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House of Lords: Code of Conduct

My Lords, this is an important day for this House. It is a day on which we look to the future; a day on which we bring some of our key practices up to date; a day on which we take a major step to put our house in order. On 21 May, following the decision of your Lordships’ House the day before to support in full the second report of the Committee for Privileges, I announced the appointment of a Leader’s Group on the Code of Conduct for Members of this House. On 29 October the group reported. Before I begin, I set out formally my thanks to all Members of this House who served on the Leader’s Group and, in particular, to the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Eames, who chaired it; all those Members and officials of this House, and others, who gave evidence to it; the staff who supported it so ably; and, especially, to the secretary of the group, the Clerk of the Journals, Christopher Johnson. I again place on record my particular thanks to the late Lord Kingsland for his work with the group before his untimely death. I am particularly grateful to those members of the group who took part in the range of meetings with Members of this House, dealing with issues that a number of Members had in relation to the Leader’s Group report. We are today considering two Motions on the Order Paper, as I set out in my letter to all Members last week. The first takes note of the report of the Eames group and refers to the Sub-Committee on Lords’ Interests the detailed guidance put forward in the report. The second details the new code of conduct proposed by the Eames group and seeks its approval by the House. I urge all Members to support and approve both these Motions. The context of the issues that we are considering today is important. First, we should remember exactly what we are and are not considering today. We are not today considering the system of allowances for Members of this House. We are not considering the report published last week on financial support for Members by the Senior Salaries Review Body. I recognise that the report and recommendations of the SSRB are much more recently in the minds of Members of this House than is the Eames report, but it is important that we keep the two issues apart today. We will be able to debate separately the SSRB report. Our intention was always to do so before the Christmas Recess, if at all possible. I am now in a position to inform the House that we will consider the SSRB report on Monday 14 December. We are instead today considering the report of the Leader’s Group, a new code of conduct for this House and an associated guidance note. There is an overlap with the issue of allowances in that the proposed Commissioner for Standards will be able to look at issues in relation to allowances as well as in relation to the code of conduct, but otherwise the two issues are separate and we should strive today to keep them apart. Today we discuss the code of conduct and two weeks today we shall discuss the SSRB report. Secondly, we should recall what led to the report of the Leader’s Group that we are considering today. I established the group following the decision of this House to suspend two Members of this House to the end of the previous parliamentary Session and to ask two other Members to apologise to the House. That decision followed serious criticisms in the media of Members of the House—criticisms that I judged to be serious enough to refer the Members concerned for consideration by the sub-committee. The sub-committee, and the Committee for Privileges, then considered the issues involved and reported to the House. However, it was clear that, beyond the cases of the individual Members examined by the sub-committee and the Committee for Privileges, broader issues arose from the investigation of relevance to all Members of this House, to the House as a whole and to Parliament, politics and the country in general. Thirdly, we should not fail to keep in mind the overall context of this report. As my noble friend Lady Symons noted in moving the Motion recently on the gracious Speech, this year has indeed been an annus horribilis for Parliament, politics and politicians. We have seen the action of politicians, not just in the other place but in this House, grievously damage the reputation, standing and, indeed, the very value of politics, politicians and Parliament. That clearly does not apply to all politicians. I believe that the vast majority of politicians in this House and in the other place are decent and honourable people with a strong commitment to public service, who have been as appalled as anyone else at some of the practices that have taken place. Even so, we have seen the public’s view of Parliament and politicians plummet. We have seen trust in Parliament and politics collapse. We should not make the mistake of thinking that, just because we are now some way from the height of the storm, particularly as regards MPs’ expenses, the public’s position has changed. People’s ire and anger may have abated but the fundamental shift in the public’s attitude remains. Although the public were unaware of what had been going on, once particular practices had been exposed the people wanted none of it. They wanted it to stop and they wanted it to stop straightaway. There have been real improvements. In the Commons there have already been far-reaching changes to MPs’ practices, including their expenses system. The further reforms proposed by the Committee on Standards in Public Life, chaired by Sir Christopher Kelly, will bring about more changes once they have been implemented by the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority, the new body established as a result of the Parliamentary Standards Act 2009, which I had the privilege of taking through your Lordships’ House. Improvements have been made in this House, too: the adoption of a more clearly defined procedure for considering complaints against Members of the House; the enactment of that procedure by the Sub-Committee on Lords’ Interests and by the Committee for Privileges; the determination by this House of its power to suspend Members; the decision by this House on the suspensions themselves; the