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Privileges Committee: Second Report

My Lords, I will be quick because I want to refer only to three paragraphs of the Privileges Committee’s report. I played no part in the preparation of these documents, so I can be objective in congratulating all those who have been involved. However, I was involved more than 10 years ago in the Griffiths committee on the code of conduct. I disagreed profoundly with our conclusion then that we should retain this phrase in paragraph 15 of the code of conduct: ""Members of the House should … be especially cautious in deciding whether to speak or vote in relation to interests that are direct, pecuniary and shared by few others"." The phrase, ""direct, pecuniary and shared by few others"," is of ancient origin. It was devised by a committee chaired by Lord Greenwood of Rossendale in the 1960s or 1970s. It ought at that time—and ever since—to have been an unequivocal exclusion from acting in this House, just as it would be in any local authority. Yet we have, frankly, three paragraphs of equivocation. If Members have interests which are, ""direct, pecuniary and shared by few others"," they should not be acting in Parliament—period.