My Lords, this is not going to be a conventional debate. I am not going to pose as a Minister, attempt to sum up or answer or deflect questions. The aim of the debate is for me to listen—other members of the committee are here—and feed noble Lords’ views and opinions into the review that we have in hand, on which we have already had some excellent contributions, including from people in this Room, and on which we are continuing to take evidence until the end of October. This debate was suggested by some Peers. I welcome it because it is a further opportunity for us to collect information before we come back to the House, probably towards the end of this year—perhaps early next year —with our recommendations for changes to the code. We hope we will get as broad a range as possible.
I come to the timetable. Following the launch of the review in April, the suggestion of the Conduct Committee—it was our view—was that the code needs reform. This was disrupted by the Dissolution of Parliament in late May, so we have extended the deadline for contributions until the end of this month. For the record, I ask Peers who wish to say things but who are not able to be here this afternoon to please write to us, because we want to have all views. Also, party leaders and the convenor are coming to give evidence quite soon, so another way would be to put contributions to them.
Let me say something about the scope of the review. We start with the existing code. As your Lordships’ Conduct Committee, we operate within parameters agreed by the House over many years. These include the House’s decision in 2009 to appoint an independent Commissioner for Standards—at that stage, I also chaired the precursor of this committee, the Sub-Committee on Lords’ Conduct—and its related decision a decade later, in 2019, to appoint four lay members of the committee to add to the five Peers who sit on it. I take this opportunity to thank the commissioners—we now have two of them—and lay members for their insight and help.
Why are we suggesting a review? There are several reasons. The code and its guide are too long. Regular amendments since the first major overhaul in 2009 have led to the code and the related guide, taken together, doubling in length since 2010. Some changes have been forced on us by statutory change or outside events or to clarify points of uncertainty—for example, in the processes of investigation or the rules governing financial issues. With the greater length has come complexity with, for example, the distinction between general principles and specific rules being unclear. It is a bit of a patchwork document which may confuse. It is also clear that many Members have never actually read it and have certainly not got to appendix B.
I know that some noble Lords feel that we need only a simple statement of general principles of conduct. I agree that the code should articulate these principles clearly, including the Nolan principles, that guide us as Members of the House. However, it is worth pointing out that the Code of Conduct is not just to guide Members but to reinforce public confidence in the House. To that extent, it is an outward-facing as well as inward-facing document. It is clear from the comments we get that the public, whom we serve collectively, expect Members of the House of Lords, like MPs or other public servants, to abide by clear rules requiring high standards of conduct to try to ensure that we meet the Nolan principles of openness, accountability, selflessness, objectivity—that of course is not possible in politics, but never mind; the others still stand—integrity, honesty, and leadership.
My Lords, I am very pleased to speak after the noble Baroness, Lady Manningham-Buller. I had the privilege of serving under her as a member of the Conduct Committee. I am no longer a member, but I felt that this was an issue which needed people to speak out on it. Now is not the time to be seen to go backwards on standards. As well as having been a member of the Conduct Committee, I was on the appointment panel for the two Commissioners for Standards, one of whom has just taken up a new role outside Parliament. I was also on the appointment panel for the independent lay members; I am pleased that at least two of them are here today. I was also co-opted on to the predecessor committee, along with the noble Baronesses, Lady Anelay and Lady Hussein-Ece, to prepare for the new rules around sexual harassment and bullying. So, as your Lordships can see, it is all my fault.
Perhaps I should repeat that I was a member of the Committee on Standards in Public Life—it is good to see the noble Lord, Lord Evans of Weardale, who I think is now the former chair—and I was an interim chair of that committee in 2007.
We need a system which is sufficiently robust to see off the frivolous and vexatious cases that anybody in public life is subject to—that is a given. I think there is an increased feeling of vulnerability among Peers and, to a much greater extent, MPs. However, as the noble Baroness, Lady Manningham-Buller, said, this is an outward-facing exercise, and anything that looks as if we are trying to water things down will go down extremely badly with members of the public.
I, like others, left the Chamber while the noble Lord, Lord True, was speaking on the one-year anniversary of the Hamas attack. As usual, his tone and response was wholly appropriate. I just remind noble Lords that he said, when the code was being debated in May:
“The Chief Whip and I have taken the liberty of discussing this with some colleagues in the usual channels and, of course, with my noble friend Lady Manningham-Buller, the chair of the Conduct Committee, in whose work I think I fairly say the House has the fullest confidence and trust … The Motion will be neutrally worded to enable all Members to express their—no doubt varying—views before the evidence-taking period concludes. The purpose must not be to rake over the coals of specific cases ”.—[Official Report, 20/5/24; col. 863.]
