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Privileges Committee: First Report

My Lords, the House is being invited this afternoon to agree two reports from the Committee for Privileges. The first report invites the House to agree to the committee’s conclusion that the House has the power to suspend any Member who has been found guilty of serious misconduct. The second report contains the committee’s conclusions and recommendations on the conduct of the four Peers who were the subject of allegations in the Sunday Times on 25 January. It embodies the findings of a detailed investigation by the Sub-Committee on Lords’ Interests, which were then reviewed by the Committee for Privileges. We are debating these reports together. But I shall do my best to separate out the two sets of issues: the important points of general principle raised in the first report; and the questions of personal conduct covered in the second. However, I should make it clear from the outset that if the first report is not agreed to, I shall not be moving the Motion to agree the second report or the two subsidiary Motions on the Order Paper. The first report arises out of the Leader’s letter to me dated 26 January, in which she asked if the Committee for Privileges could look into, ""the question of any sanctions in the event that a complaint is upheld"." We sought the advice of the noble and learned Baroness the Attorney-General. We are grateful to her for her advice, which is published in full with this report. Essentially, the Attorney-General advised caution. In particular, she advised in clear terms that the House did not have the power to expel a Member permanently, since to do so would, ""interfere with the rights of a peer conferred by the Crown by letters patent"." We fully endorse this conclusion in our report. As for temporary suspension, the Attorney-General acknowledged that the issue was "less clear", and that a "respectable argument" could be made that the House’s power to regulate its own procedures does include a power of suspension. However, she advised that the "safer course" would be to wait until a legislative framework could be devised to confer such a power on the House. It may be helpful if at this point I say something in general terms about the role of the Attorney-General in relation to the House of Lords. As the Government’s recent consultation paper on the role of the Attorney-General states, historically he or she, ""was expected to officiate as adviser and attendant when called upon but without enjoying any responsibility in the Upper House’s determinations"." So once the Attorney-General’s advice has been given, it is for the House, on the recommendation of its committee, to consider it and to decide whether or not to accept it. A decision not to follow the Attorney-General’s advice will not be taken lightly, but the responsibility for the final decision rests with the House alone. The committee decided on this occasion, as it has done in the past, and in light of the Attorney-General’s acknowledgement that a "respectable argument" could be advanced that the House had the power to suspend, to seek a second opinion. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay of Clashfern, a member of the committee and, of course, a former Lord of Appeal in Ordinary, had already submitted a short note summarising his reasons for believing that the House did possess the power to suspend, and we therefore invited him to develop his initial note into the full memorandum which is annexed to the report. I would like to take this opportunity to thank the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay, not only for his formal written advice, which is printed with our report, but for his counsel throughout recent months. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay, endorsed the Attorney-General’s conclusion that expulsion would not be lawful. However, on temporary suspension, where the Attorney-General saw the arguments as balanced, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay, advised very clearly that the House did have the power to suspend its Members. I will not try to summarise his arguments in detail, but in essence his advice was that the wording of the Writ of Summons implies the acceptance by Members of certain rules of procedure and conduct which are absolutely necessary if the House is effectively to perform its constitutional role as a Chamber of the legislature. I draw noble Lords’ attention to the key paragraph in the advice of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay: paragraph 38, on page 15 of the report. It states: ""I consider that the House’s existing power to adopt the procedures necessary to preserve ‘order and decency’ includes a power to suspend, for a defined period within the lifetime of a Parliament, a Member who has been found guilty of clear and flagrant misconduct. I consider further that the exercise of such a power would not affect the rights conferred upon Members by virtue of their letters patent; rather it would affirm the conditions implied in the writ of summons, that Members must conduct themselves in accordance with the rules of the House"." The noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay, also advanced a secondary line of argument, and I would like to draw Members’ attention to the closing section of his paper, from paragraph 50 to the end. As recently as 1999, the Joint Committee on Parliamentary Privilege, while recommending that the House’s power to suspend be "clarified and confirmed", stated in terms that the House of Lords, ""has power to imprison indefinitely"." As the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay, says, ""the greater must include the lesser"." The idea that the House has power to put a Member in jail, yet is powerless to impose a relatively short suspension, seems to me to be untenable. Moreover, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay, notes, the decision as to how the House imposes discipline on its Members, ""falls within the undoubted privilege of the House to regulate its own procedures"." In short, the committee was unanimously persuaded by the arguments of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay, and concluded, therefore, that the House does have the power to suspend its Members. Until recently, many of us have felt that standards of conduct in the House were so high and "peer pressure" so potent that the House needed no sanctions for dealing with misconduct other than "naming and shaming". That was the view of the Committee on Standards in Public Life in 2000 and the view of the Committee for Privileges as recently as last year. But in light of recent events, we can no longer defend that position. We have to get our house in order. It is not just a matter of the conduct of the four Peers. The crisis facing the House has gone far wider than their conduct, and our response similarly must go wider. That is why I urge noble Lords, whatever their views on the second report and on the conduct