Conduct Committee

Membership Motion

Moved by

That, as proposed by the Committee of Selection, Lord Blair of Boughton, Lord Garnier and Baroness Manningham-Buller be appointed members of the Select Committee, in place of Baroness Anelay of St Johns, Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood and Lord Mance; and that Baroness Manningham-Buller be appointed chair of the Select Committee.

My Lords, the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, raises a crucial issue but it is unrelated to the appointment Motion. I am moving the Motions in my capacity as chair of the Committee of Selection. I therefore hope noble Lords will accept that I do not and am not in a position to speak for the Conduct Committee, which is represented in your Lordships’ House by its chair. I will of course listen to what the noble Lord has to say and draw his remarks to the attention of the chair of the Conduct Committee, assuming that the noble Baroness, Lady Manningham-Buller, is indeed appointed. I beg to move.

Amendment to the Motion

Moved by

At the end insert “and as its first task it seeks to ensure the protection of freedom of speech so that nothing can prevent the full and frank exchange of honestly held opinions in the course of Parliamentary proceedings.”

My Lords, I am most grateful for what my noble friend Lord Gardiner of Kimble has said. I could ask no more in the circumstances. We do not have points of order in your Lordships’ House, and I am taking the earliest possible opportunity to raise an issue which potentially affects every single Member of your Lordships’ House. I believe it is incumbent on those of us involved in what I will describe that we should seek to do this.

Last week, my noble friend Lord Blencathra moved an amendment to the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill, the aim of which was to protect women prisoners from men who self-identify as women and are housed in women’s prisons. The noble Baronesses, Lady Meyer and Lady Fox of Buckley, and I supported it. As a result, all four of us received letters from the Commissioner for Standards saying that our speeches had been complained about. He had dismissed the complaints on a technicality—the grounds that they were third-party complaints and therefore not permissible. The four of us have written to the commissioner because we are deeply concerned by the implications of this decision, as it could give the impression that, because he dismissed the complaints on a technicality, there may have been some substance in the allegations.

Parliamentary privilege is one of the bulwarks of democracy. In the sixth edition of that splendid guide which many of us know, How Parliament Works, written by our colleague the noble Lord, Lord Lisvane, and a former clerk in this House, Rhodri Walters, they explain the importance of parliamentary privilege. It is a guarantee of freedom of speech within both Houses of Parliament and our committees. Anything said on the Floor of this House or in Committee is protected as a result of Article 9 of the 1688-89 Bill of Rights, which is one of our foundation documents. It states:

“That the Freedome of Speech and Debates or Proceedings in Parlyament ought not to be impeached or questioned in any Court or Place out of Parlyament.”

There can be very few subjects which are more relevant or important to your Lordships’ House. There is no doubt in the minds of those of us who received these letters that the complaints against us were designed to silence us, and that has very sinister implications.

Members of Parliament and Peers must be able to speak up and express any opinion on a public issue without fear of legal action. This does not excuse the frivolous. Your Lordships’ House and the other place can deal with Members whom they believe have abused parliamentary privilege. That has occurred in the past, but we must be free. Our civil liberties in this country depend to a large degree on that power. That is why I am suggesting—I am doing no more than that, and I am grateful to my noble friend for what he said—that the new Conduct Committee, under its new chairman, should address this issue as a priority. Without freedom of speech there can be no free Parliament and no genuine parliamentary democracy.

In our speeches last week—I urge noble Lords who are concerned about this matter to read the four brief speeches—we were not in any way seeking to bully. I am glad to see the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, who has been prominent in these matters, nodding her head. In this counterculture era, it is vital that no-one seeks to bully those who speak in either House. I beg to move.

My Lords, I think I am the only member of the Conduct Committee in the Chamber, so may I say that this is the first I have heard of this and express my disappointment. I support everything that the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, said. I always listen very carefully to him and I have enormous respect for his contributions. I assure him that this subject—the freedom of expression and of opinion—has been debated by the Conduct Committee, and it is understood and agreed that it is in no way a breach of the Code of Conduct. I am pleased to hear that the commissioner has rejected the complaints, and that is the way it should be.

I want to give a reassurance, because this Motion refers to our committee’s members and its new members; we are looking forward enormously to working with them. They are clear on this matter, as was the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mance. I can still hear him saying very clearly that freedom of opinion in a view is in no way a breach—it cannot be. When it transcends into bullying, harassment, sexual harassment or misconduct —trying in any way to bully or belittle members of staff or the public—then it would be investigated. Expressing a view in this Chamber would never constitute that. The four lay members are clear on that as well. We are all agreed on it; there is no question of it, so I give that reassurance to the noble Lord and to the House.