I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Manningham-Buller, for giving us this opportunity and for the brilliant way in which she has carried out the chairmanship of this committee, which I hope will go on for many more years. It is a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Donaghy, who is very wise—and I think that we are all grateful for the work that she has done. However, the world has changed a bit, and we need to reflect that.
The noble Baroness, Lady Manningham-Buller, said at the beginning that the code was too long and too detailed, and I could not agree more. It is not just that it takes a long time to read it. Incidentally, the copies that have been provided in the Printed Paper Office do not include the appendices that were in the original document, including appendix B on page 56, paragraphs 19 and 20 of which were frankly just offensive. I hope that the fact that they are not included means that they are going to disappear for the foreseeable future.
There are trivial complaints made that should really be dealt with by the usual channels and not by the commissioner, and an abuse of the complaints system for political purposes is now happening, often through social media. The reputational damage done to an individual who may be subject to a vexatious complaint when the complaint is made public is enormous. The noble Baroness, Lady Donaghy, urged us not to talk about individual cases, but I am going to talk about one. We can see what has happened to the noble Lord, Lord Alli. Someone apparently made a complaint that he had not declared a particular interest. I do not know whether that is right or wrong, but it has resulted in pages and pages and day after day of coverage about him, and he is in a position where he is not allowed to comment on this or defend himself, which to my mind is neither fair nor right. One sees people doing this again and again. I do not make this accusation about any one party; we all have people in political parties who think that this is an appropriate way to behave, but I do not.
I said I was not going to interrupt. Anybody can have legal representation. That is not improper. What they cannot do is ask their lawyer to answer the questions for them. In fact, most people who are subject to serious allegations seek legal advice immediately and have it beside them at all stages.
I am aware of that; it is actually spelled out in the document on the basis that this is seen not as a legalistic procedure but as a more informal one. However, if your entire reputation is on the line, you should be able to have the basic standards of natural justice. In the case of a criminal prosecution, for example, no one would argue that your lawyer should not be able to make representations on your behalf. It is the business of confidentiality not being able to share that with colleagues; that is probably observed more often in the breach but, if you have been wrongly accused of something, it is all over the newspapers and you are not allowed to talk to any of your colleagues to get advice and help, that is a very unpleasant position to be left in. There is also the issue that it takes for ever for the matter to be decided. By the time it is, if you have been found to have been traduced, nobody is interested. You might get a single line in a newspaper. I worry about the process.
I am conscious of the strictures of the noble Baroness, Lady Donaghy, not to mention particular cases, but I also worry about a recent case where the commissioner decided on a particular sanction and then asked the complainant what they thought of the sanction. The commissioner then changed the sanction to make it more severe as a result of talking to the complainant. To me, that feels a little dodgy, to put it mildly. It is true that, in the legal system, we take evidence from people who have been subjected to a crime about its impact on them, but we do not allow them to decide what the sentence should be.
Picking up the comment made by the noble Baroness, Lady Donaghy, I agree that the House of Lords is different from the House of Commons. We should be. However, we are a part-time House while the Commons is a full-time House. Look at the sanctions that are applied in the other place: if people who have committed quite serious breaches of the code there and done some pretty stupid things are suspended for more than a set number of days, they can find themselves subject to a recall petition. The sanctions over exclusion therefore tend to be small numbers of days. However, colleagues in this House have been excluded for months—six months, in one case. The difference is that, in the House of Commons, if you are excluded for less than the recall period, you continue to be paid and to receive all your allowances, while Members of this House are unable to gain any of their allowances and go unpaid. Therefore, an extended period of exclusion is a far more severe penalty than would apply to Members of the House of Commons. Although I accept that we should be different, I do not really see why we should have such broadly different tariffs for breaches of the codes.
My Lords, it is a pleasure for me to follow the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth. I wish particularly to endorse what he said about the dangers of mission creep, particularly the risk that complaints made about things that we say in the House might be taken forward as a ground for some criticism under the guide.
I join the noble Lord in welcoming and congratulating the noble Baroness, Lady Manningham-Buller, on securing this debate and on the way she opened it, as it were for general discussion rather than anything else so that we can really put across ideas and they can be taken on board by the committee.
