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House of Lords: Code of Conduct

My Lords, as a member of the Leader’s Group, I should like to make a few comments in the light of the debate. First, I pay tribute and give my warm thanks to the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Eames, for his quite superb chairmanship—I am sure that my colleagues would agree with that—which was demonstrated by the quality of his speech this afternoon. Of course, the death of Lord Kingsland was a sad loss for us, but I emphasise that we had agreed on all the major points before he died and I am sure that they would have had his support. I have three points to make about the Lords commissioner for standards. First, in no way will that threaten self-regulation. The noble Baroness, Lady O'Neill, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Woolf, were absolutely right about the very precise role that we gave the commissioner. It is worth repeating that the report states that we should appoint a commissioner, ""to conduct investigations, to make findings of fact and to draw conclusions as to possible breaches of the Code, and to report these to the existing committee structure"." The self-regulation lies with the existing committee structure. Secondly, we were at pains to minimise the cost of the commissioner. We suggested that it might be sensible for him to be paid on a per diem basis. We very much hope that the workload will be nothing like the workload in the House of Commons. We certainly do not want to build a new bureaucracy at considerable expense. I also agree with the noble Lord, Lord McNally, about avoiding tit-for-tat. That was a very serious issue in the House of Commons when I was there, particularly leading up to election times, although I am glad to see that it is much diminished. I am sure that it would never here. My third point is in relation to the point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Cope, about the precise nature of the Clerk and the recommendations that we make. There is a difference between the accounting officer in a department with responsibility for the accounting issues affecting employees in that department and the position of Parliament. For a start, we are not employees. I am not convinced, as the new chairman of the Audit Committee, that the Audit Committee is the right committee to look at individual cases. I have not discussed this with the Clerk of the Parliaments, but I feel, particularly in relation to accusations from outside about abuse of allowances, that the Clerk, who is a very senior officer of this House, is put in an invidious and difficult position compared with a Permanent Secretary. I feel that we have got that right. I am happy to look at it again in the light of the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Cope, but he would have to persuade me very strongly because I think that we have got the position right. We were very clear, and the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Eames, made it clear in his opening speech, what we were proposing in guidance. We did not cover everything and we did not feel that we always reached the right conclusions in detail. We were trying to establish the principles and clarify a number of the points that Members of this House had put to us where they felt that the existing guidance was not clear. We covered the points that needed to be covered and gave some indication of what we thought were the right answers. I have to admit that in some cases, among ourselves on small points of detail, there was considerable discussion before we put forward figures. For example, the de minimis figure for gifts and hospitality was put forward as a figure for wider consideration. Therefore, I stress to the noble Lord, Lord Marlesford, among others, that we are not wedded to every detail of the guidance. I am glad that it will be looked at and explored further in the light of the responses given to the report by colleagues. I would also say to the noble Lord, Lord Marlesford, that an important point in the guidance is the point that Lord Kingsland himself constantly stressed. That was the point, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Woolf, put it, of developing case law in the guidance as cases, which very often will raise unusual issues, are decided in the process of consideration of the case. Case law will be an important point. Finally, I would say to the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Leicester that in looking at the many different examples of paid advocacy, it never occurred to us to include the position of the Bishops.