My Lords, I hope your Lordships will indulge me just for a couple of minutes. The Senior Deputy Speaker has my sympathy because, as he acknowledged a moment ago, these are Motions of nomination. They do not go to the orders of reference of the committees concerned.

Freedom of speech in Parliament, as the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, has said, underpinned by Article 9 of the Bill of Rights, is of truly inestimable value. He is right to voice any unease he may feel at the possible chilling effect which may be observed. Perhaps I may call him my honorary noble friend, not just because of the kind reference to my book a moment ago but because, over half a century, I have seen him at first hand demonstrate his zeal for empowering and protecting Parliament, which I fancy underlies the remarks that he made a moment or two ago.

On this occasion, I hope that his unease will be assuaged by the wording of paragraph 29 of the Code of Conduct, which the noble Baroness referred to a second ago. It says that

“the Commissioner and the Conduct Committee shall … recognise as a primary consideration the constitutional principle of freedom of speech in parliamentary proceedings, including but not limited to the need for members to be able to express their views fully and frankly in parliamentary proceedings”.

I am sure, as the Senior Deputy Speaker said in his initial remarks, that the exchanges today will be brought to the attention of the Conduct Committee.

My Lords, I pass no comment on the original speeches that were apparently the basis of the complaints of which the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, and others were notified. I have not discussed this matter with the noble Lord but support him absolutely 100% on this; it is very easy to find ourselves in a position where the fundamental principle of parliamentary freedom of speech is incrementally eroded.

To my memory, I voted against the Labour Government only once on a whip. I remember it well: it was an amendment put forward by my good friend Jack Straw to a Government Bill, which would have allowed anything MPs said in Parliament on a particular subject—MPs’ expenses—to be used in a court of law. I could see the motivation behind it, the objections that would be raised and the pressure that was put on him, but I thought it was a fundamental mistake to allow that. Once you go the inch, you have in fact gone the whole mile as regards this.

It is not sufficient to stop at saying that this should not be part of any proceedings. It should not be notified to Members of Parliament, because the effect of notification is to carry out the inhibition, bullying and so on that a formal move would result in. Will the Senior Deputy Speaker pass on the comments and discussion on this? It is necessary for the new committee not only to reaffirm the freedom of speech of Members of Parliament but to change the operation, so that they are not notified if something is complained exclusively about what a Member has said in this House.

My Lords, I am not at all reassured by what we have been told about the Conduct Committee. I am uniquely advantaged in this House in that I am not a lawyer, but I did understand that what was said in this Chamber or the other place was privileged, and I understood that this is fundamental and goes to the root of what we are about. But I discover that we have agreed that the conduct commissioner, because they are an officer of the House, is able to investigate remarks made in this Chamber in respect of other Members of this House. We have agreed that. That came as astonishing news to me, and I doubt there were very many Members of this House who were aware that that was what we had agreed to.

I do sympathise with my noble friend Lord Gardiner, because this was nothing to do with the appointments. But there have been four colleagues, as my noble friend Lord Cormack said, who were written to. They get a letter from the commissioner that says: “I have had a complaint about you. Here is a copy of the letter I sent. The letter sent to the member of public says I am not investigating this because you are a third party and not within the scope.” But what we would like to see is a letter that says: “I am not investigating this, because what people say in this Chamber is not something for me.” But we, as a House, have agreed to this in the small print. I was astonished when I went to see one of the clerks, who very helpfully explained the position.

If someone did bully me in this House and I felt aggrieved by it, or if someone said something I found terribly offensive, I would like to think the House itself, with its own standing orders and procedures, could deal with it. There is an issue here. I do not want to broaden this thing, but there is a kind of mission creep going on with these commissioners and changes in the codes of conduct. We have just had a debate and discussion about improper influence of this House, and it is right that we should deal with that, but these changes have resulted in some really distinguished and able Members of this House, with complete integrity, deciding that they have to leave. We need to balance maintaining the rights and responsibilities of this House and people’s ability to participate in it with our ability to deal with improper behaviour.

It is not just in respect of this House—I find it difficult to see how this will work where it also applies to committees of this House. Does that mean witnesses could complain about us bullying them with our questioning? Sometimes people have complained about me being aggressive in asking questions—I cannot think why—so should I be thinking about not giving the Chancellor a hard time when he comes before the Economic Affairs Committee?

There is a serious issue here, and it is not enough to ask the chairman of the committee to consider this. It is a matter for this House as a whole, and it needs to be put right. I am told, on making inquiries, that there is a proposal to extend this in the other place. Well, that is a matter for them, but it says to me it is high time that this high court of Parliament stood up for itself.