of the four Peers, to agree the conclusions set out in bold on pages 4 and 5 of the first report, namely that the House has the power to suspend its Members for a defined period, not longer than the remainder of the current Parliament. I turn now to the committee’s second report, on the conduct of the four Peers. Again, I must, on behalf of the House, express my thanks to the chairman and members of the Sub-Committee on Lords’ Interests. The sub-committee was only appointed on Monday 19 January; less than a week later it found itself in the eye of the storm and engaged in probably the most arduous investigation of its kind ever undertaken by a committee of this House. I should also like to express our gratitude to the staff of the House, and I personally add my own thanks. An astonishing amount of work has gone into the reports that are before us today. It reminds us how lucky we are in this House to have staff of the quality that we do. As for the report itself, of course it is long, but I trust that noble Lords will have read it closely. It is accompanied by an even longer evidence volume. Everything has been published; the barest minimum, such as personal contact details, has been redacted. Again, I shall not attempt to summarise or paraphrase the report; it speaks for itself. However, I shall briefly set out the main conclusions and recommendations before closing with some more general comments. I turn first to the code of conduct itself. Much of the sub-committee’s time, particularly in the initial stages of the investigation, was spent considering the meaning of certain specific provisions within the code of conduct. The first part of its report sets out its findings, and the Committee for Privileges, in paragraphs 15 to 35 of its report, confirms them. I invite all Members of the House to read the committee’s conclusions carefully. Of particular importance is the third bullet point, which confirms that any Member who expresses, ""a clear willingness to breach the Code of Conduct thereby demonstrates a failure of ‘personal honour’ and [is] thus in breach of paragraph 4(b) of the Code"." The code of conduct is not just about registration and declaration of interests; it is about Members’ conduct in their parliamentary duties, which includes the central requirement that Members should act on their personal honour. The no paid advocacy rule is another key provision against which the rest of the code must be read. The House, by agreeing the second report, will demonstrate that it is determined to ensure that the code of conduct is properly and rigorously applied and that it expects high standards of behaviour from its Members. As for the four Peers, with regard to the noble Lord, Lord Moonie, the sub-committee concluded that there was insufficient evidence to establish that he had expressed a clear willingness to breach the code of conduct. It is clear that some of his comments to the undercover journalists were inappropriate, and he has been invited to make a personal statement of apology to the House, but the report exonerates him of breaching the code of conduct. Secondly, with regard to the noble Lord, Lord Snape, the sub-committee concluded, on balance of probabilities, that he had expressed a clear willingness to breach the code of conduct, and therefore found that he had failed to act on his personal honour. The Committee for Privileges, having considered the appeal of the noble Lord, Lord Snape, reversed this decision. While clearly he spoke loosely and used inappropriate language, as I think he would acknowledge, we were not persuaded that there was a clear willingness to breach the code. We accordingly exonerated him while recommending that he, too, should make a personal statement of apology to the House. Finally, I turn to the cases of the noble Lords, Lord Truscott and Lord Taylor of Blackburn. In both cases the sub-committee found that they had expressed a clear willingness to engage in paid advocacy, and concluded therefore that they had failed to act on their personal honour. The Committee for Privileges unanimously endorsed these findings. In the case of the noble Lord, Lord Truscott, the sub-committee stated that, ""the evidence against Lord Truscott is so clear and plentiful that we have little doubt that Lord Truscott was advertising his power and willingness to influence Parliament in return for a substantial financial inducement"." In the case of the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, the sub-committee found that his conversations with the journalists, ""display his clear willingness to breach the Code of Conduct by engaging in paid advocacy"." Indeed, the claims of the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, to the undercover journalists regarding his past achievements were so outrageous that the sub-committee concluded either that, ""he had breached the Code in the past and was agreeing to breach it again"," or that he was spinning a story, falsely suggesting that he would breach the code in future, ""in order to secure a lucrative contract"." Either way, he failed to act on his personal honour as required by the code. The appeals made by the noble Lords, Lord Truscott and Lord Taylor, against the sub-committee’s findings entirely failed to persuade the Committee for Privileges. We found them by turns misguided and implausible. We therefore upheld the findings of the sub-committee in full. This episode has done serious damage to the reputation of the House. We all have responsibility, individually and collectively, to uphold that reputation. That is why personal honour remains the cornerstone of the House’s code of conduct. The noble Lords, Lord Truscott and Lord Taylor of Blackburn, have not, we believe, acted on their personal honour. I know that one or two noble Lords may be concerned about a guidance note that was issued to the four noble Lords at the start of the investigation, to the effect that the House had no power to suspend its Members. This was standard guidance drawn up last year and subsequently published online. It is clear that the guidance, in stating this view without any qualification, was inaccurate. That is extremely unfortunate, but the fact is that, even as recently as last year, no one could possibly have anticipated the seriousness of the allegations that were made against the four Peers. That is why the committee has had to look again at the powers of the House and has reached the conclusion set out in the first report. In particular we have concluded that the House has, and has always had, an inherent power to discipline its Members, and that the means by which it chooses to exercise that power falls within the regulation by the House of its own procedures. In accordance with that conclusion, we therefore recommend that the House should suspend the noble Lords, Lord Truscott and Lord Taylor, from the service of the House until the end of the current Session of Parliament. I commend these two reports to the House, and I beg to move that the first report be agreed to.