I am afraid that, as a lawyer, I have fallen into the trap of looking into the words of the code to see whether I can find things wrong with it. I have picked up three questions which are in the call for evidence. The first is whether there are
“any elements of the Code and Guide”
which are “unclear or confusing”, the second is whether any
“provisions of the Code or Guide”
are “unnecessary”, and the third is how
“the presentation of the Code and Guide”
could be
“improved, to make it more accessible and user-friendly”.
I will take the first two questions together, because my points about them relate to a particular issue, which is the way the guide deals with the registration of interests by arbitrators. I have to declare an interest here because I sometimes engage in international arbitration. I am engaged in one just now, which is listed in the register, as I was nominated to act as one of three arbitrators by a foreign state; that is declared in the register, and I have no complaint about that.
The introduction of this requirement into the code had a rather uncomfortable birth. It was suggested that it was needed for reasons of national security. It is not unusual for those who engage in arbitration to be nominated by the Government of a foreign state or an organisation controlled by a foreign state. However, the then chairman of the committee, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mance, had to recuse himself because he was engaged in many of these arbitrations and felt he should not take part in the debate. The discussion was then chaired by Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood, the only remaining lawyer, who found himself in a minority of one when the matter was debated.
My Lords, I add my thanks to the noble Baroness, Lady Manningham-Buller, for arranging this. I will not keep noble Lords long, but I would like to make one important point. As was mentioned by my noble friend Lord Forsyth, there was a recent newspaper report which claimed that a noble Lord had misled the House and that a child had not been allowed to run in her state school’s playground because there was insufficient space to scamper about. The noble Lord pointed out that this was because some of the school’s property had been sold to an adjoining private school.
Apparently, there has been a complaint to the House of Lords commissioners, claiming that the noble Lord’s statement was incorrect. Whether that statement is true or false, it is not the place of the Lords commissioners to have any say in what is said in a Chamber of this House. It is an issue of paramount importance that there should be complete freedom for Members of this House when speaking here to say what they will, with no outside interference of any sort. To go down the road of censoring or adjudicating speeches in the House would inevitably end up stifling free speech. We have parliamentary privilege specifically to be able to speak freely, and I would be most grateful if the noble Baroness, Lady Manningham-Buller, could clarify in her report that the Lords commissioners have no role whatever in overseeing what is said during debates in the House of Lords.
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness, the chairman of the Conduct Committee, for initiating this debate, because it gives us the opportunity to comment on the direction of travel, which I do not believe to be ideal. It is unfortunate that there are so few speakers—despite the evident quality of the speakers.
I suspect that most Members of the House think that, provided that they declare their interests and do not stick their fingers in the till, they will not experience any problems, even if they omit to carefully scrutinise our Code of Conduct—a point noted by the noble Baroness. Sadly, this is not the case, because the direction of travel hitherto has been to increase the number of possible transgressions—and she touched on the length of the code. For instance, how many noble Lords realise that it is against the Code of Conduct to pay for sex? It is not something that I intend to do, but the term is very imprecise—and the noble Baroness talked about lack of clarity. For instance, does the prohibition catch paraphilic infantilism? I hope that I have the pronunciation right. What it certainly does is to create vulnerabilities where they did not previously exist, just as homosexuality did, sadly, in the past.
In the past, Conduct Committee reports were debatable and divisible, and the House demonstrated a clear willingness to discipline Members when they had transgressed. However, in the aftermath of a highly controversial debate and Division we, wrongly I believe, decided that Conduct Committee reports would not be debatable. The case that I am referring to involved a Peer who was a leading human rights lawyer. He was my political opponent, and I was always on the other side of his argument. I am not a lawyer, I am of a different creed, and I had never socialised with him. Nevertheless, I voted in support of the amendment proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, against the conduct Motion. I did this because the report of your Lordships’ Commissioner of Standards was full of holes, in my opinion. For instance, the investigation took place more than 10 years after the events in question; no documentary evidence was available, as there would be in a paid advocacy issue; and the commissioner interviewed witnesses by telephone about crucial telephone conversations that had taken place 10 years earlier.
My Lords, I am grateful for the opportunity to contribute to this debate. I should declare that I am the former chair of the Committee on Standards in Public Life.
