Years ago, it would have been unthinkable that such a committee would be set up to consider standards in the House. The conventional view would have been obvious—that that was our job—but few people disagreed with the decision that was taken, rightly in all the circumstances at that time, to set up the committee.

The important aspect of the matter before us—and of related matters—is that they constitute a test. If the Committee works as my hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover assumes it will, the time will have come when no confidence in self-regulation will be left. People will argue strongly outside that if other organisations have avoided self-regulation, there is no reason why the House of Commons should cling to the past.

That is the test. How will the Committee go about its business? Will it sit in public, as I have asked? Shall we ensure that the Government majority on the Committee does not act in such a way as to make it clear that the inquiry will not be the impartial inquiry that is essential not only in the context of the matter before us, but for the sake of the reputation of the House?

I have nothing against the Paymaster General, the hon. Member for Havant (Mr. Willetts)—certainly nothing personal. Some might say that, if we must have Tory Members, we might as well have Tories such as him. I have no desire to see the hon. Gentleman scapegoated. A serious allegation has been made, and he has a perfect right to defend himself. We all agree on that, but his defence should be heard in public before the Committee, and if others are involved, we should know.

I shall certainly not vote against the motion, but I believe that it sets the House a test. If our reputation is to survive and people are to have confidence in Parliament as a whole, it is essential that when this subject, and other far more serious allegations, are investigated—after all, the matter before us is fairly minor compared with the other matter that will be before the Committee—it is seen that the Committee can act impartially, so as to make it clear that we are capable of running and regulating our affairs.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That the matter of alleged improper pressure brought to bear on the Select Committee on Members' Interests in 1994 be referred to the Committee on Standards and Privileges.