Parliamentary Standards Bill

My Lords, I do not want to talk about what happened in the other place, except to say that several of my honourable and right honourable friends, including the shadow Leader of the House, tried hard to get changes and succeeded in getting some. We in this House are left to pick up and sort out the pieces. I believe that, contrary to the implication that the Leader gave, there are many in the other place who expect us to do just that. Indeed, some have said that to me. This raises the question of timing, about which my noble friend Lord Norton has tabled an amendment to the Motion—I wait to hear what he has to say. If we do not go down that route, there are other ways of giving this House more time, such as extra days or postponing other business to the spillover. Whatever it is, we must find some way or other of ensuring that we give this Bill enough time for the proper scrutiny to take place. That includes the question of a sunset clause for further considered thoughts in the next Parliament. We have to bear in mind that the other House passed this legislation in three days with no Third Reading. My second point relates to the fact that, although this Bill relates only to the House of Commons, there are, as all three reports to which I referred confirm, major constitutional implications in the Bill relating to the Bill of Rights, parliamentary supremacy, the relations between Parliament and the courts, judicial review and human rights. I leave it to others in this debate more qualified than I am to talk on these issues. In passing, I observe on human rights that one of the most disgraceful aspects of this whole episode has been the way in which what is effectively a kangaroo court of three people, with no proper right of hearing or appeal, has been allowed to cause one or two Members of the other place to retire from Parliament because they were not able to stand again. I refer in particular to the case of Ian Gibson, the former Member for Norwich North. I come from that area. Although I disagree profoundly with him on many political issues, I thought that the way in which he was treated was utterly disgraceful and should not have been allowed. I know that that feeling is widely shared in the whole community and in all parties in Norfolk. In my judgment, there will have to be much debate and significant amendments on all these counts before this Bill is allowed to pass. Again, as Alan Duncan said at Second Reading, ""if we get it wrong it could have a devastating effect on our democratic process and our procedures, which could seriously disadvantage the interests of voters".—[Official Report, Commons, 29/6/09; col. 58.]" So this Bill is not just about internal matters of the House of Commons; there are much wider parliamentary issues at stake. Since the House of Commons gave such little time to it, it behoves us to give much more. My third point relates to outside interests. There is a curious paradox in that there is much complaint nowadays that too many MPs have never had experience outside the narrow channels of going from university to politics, being a research assistant, then a special adviser, then a Member of the House and then, just possibly, a Minister. Now measures are being introduced to curtail and hugely discourage outside interests. Shortly after I left the Cabinet, I had to give what was almost the first piece of evidence in the first session of the Committee on Standards in Public Life. I made a plea to it, and delivered a paper, on the importance of allowing Members of Parliament to continue with outside interests to enable them to bring the proper experience and judgment to the House of Commons. I am glad to say that that committee, which was under pressure to recommend against outside interests, strongly agreed with me. I know that having outside interests hugely helped me in my parliamentary career and I do not believe that it is to the detriment of what MPs do in their role as Members of Parliament or in their constituency. It means a heavy workload, but it brings huge advantages to the House. Let us not forget that Ministers, who have an even bigger role than many of those with outside interests, also have their constituency and parliamentary interests as well. So there is one law for Ministers and another for everyone else. This Bill—and even the petty timekeeping that will now be required to have an outside interest—will mean a continuation of the trend of stopping outside interests, which will mean the demeaning of Parliament and reinforce the very trend that so many criticise of a House dominated by people with no outside experience. In my view, it is not necessary to include outside interests in the Bill, as the Standards and Privileges Committee in the House of Commons has been doing a good job in the area of the register, the code of conduct and breaches. I am not aware of criticism of the committee, whose chairman I pay tribute to—he has done a terrific job—along with the parliamentary committee itself. The committee should have been left to deal with all of that. I come to a point that takes me outside the Bill but that worries me most. I know that what I am about to say will be unpopular in some quarters, but I believe that it needs saying. Of course, there have been serious abuses that need to be tackled but, in the media witch-hunt that is taking place, the fact that most MPs are highly honourable is being overlooked. They have to have second homes if they are to undertake their constituency activities and have time even to see their families. They are immensely hard-working and commit themselves to public service, their constituents and the great issues of the nation, often at some considerable financial sacrifice. I do not think that most people realise, unless they have been in it, how time-consuming the whole business is. The commitment is enormous. The unpalatable fact—and perhaps I will be unpopular for saying it, but it needs saying—is that one reason why allowances have got out of kilter and sometimes been misused is that salaries have gone way out of line for the kind of people whom we should be trying to attract to Parliament. Of course, there will always be people who will stand for Parliament, but it is people of talent and experience whom we need to attract. After all, it is the greatest institution in the nation. Ministers are drawn primarily from it and in their roles in all sorts of ways they have much greater responsibility and impact on people, the nation’s affairs and internationally than do those in many other roles outside Parliament. When I left the Cabinet and rejoined some companies, I simply had not realised the extent to which salaries had fallen behind in the House of Commons, compared with the kind of salaries—and pensions—that I saw offered even in middle-ranking positions in not very big companies. The whole thing has got completely out of kilter. Indeed, many people in public sector jobs in local authorities are paid greatly more than Members of Parliament, who are supposed to have the responsibility over them. Most people know that there are recently qualified lawyers in their mid-20s, with perhaps only one or two years’ experience, who are earning as much as Members of Parliament and who expect to go on earning hugely more. That also applies to other professions. Being a Member of Parliament should be one of the most important and worthwhile careers, but I am concerned about everything that is now happening to many good and worthy MPs and the unfair vilification of them, on top of outdated salaries. I realise that in the current crunch this is not the moment to raise salaries, but that issue has to be addressed in the future. My concern is that, unless we put these things right, it will be very difficult to attract the sort of talents that we want in the House and to stand for Parliament, which would be a tragedy.