The Committee on Standards in Public Life is the custodian, so to speak, of the Nolan principles—the Seven Principles of Public Life—to which the noble Baronesses, Lady Donaghy and Lady Manningham-Buller, have already referred. When Lord Nolan drew up his seminal report on public standards, he envisaged that the principles would stand at the apex of the system but would not stand alone and would not be justiciable. He envisaged that there would also be two other key parts: first, codes of conduct, which we are discussing today, in order to read down those overarching principles into the particular circumstances of different institutions; and, secondly, training and an opportunity for people to learn and consider what standards meant in their particular environments. It seems to me that that model of how standards should operate has stood the test of time.
One of the privileges of being in that job as chairman of the Committee on Standards in Public Life is that one got exposure to a very large number of different organisations and the way they approach these problems. We took evidence from government, Parliament, the private sector, charities and other organisations. Of course, the issues are different in different parts of the system, although one of the things that I was struck by was that the seven principles seemed to command considerable support even, for instance, from people in the corporate sector. They took notice of them and an interest in them and in how we applied them in public life, so we have something there that we can be proud of. I was also struck that quite often there would be delegations from a variety of countries coming to talk to the UK about the way in which standards issues were managed here. You might say from a purely UK perspective that that was slightly surprising if you read the papers at the time that I was chairman. Respect for public standards was not the most evident aspect of what was going on, but nevertheless we have traditionally had quite a strong reputation in this area.
On this point about the reputation of Parliament, which is obviously very important, what is the noble Lord’s view on former chairmen of the Committee on Standards in Public Life who appear regularly in the media to provide a commentary about how dreadful standards are? Is that not far more damaging than anything any individual would do?
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The registration of relevant interests lies at the heart of this. In past generations, noble Lords declared their interests in debate, largely for the benefit of other Members, but for the past 30 years it has been accepted that we should make those disclosures in a public and lasting form, by means of the register. To support the process, we need clear rules, covering categories of interests, thresholds for registration and so on. Expectations of radical change to the code probably need to be tempered, because some length and complexity will be difficult to avoid. I am none the less of the view that we can make it very much better than it currently is.
It is also clear that some noble Lords feel that the reach of the code has gone too far and are apprehensive that this review is another excuse for mission creep. I assure all noble Lords that it is not. The committee, including the lay members, fully understands the value to this House of our Members having extensive experience, in many cases elsewhere, and bringing it to bear on current issues.
We have asked some difficult questions in our call for evidence, but these are questions that regularly reach us. That is why we need noble Lords’ views. A particularly difficult question is whether there should be a general rule to prohibit conduct that causes significant reputational damage to the House as a whole. This is not a new issue. Our predecessor committee, the Committee for Privileges and Conduct, recommended such a rule as far back as 2016 in a report entitled Undermining Public Confidence in the House. That report was never taken to the Floor of the House and nor has the Conduct Committee ever brought forward firm proposals, despite repeatedly being invited to consider the issue, usually in the wake of some media uproar. There is no easy answer and it may still be too difficult, but it is right that we are asked the question once more.
We aim to satisfy ourselves that the code is fit for purpose and the rules are expressed as clearly and succinctly as possible. I will end there. I emphasise that we really are listening. We see this as an evidence-collecting session. I welcome the proposal that we do this, but I will not respond in detail, as I said at the beginning, because we have not had all the evidence in yet; we still have to hear from the heads of the parties, the convenor and the Leader of the House. Then we will be ready, at some stage, to put proposals to your Lordships’ House. I thank noble Lords for coming. We will listen very carefully.
I will not quote the rest of it but I thought that it was an extremely useful statement, and I see this as the continuity of that particular effort.
I do not want to go on for a long time and I will certainly not suggest detailed changes. To some extent, this is a necessary tidying-up exercise, and I thought that this was what the Conduct Committee was trying to do. It had left open questions which had been asked over a number of years, and the answers may well be the same. However, it is quite right that it should ask those questions, such as about bringing the House generally into disrepute. Should we take that forward or leave it well alone and keep the issue of “on one’s personal honour” as a way of interpreting cases?
I do not have an awful lot to say except something about the importance of the confidence from staff. It is not that long ago that staff did not really have much confidence in any complaints being dealt with fairly. They would say to new members of staff, “Don’t go into the lift with that person”. These issues were well known; they were not well known to us as Peers but were well known among staff. There was no confidence that any complaint would be upheld or dealt with fairly, and it is not that long ago. It is extremely important to recall that staff will listen to this debate and get a feeling of the direction that we want to go in. Even though that is not part of the public point of view, it is extremely important from the internal point of view that we have a system which means that staff feel that they are dealt with fairly. When we first took over as a Conduct Committee, some of the cases were of extremely long-standing. They were called historical cases, which just meant that somebody had been misbehaving for a very long time indeed and had not been dealt with. We do not want to go back to those bad old days.
