Strengthening Standards in Public Life — House of Commons, 2021-11-17
Topic: Government Operations
Daniel Rayne Kruger (Conservative, Centre-right): I have enjoyed many of the speeches this afternoon—not the last one by the hon. Member for Leeds North West (Alex Sobel), which I am not quite sure falls within the definition of Members spending a reasonable amount of time on their constituents’ priorities, but there we are. I start by paying tribute to a speech made in last week’s debate by my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Aaron Bell). He spoke about the value and advantage of friendship in this place, but also about the downside of friendships and relationships that are just too cosy I was not able to join the earlier debate about covid contracts, but I will quickly mention that we were in a deep national crisis at the time, caused by a model of global supply and distribution that is deeply insecure. To suggest that we could have afforded a leisurely open procurement process is absurd. The whole country, including Opposition Members, was clamouring for action, and businesses stepped forward. It is quite wrong to imply that the whole country or the Government and all the hundreds of civil servants involved in the awarding of those contracts are corrupt. It is quite wrong to suggest that All that said, we do need to clean up the relationship between business and politics. I will say another word about that in a moment, but I turn first to the motion and the question of standards in the wake of the Owen Paterson business. With reference to friendship, I should declare this interest: Owen is my friend. I also knew his wife Rose, and they hosted me at their house some years ago. Amid the deluge of obloquy that Mr Paterson has stood under in recent weeks, I will say that I think he did the state good service when he was in this place, both in Government and on the Back Benches But this is where I need to act as a friend should, and also as an MP should who puts the national interest ahead of friendship. Mr Paterson will not accept that he did anything wrong, because he knows himself to have acted with the national interest in mind, and to him that motivation and sense of personal honour is sufficient. The fact is that our motivation is not so clear cut as that. We are all human. We all have motivations that do us credit and motivations that do not, and the fact is that we cannot ourselves disentangle our honourable and dishonourable motivations, especially when money is involved. Money is utterly corrupting This issue is as old as Parliament itself. There was an entertaining Edmund Burke quote-off earlier; it was of course Edmund Burke who, after losing his seat because he had not done what his constituents wanted him to do, and while sitting for a pocket borough, introduced reforms to clean up politics and get the influence of the Crown out of this place, and William Pitt who implemented them—so it is Conservatives who have a good record on cleaning up politics. In our time, however, we need to look again at the role money plays in politics, and that is not just about MPs I echo my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight (Bob Seely). I am uncomfortable that my party takes money from certain businesses, particularly property developers, not because there is direct corruption but because it makes it harder for us to treat those companies as we should—as independent stakeholders which, in many cases, do not have the interest of our communities at heart. I find it uncomfortable that the Labour party takes so much money from trade unions, because it means Labour is not independent of organisations that want substantial changes to policy. That is why we need clear rules for Members I welcome the Prime Minister’s proposal, which seems similar to Labour’s proposal—both are based on the Committee on Standards in Public Life report from 2018—first to ensure that MPs devote their time to their constituents and, secondly, to stop political lobbying. The Prime Minister is also right to argue for a fairer system of investigating claims of wrongdoing by Members. It is not right that Mr Paterson had no opportunity to call witnesses for examination and no right of appeal against the decision of the Committee on Standards We need some reform to the rules, but we should approach it very carefully, particularly how we define reasonable time spent on other interests. We must take steps to restore trust in this place—the Labour party is right about that—but not through the highly political and partisan effort to twist the knife with this motion. We must be deliberate and careful in how we go about it.