My Lords, as the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, mentioned me in his speech as nodding along, I thought I better clarify. I support him completely. I nearly did not come in to listen to this, because I thought it was a piddling point of order of some sort, even though it was labelled “free speech.” But having heard it, I am delighted I came in. I fully support the noble Lord; I hope he does not feel he needs to put this to a vote, because I think the spirit of the House is entirely behind him, and I thank him. I heard those speeches; they were not inappropriate in any sense.

It would be a brave person who sought to bully the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth; that is certainly true. I support the noble Lords, Lord Reid and Lord Forsyth. I also sat through the debate in question because I was taking part in the immediate succeeding business. There was nothing in any of the speeches that, in my judgment, entitled anyone to express a complaint. You might not have agreed with what was being said, but that is not the same.

Respectfully, it seems to me that the commissioner erred. His response should have been not to entertain in any circumstances the public complaints which were made to him. If it is to be done on the basis of a technicality, that is almost certain to enthuse certain other people to write and say, “Well, what was the technicality, so we can do better next time?” This is a matter of such fundamental principle, as many of those who have contributed to this debate have made clear, and it is for this Chamber—and indeed the other Chamber, if so advised—to ensure that it does not depart from a principle which is right at the very heart of the democracy of this country.

My Lords, may I say just four words? This will not do.

My Lords, very simply, this is a question of jurisdiction. If the current practice of the House is that we have—certainly before I was a Member—given jurisdiction, whether knowingly or not, to the commissioner to investigate, that is absolutely contrary to Article 9 of the Bill of Rights. He now has power under this to investigate. If we have done this by some sort of side wind, that power must be taken away. He must not have the jurisdiction to do it. Unless it is following a complaint, it is done on the Motion of the House, specifically on a case-by-case basis. As I understand it, it is open to this House to direct that there be an investigation into the conduct of a Member, but that must not happen simply because someone, somewhere, makes a complaint. It is an important jurisdiction question. This power should be taken away from the commissioner, unless in a specific case he or she is asked to investigate as a servant of the House. But it must be case by case. It should never happen and should not relate to things which are said in the House unless they are clearly out of order, offensive, criminal or something else.

My Lords, I support completely what the noble Lords, Lord Cormack and Lord Forsyth, have said. I am here to speak because, unfortunately, the noble Baroness, Lady Fox—who was one of the recipients of this letter—has had to leave for Grand Committee. She is a new Member, and she is a very strong woman, as we all know, yet getting a letter from the standards commissioner affected her. It affects anyone who gets a letter from the standards commissioner, even if, as has been said, it goes on to say that they are not going to investigate. It should have been put in the way that the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, said.

I know that the noble Lord, Lord Gardiner, cannot accept this amendment, but it seems to me a very common-sense amendment which should be accepted widely. It would allow the new committee to be able to take this as a first matter of priority.

My Lords, it has been a privilege to listen to the very powerful points made first by the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, and then by all noble Lords who have spoken. I have to reiterate—and the generosity of the House is such that I know noble Lords understand this—that I am moving appointment Motions in my capacity as chair of the Committee of Selection. I cannot speak for the Conduct Committee, although we heard from one of its members. Of course, these are ultimately all matters for the House.

I assure noble Lords, because this is within my capability, that I will refer today to the incoming chair of the Conduct Committee—assuming that the noble Baroness, Lady Manningham-Buller, is appointed—the remarks that have been made during this important but short debate so that matters can be considered further. With that promise, I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Cormack—formerly my noble friend—will feel able to withdraw his amendment and that we can appoint Members to this committee who I think will be very important and helpful to these further considerations.

My Lords, I am extremely grateful to every noble Lord who has taken part in this brief but important debate. I am grateful too to my former noble friend for what he has just, as I was for what he said at the beginning. There is no subject that is more important to Members of either House than freedom of speech: the ability to say what they honestly think and feel about important subjects. As was mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Pittenweem, that does not mean they agree with each other. Vigorous debate is essential to a healthy democracy.

May I also say how much I agreed with the noble Lord, Lord Reid, and others who made the point that the commissioner should not write to Members? The noble Baroness, Lady Hoey, was correct in what she said about our vigorous and outspoken new colleague who was taken aback by this—and I am sure would not mind me saying so. People should not be troubled with letters from the commissioner if somebody is writing about what is said on the Floor of the House.

I will take the advice of my friend, the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, because I think the House has spoken. There has not been any dissentient voice. In seeking to withdraw my amendment, I am confident that my noble friend Lord Gardiner will do precisely what he has promised and that colleagues on the Conduct Committee will take the sense of the House as it has been voiced vigorously this afternoon. I beg to withdraw.