I have an open mind about a number of the questions that the Conduct Committee has asked. I shall put my views in, but I wanted to make the point that the world will be looking at us to make sure that we are not slipping backwards. If we have different processes from the House of Commons, that is absolutely fine, as long as our standards are the same. That is the difference. The processes have to be different because MPs are elected and have a larger number of members of staff—and to some extent the issue of salary versus fee income is a difference. We do not need necessarily to be consistent in our processes. I happen to think that our system is better, because the role of the commissioners has made it better, but that is not to say that the standards are different. I would defend that difference as not being harmful in any way.
I should have declared—I apologise for not doing so earlier—that I chair the Steering Group for Change, which was set up by the commission. That has been working for five years. It started off as a response to the Ellenbogen report about sexual harassment and bullying, but is now moving into wider directions of how we consolidate the culture change in the House, which I firmly believe has improved since the Conduct Committee was established, with the wonderful work that the members do—both the Peers and the individual lay members.
The other issue that worries me, which is again to do with Members’ vulnerability, is that if the commissioner is investigating a particular complaint Members are not allowed to have any legal representation.
The other issue where I hope we will be different is where people have been accused of some criminal offence. It is essential that any decision to exclude them should be made only after they have been charged, not on arrest, for the obvious reason of maintaining the principle of innocent until proven guilty. I know that a different view has been taken in the other place but I very much agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Donaghy, that we should decide our own rules on these matters—although that does create a slight anomaly.
I am also worried about what I would describe as the committee’s mission creep; the chairman touched on that. It is highly inappropriate that Peers’ conduct not related to their parliamentary activities or role should be within the scope of the commissioner. I do not think that it is for him or her to look at that. I also cannot for the life of me understand why, under the code, you have to inform the Clerk of the House if you are subject to an investigation by a professional body. What has that got to do with the Clerk of the House? A doctor subject to a complaint to the GMC would have to tell the Clerk of the House about that. Why is that appropriate? Why should a company chairman, perhaps found to be in breach of health and safety legislation and subject to an investigation by the HSE, have to tell the Clerk of the House? What business is that of the House of Lords?
It is just wrong. We have a number of Peers in high-profile public and private roles. Where does it end? Does it apply to a head teacher who is accused of breaching employment law, or to a landlord/tenant dispute? I felt that the noble Baroness, Lady Donaghy, got quite close to touching on this: there seems to be a suspicion growing that anything that damages the reputation of a Peer damages the reputation of the House. That cannot be right, and it is dangerous.
There was a recent example in the debate the other day about VAT on school fees. A colleague on the Government Benches made an accusation about what had happened in a particular school. Someone then said that it was not true and made a complaint to the commissioner and, as a result, got a whole load of coverage about this person having misled the House. The newspapers put it rather more strongly than that. It is none of the business of the commissioner to look at what is said in the Chamber. Lots of things are said in the Chamber that are a matter for debate. If people think that someone has misled the House in some way, there are lots of processes by which that can be corrected or debated. I worry about the idea of mission creep and the perception of the role of the commissioner. They will say, “We’ve had a complaint that so-and-so didn’t tell the House the truth”, which then becomes a story. That is a real-life example. This is not a partisan point; in both cases I am defending people who are members of the government party. I was going to say opposition party, but that is me now.
I am sure that the independent members of the Conduct Committee do a great job, but I worry about the balance between external members and people who have detailed knowledge of parliamentary procedure and an understanding of the political process. I wonder if the balance is too far in one direction. An example of that is the requirement to declare your interests. It is absolutely impossible to declare your interests at Question Time without irritating the House. Therefore, people stand up and say, “I refer to my interests in the register”, which is frankly a waste of time. We do not have the register and we do not know what the interests are. If you are watching from the outside, you think, “Ah, he or she must be in someone’s pay”. It is a fatuous requirement. We end up in a situation where people are breaching the code, as is explained in the document.
I also want to re-emphasise the difference between paid advocacy, which is speaking in the House or to Ministers specifically about a business interest—it is quite rightly forbidden—and speaking on the generality of policy, which may impact negatively on a company from which they receive payment. While I was chairing a bank, I never asked any questions about issues which affected the bank because I felt vulnerable to being accused of paid advocacy, even though I know that the rules would have provided for the general position. It is undoubtedly the case that people are afraid of speaking on certain areas because this is not widely understood. Because it is not widely understood, mischievous journalists can make hay from it.