establishment of the Eames group; and the proposals in the current Constitutional Reform and Governance Bill to provide, based on the ideas first brought forward in this House by the noble Lord, Lord Steel of Aikwood, and others, measures including the expulsion of Members of this House. All these are real reforms, real improvements. The actions of the overwhelming majority of Members of this House do not, of course, prompt such provisions—far from it. But when the allegations that lay behind the report and recommendations that we are considering first emerged, I made it clear to this House and beyond that, if there were wrongs to be righted, we would right them and that, if there were abuses to be rooted out, we would root them out. That clearly seemed to be our job then and it seems equally clearly to be our job today with the report and the recommendations in front of us. The report that we are considering is excellent. As well as thanking the Members who served on the Leader’s Group, I congratulate them on producing a report of such insight and clarity on a range of complex issues. The central vision of the report is that this is a good and hard-working House of central value to the system of politics and of Parliament and to our constitution as a whole. That is right. Although we on these Benches have proposals for further reform of your Lordships’ House, which we will place before the public in the coming general election, I have no doubt about the House’s place and value as one of the essential checks and balances in our system, whichever political party is in power. If those circumstances change through further reform—if, for example, we move in line with the Government’s proposals for a salaried House—we may well need to reconsider the issues before us. But ahead of that, as the report rightly stresses, we need to deal with the House as it is now: a House of high standing and renown; a House that works hard at all that it does and where external expertise and experience should be deployed in an appropriate way in the Chamber; an unpaid House in which Members need to be able, should they so choose, to earn a living outside it; a House where self-regulation is essential; and a House where the concept and practice of personal honour are absolutely vital. That is the House that, to an overwhelming extent, we have now. That is the House that we want in the future. The report and recommendations of the Eames group are an essential building block for that House of the future. The report, the proposed code of conduct and associated guidance must be the bedrock for this House from now on. The Eames report makes clear the case for change—not change driven by outside organisations or the media, but change that this House judges, after due consideration of the issues involved, is necessary for this House and what it does. We have, of course, embraced change before. This House looked at its own standards of conduct in 1974, 1990, 1995 and 2001. People outside this House might be surprised to know that it had no formal code of conduct before it agreed to changes in 2001, which a notable academic study on parliamentary regulation said would have been unthinkable even five years earlier. The study by the Study of Parliament Group, based on work by the Constitution Unit at University College London and by the University of Reading, notes that inquiries conducted into the regulation of standards in the Lords have been in response to a general desire to ensure that standards of conduct expected from Peers were those expected of everyone in public life, rather than in response to allegations of misconduct. It is not yet clear that this has changed. The report shows that the level of complaints against Members of this House is rising. But, of course, this does not necessarily indicate an increase in wrongdoings by Members of this House, although it may. It may also helpfully indicate a greater openness and transparency about this House and, perhaps, an even greater interest in what it does. Whatever the explanations, the report strongly indicates a clear need to improve our practices in the area of Members’ interests. What was appropriate for 2001, when we first brought in a proper code of conduct for this House, may well no longer be appropriate in a world where, in even a few short years, not only has the level of transparency, openness and scrutiny increased exponentially, but the technological ability to access in detail what we do and how we do it has increased exponentially. In some ways, the dilemmas behind any set of rules remain the same, regardless of a changed context. For some, in any organisation—very much including this House—the need for extensive, all-encompassing rules is paramount; the rules should be so full, comprehensive and detailed that they could deal with any event that arises. For others—again very much including Members of this House—the opposite is the case. They believe that no devisable system of rules, no matter how full, comprehensive and detailed, can in the final analysis deal with all the events likely to occur. Examples exist of both approaches, but the right approach is likely to be that which the Eames group successfully adopts—that is, to strike the right balance between the opposing poles of opinion, to provide a sufficient regulatory framework to ensure probity and accountability, yet at the same time to ensure that there is enough flexibility to deal with unfolding events that are often unforeseen. That is what the Eames group does. The group’s report proposes a code of conduct that, as the report says, sets out in general terms the principles of conduct and the main duties of Members of the House. The report also proposes a more detailed guide to the rules that, again as the report says, will explain the principles and duties in more detail, focusing in particular on the rules for registration and declaration of interests. The regulatory framework will set out standards of probity and detailed guidance that is designed to be dynamic and will be kept under review by the relevant sub-committee of this House. It is also designed to be updated to take account of changing events and circumstances while never moving away from the key principles behind the code, which, crucially, include