Conduct Committee — House of Lords, 2020-07-08
Topic: Civil Rights
Jonathan Mance (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, as chair of the Conduct Committee I beg to move the committee’s third report. I start by drawing noble Lords’ attention to three particular areas where the report concerns foreign Governments: paragraphs 14 to 15, paragraph 10 and paragraph 11. I will come back to these As a matter of major caution and not because I myself feel that my own contacts with foreign Governments involve or raise any of the problems that the guide or the committee’s recommendations address, I put on record here that, as also appears in the register, I have direct contact with two foreign states in two capacities: first, as an appellate judge at the Singapore International Commercial Court, and, secondly, as chief justice, in succession to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Woolf, of Barnes, of the Astana International Financial Center court. The foreign states in question of course pay me and cover my travel This third report builds on the clarifications and improvements to the codes of conduct and guide made in the committee’s first report of the 2017 to 2019 Session. The further proposals contained in the report are based on advice from the Registrar of Lords’ Interests, to whom we are indebted, which the committee considered and developed carefully over the course of two meetings I will not detain your Lordships by setting out every change, but I will touch on some key provisions. First, we propose to alter the scope of the code in two ways. We believe that the provisions of the code should apply only to Members who have taken the oath of allegiance in that particular Parliament, since those who have not done so are unable to take part in the work of the House. However, such Members will still be subject to the rules on bullying, harassment and sexual misconduct, as well as the rules on the use of facilities and services—see paragraphs 17 and 104 of the guide We have considered the interaction between the important principle of freedom of speech in parliamentary proceedings and the rules on bullying, harassment and sexual misconduct. We propose to add text to the code to clarify that the rules on bullying, harassment and sexual misconduct apply to parliamentary proceedings, such as debates in the Chamber and Select Committee hearings, but also to underline the basic importance of Members being able to express their views fully and frankly, so the commissioner will take that into account if there is any complaint. Turning to a different area, we also propose to make it a breach of the code for Members and their staff to fail to respond within six weeks to the annual audit of entries in the register of interests. Most Members reply very quickly but some do not, and some require the registrar to chase them over many months. Some fail to reply at all. We hope that this change will underline the importance of the exercise, which is one of transparency. A related change will enable the registrar to refer to the Commissioner for Standards any Member who persistently fails to register their interests Next, I turn to personal clients. We previously tightened the rules so that Members must now declare any known clients of companies that they work for when they take part in proceedings on related matters. At the same time, we remove the requirement to register personal clients, as this was proving impractical We now wish to modify these changes in two ways. First, we propose that Members who set up a personal service company as an administrative vehicle for their own services to be provided to clients should be required to register the clients as well as declare them. Secondly, we propose that Members who undertake work for foreign government clients of a company should be required to register that fact. That is in paragraphs 14 and 15 of the report. It is right that such work should be subject to a higher level of disclosure than work for a company or other organisation In paragraph 10, we have also proposed some cautionary words for Members about dealing with representatives of corrupt or oppressive regimes. Then in paragraph 11 we have proposed new restrictions on initiating parliamentary work related to Governments or NGOs that have provided the Member with travel and hospitality within the preceding six months. Finally, there are a number of minor changes to the registration and declaration procedures in the guide and the codes that we propose, as well as changes to the procedures governing the investigation of alleged breaches of the codes I hope that noble Lords will agree that these changes are sensible. If the House approves them today, we shall publish an updated version of the codes and guide shortly. I beg to move.