In short, I really welcome what the chairman of the committee said, because the committee needs to rewrite the code and to undertake a review of the approach which is taken, so that it takes account of the impact of social media and the increasing exposure of Members to unjustified reputational damage from malign political influences.
The matter then came before the House for approval. The noble Baroness, Lady Donaghy, is smiling at me because, like me, she remembers very well the nature of that debate. It was—I think I can put it this way—rather highly charged. Those noble Lords who opposed the proposal, which did not include myself, were all arbitrator lawyers, and they did not win the sympathy of the House. We now find two provisions in the guide, paragraphs 56 and 63, which deal with the issue.
The first point about this is that it is unnecessary for the point to be dealt with in two separate paragraphs. The two paragraphs I mentioned say exactly the same thing, and one of them is plainly in the wrong place because it is under chapter 1, which deals with directorships. Arbitrators are not directors at all of the party by whom they are nominated. They are acting as independent adjudicators on the issue before them. It should not be in paragraph 56, and if it is taken out nobody will miss it because it is repeated in exactly the same terms in paragraph 63. That is the first point. It is simply a provision which is unnecessary and should be taken out.
Paragraph 63 itself is a bit confusing because it deals with the problem of arbitrators by saying that:
“Members providing legal and arbitral services need to register the identity of registrable clients … under this category only once (a) the identity of the client or party has entered the public domain or (b) they have been paid for the work (wholly or in part), whichever comes first”.
The problem is this that point (a) seems to suggest that registration is required only where the fact that the arbitration is taking place has entered the public domain.
There is something to be said for that because, on the whole, arbitrations are meant to be private affairs and there are some cases where it is in the interests of the state that the fact that the arbitration is proceeding should not be known by the public. I had some experience of this when I advised the governor of one of our overseas territories. I declared my interest to the register, but I said that it would be unfortunate if the name of the governor or the identity of the territory were identified because there was a considerable political debate and she did not want it known that she had applied to London for advice. Very wisely, the register simply said that I had advised the governor of an overseas territory, the details of which could be provided on request. I thought that was a very sensible way of getting around my problem.
However, it comes back to the point that there are cases where there is a reason for something not entering the public domain. The problem is that the second branch of this clause states that you have to declare when you are paid, and that could happen before the public knows about the arbitration or in a case where arbitration is meant to be confidential. I am not suggesting a solution to this, but I suggest that the committee might like to look more carefully at what exactly it wants to be declared by arbitrators. I am sure we will follow the guidance. At the moment, it works reasonably well for me, and I am not complaining, but there is a lack of clarity that needs to be addressed.
On the third point—presentation—I hope I am not treading on any toes when I say that our code does not stand up very well in comparison with the House of Commons code of conduct. I am not talking about content, and I endorse what the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, said about the differences between our two Houses. That is not my point. It is a question of presentation. Its code is much better presented than ours.
Perhaps I can put forward some basic requirements. First, the content should be divided into distinct sections under clearly labelled headings. Secondly, the contents of each section should be set out paragraph by paragraph, each of which is designed to deal with one topic only. These paragraphs should be kept short, ideally no more than about six lines, so that the point that they are making can be easily and quickly understood. People tend to speed-read when they look at documents of this kind, and they need to be able to grasp the point quickly. If a paragraph runs beyond about six lines, they will miss the point, so there needs to be brevity and clarity. It is all about presentation, and I do not think our code meets that test as well as it should. It is partly because things have been added, but as it is there is a bit of confusion.
The purpose of our code is set out in paragraph 3 under the heading “Introduction”. It would be better if it said “Purpose”. Paragraph 3 is divided into sub-paragraphs (a) and (b) which, quite correctly, set out propositions that are clear and simple, but the clarity of that original presentation is undermined—indeed, cluttered—by adding two sentences to sub-paragraph (a) which deal with the scope of the code, not its purpose. They are important sentences. The first states that
“the Code does not extend to members’ performance of duties unrelated to parliamentary proceedings, or to their private lives”,
but that deals not with the object of the code but with its scope. It should be set out in separate paragraphs, separately presented. I would keep sub-paragraphs (a) and (b) in paragraph 3, but the middle sentences should be set out in two separate paragraphs after that.