the concept and practice of personal honour and the duty to act in the public interest. This is striking the right balance. However, in striking the right balance, the Eames group is still able to put forward a series of specific provisions that are of great value to the House, including an outright ban on parliamentary consultancies, a new definition of paid advocacy, a clarified definition of what constitutes a relevant outside interest, simpler and more self-explanatory categories for the regulation of interests, a requirement that Members abide by the rules in respect of financial support and the use of the House’s facilities, the reining back of so-called registration creep in relation to interests that should not in future be declared and the appointment of the House of Lords Commissioner for Standards to investigate all allegations of misconduct and to report any breaches of the code to the Sub-Committee on Lords’ Interests. As well as the particulars of the code of conduct and the help and advice offered by the guidance relating to Members’ interests and conduct, the provisions mark a new and necessary high-water mark for regulation—for self-regulation at that—for the House, which will provide a high degree of security for the House, for Members of the House and for the public. I know from the meetings with Members of the House that the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Eames, and his team have held that a number of Members have raised issues in connection with the report. Some Members may wish to raise their concerns in today’s debate. Members will be keen to know that the points that they have raised, which in the main are about the guidance rather than the report or the code of conduct, will be fully taken into account as the guidance is considered. As I mentioned last week in a letter to all noble Lords setting out the procedure for today’s debate, we now have in place a clear process to do precisely that. We will hear later from the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Eames. He has informed me that the Leader’s Group met today in advance of the debate and that, in line with the process that I set out in the letter, his group will draw together all the points that noble Lords have raised since his group’s report was published and detail them for the sub-committee now chaired by the noble Baroness, Lady Manningham-Buller. I have had discussions with the noble Baroness and as a result am able to inform the House that the sub-committee will consider the issues raised by Members of the House with urgency and will report early enough to allow the code of conduct, if approved by the House today, to come into force on 1 April. The points that Members of the House have raised will be taken fully into account in preparing the next iteration of the guidance, exactly as envisaged by the Eames group. I hope that this process will be properly and fully started at the end of the debate by Members of the House voting for the Motion to take note of the Eames report and to remit the guidance to the Committee for Privileges. I turn briefly to the code of conduct itself. In line with the approach taken by the Eames group and the balance that the group has striven to strike, the code is a clear and up-to-date statement of the principles that Members of the House must observe, of the practices that they must follow and of the necessary associated enforcement mechanism. Some Members have questioned whether we need to adopt the code now and have suggested that we should delay. However, there is a strong case for adopting the code now. If the House approves the Motion today, it will be in line with the recommendations of the Eames group; it will maintain the momentum for reform and improvement, which the work of the sub-committee, the Committee for Privileges, the decision of the whole House on the committee’s report and the work of the Eames group have so well exemplified and enacted; it will provide Members of the House, the House itself and the public with the protection that they all need against abuses; it will provide Members of the House and the House itself with the clarity needed over issues of conduct and Members’ interests; it will put in place a new investigatory mechanism, which the House needs, notwithstanding the best efforts under the current arrangements of the Sub-Committee on Lords’ Interests and the Clerk of the Parliaments; it will allow the House authorities to proceed with the job of recruiting the right candidate to be the House’s Commissioner for Standards; it will ensure that the recruitment process will be able to produce the right appointment by the time that the mechanisms come into place on 1 April; and it will be the right step for this House to take—again, not to meet external pressures but to meet what Members of this House and the House as a whole need and deserve. We have in front of us a good code—a code that is fit for purpose, a code that is right for the times and a code that is right for this House. I urge the House to adopt it today. In conclusion, following the publication last week of the SSRB’s proposals on financial support for Members of this House, we have to hand a set of recommendations on allowances for Members of this House. That, as I said at the start of my remarks, is a matter for another day. However, even without that, we have in front of us a clear, thought-through, concerted and comprehensive package of reform of what has increasingly been a difficult area for this House and what has especially been a difficult area this year. Even so, I believe that this House has handled the difficulties with consideration, composure and care and I believe that we should continue to do so today. Doing so is the right course of action—the right course of action for this House, for Parliament and politics and for the wider public beyond. As politicians, we know that we have a long way to go to repair the damage to politics and political institutions that has been done in the recent period. Today, we have in this House an opportunity to take not only an important step towards that goal but also an important step for the benefit of this House and its Members and towards a positive future for the House as a whole. I beg to move.