Paragraph 7 is another paragraph that needs to be broken into separate paragraphs for clarity. It talks about three different things. First, it talks about the application of the code to the Lord Speaker and the Senior Deputy Speaker, then it deals with its application to candidates for those offices, and then to the spouses or partners of officeholders. All that is bunched into a single paragraph. It would be much easier to follow if it was divided into three paragraphs, one by one.
Another one is paragraph 28, which is 17 lines long and contains six sentences. It is far too long, and it should be broken down into separate paragraphs. Paragraph 12 sets out the seven principles identified by the Committee on Standards in Public Life. That, of course, is good and helpful, but it also states that it should
“act as a guide to members in considering the requirement”
in paragraph 10
“to act always on their personal honour”.
I understand the intention to say a bit about what that time-honoured phrase means, but it is not helpful to then say, “Have a look at the standards in public life”, because not all of them relate to that. The first two are related—for example, integrity—but then it goes on to other things. There are a whole lot of things to go through.
This is my point about simplicity; if you are going to make a point, it should be pure and simple. A better way of doing it would be to refer to the passage in the guide which sets out, in paragraph 7, what the committee on standards suggested we should understand by that phrase, rather than going on to the principles. We should keep the principles as they are, but not make that cross-reference. If a reference is needed, it should be to refer to the guide.
Finally, I will make a brief comment on the question asked in the call for evidence:
“should there be a rule covering behaviour … that causes significant reputational damage to the House as a whole?”
As the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, suggested, we move into quite dangerous territory if we try to make provision about that. The question reminds me, and I am sure many other noble Lords, of the case of Lord Sewel, whose conduct, as reported in the Sun, was clearly of that character. The problem was that the conduct took place entirely in private. As he pointed out, the code relates only to standards of conduct expected of Members in the discharge of their parliamentary duties.
It was a very anxious period. As convenor, I know well how difficult it was for our Leader, the noble Baroness, Lady Stowell, to deal with. In the end, fortunately Lord Sewel recognised that his conduct was not compatible with membership of the House and that he could serve the House’s interests best by leaving it. That solved the immediate problem, but the point remains that the code applies only to a Member’s parliamentary duties and does not extend to what they do in their private lives, however damaging that may be.
Nothing was done by altering the code at that stage, but it would have been very difficult to extend it to private lives. I am not suggesting that we should do that. However, there is a question we might like to think about. I suggest that to broaden the code to cover private lives, or professional lives outside the House, by sets of rules would be unacceptable. However, it might be sensible to contain a note of advice, advising Members that they should at all times avoid engaging in conduct likely to cause significant reputational damage to the House. It would be advice, not a rule, but it would serve as a reminder of the inescapable fact that Members need to have regard to the reputation of the House, whatever they do and wherever they are.
All the other conduct reports that I have ever read made a cast-iron, open and shut case. In a recent case, one noble Lord became intoxicated and, regrettably, abused other pass-holders, resulting in an official complaint to your Lordships’ Commissioner for Standards. The noble Lord made a sincere offer to meet the victims as part of a reconciliation process, and I am confident that, if that meeting had taken place, there would have been reconciliation. Regrettably, the victims declined that offer, as was their absolute right. No doubt the Commissioner for Standards took this into consideration when recommending one week’s suspension. However, your Lordships’ Conduct Committee decided to treble the sanction, safe in the knowledge that it would not be challengeable in debate.
Some issues that are drawn to our attention require considerable moral courage to address. For instance, right now, I am dealing with the systemic harassment of the heavy haulage industry by a few police forces, but I am not getting very far despite the risks I am taking in taking on the police. In the last few Parliaments, I attempted to get Section 40 of the Crime and Courts Act, better known as the Leveson reforms, commenced. This was not some niche issue as, in the past, I had won a Division against my own party when in government—in other words, a majority of the House was with me. At the time, one noble Lord privately suggested to me that I was brave to take on the press. I gently pointed out that I knew I had no skeletons in the cupboard. I must note that few other Peers would engage the press in the way that I and the noble Baroness, Lady Hollins, did. Only one Conservative MP would even discuss the matter with me; that was the late Sir David Amess.
At the very end of the previous Parliament, the media Bill provided one final opportunity to get the carrot component of Section 40 retained, while the stick component would be repealed in line with the Government’s manifesto commitment. I tabled a suitable amendment and was working up my speaking notes and arguments when I glanced at the Conduct Committee’s proposal to make a transgression of the Code of Conduct be considered as bringing the House “into disrepute”, or words to that effect; in essence, that means how much adverse publicity the Peer in question has generated. I must tell the Committee that all my moral courage evaporated immediately. I immediately withdrew my amendment and persuaded the clerk to take it off the Marshalled List, even though I was technically too late. I confess that I left the noble Baroness, Lady Hollins, to move her amendment in Committee on her own. It was a complete lack of moral courage on my part.
I did have some powerful new arguments about why IPSO was not fit for purpose. As it happened, the advent of the election and procedural issues put me in a strong position, so I ran a Report stage amendment but without the benefit of having made a detailed argument in Committee. In the end, I was unsuccessful. I must tell the Committee that I am not confident that, if my conduct had been called into question, I would have been dealt with fairly. My noble friend Lord Forsyth just talked about the position of the noble Lord, Lord Alli. A major reason for this lack of confidence is the inability to defend myself, or to have someone defend me in front of the whole House, before the House decides on the matter.
I intend to retire next year, despite being two years short of the average age of the House of Lords. I can assure the Committee that only 10% or 15% of this decision is due to the issues we are discussing today; most of it is due to demotivation caused by constant and unfair criticism of your Lordships’ House, which the House authorities appear to do nothing to counteract. Nevertheless, this issue is a factor.
Of all the areas that we looked at, the most difficult was Parliament. I say that for two reasons. The first is the immense complexity of the arrangements in Parliament at both ends, and of the systems, some of which are specific to particular Houses, some of which are common across Parliament. The interplay between them takes a considerable amount of detailed work to understand. I remember spending a lot of time talking to all the relevant stakeholders to try to work out how the bullying aspects, the conduct aspects and so on relate to each other, so I strongly support the suggestion that there should be greater clarity. However, I do not underestimate how difficult it is to achieve that clarity, partly because it is much easier in an environment in which everybody is an employee and you can set a policy and say that if you do not like it, you can leave. That does not apply in political life or in your Lordships’ House.
The Code of Conduct in the Lords in some ways bears even more weight and does more work than is the case in the Commons. The reason I say that is that ultimately in the Commons there is a political price to pay for individuals who breach public standards. Partygate and the many other scandals that we saw over recent years led in due course to a political price, but Members of your Lordships’ House do not have that electoral jeopardy if they breach standards in a way that the public would find unacceptable. Therefore, it is particularly important that the Code of Conduct here should be as effective as it possibly can be. It is also particularly complicated because of the fact that Members of the House are not on a salary, and in that sense what is and is not acceptable in terms of payment for various aspects of individuals’ lives is difficult, and some of the complexities in the Code of Conduct reflect that. I suspect that, looked at from the outside, most people in the street would find the system perplexing. Certainly, the postbag that I used to receive when I was in that role suggested quite low levels of confidence that standards were being appropriately upheld in Parliament—probably more critical than the reality, so there is an issue of reputation and an issue of credibility that is an important part of the work that is currently in hand in the Conduct Committee.
Certainly, from my perspective, the Code of Conduct needs to do two things. It needs appropriately to regulate the business of the House so that we can be confident in the integrity of the way in which Members approach their responsibilities in the House, but it also needs to protect the House’s reputation and project the integrity of the House to a very sceptical public. Without that, our role, and the role of the House in general, is undermined.
Against that background—I have submitted specific evidence in writing—I highlight two things. The first is that I support a clause that suggests that anybody who undermines the reputation of the House is breaching the Code of Conduct. I recognise that there are those who feel that that is overreach, and I hear that, but it is completely normal in many environments for that to be included. If you look at the way in which the professional bodies look at their responsibilities today in the regulated professions, the question of who is a fit and proper person is taken into consideration.
I declare an interest as a member of the board of the KPMG Anglo-Swiss partnership. The regulator for audit looks at the way in which audit is done but also takes at least a glance at whether individual auditors are fit and proper people to take on that trusted role as an auditor. I find it difficult to understand why we would not expect a similar approach to those who are taking on the trusted role as a member of a parliamentary body. I believe that there should be a clause in respect of reputation, and that in doing so, we are not over- reaching; we are doing what is actually quite widespread in many organisations. If you looked at the concerns that certainly I have seen expressed about Parliament, you would see that people do not understand why things are so different now. In many ways they need to be different, but in a number of other ways they are different without needing to be so.
I have a second suggestion. I realise that in suggesting this I am tilting at windmills, but I will tilt anyway. I personally believe that—