Thank you for your letter. The motion which was put to the House on Owen Paterson and the future arrangements to ensure proper standards are maintained by MPs in public office was a complex one. For all MPs it was a difficult decision. In one vote we were effectively asked to agree to put the process of enquiry into Mr Paterson’s behaviour on hold and to set up a review into the fitness for purpose of the standards committee process – not the individuals on that committee. The vote would not and did not exonerate Mr Paterson.
Why did it come to this? For years all parties have been of the view that the current process does not have the structures to deliver an objective fair result – despite current opposition to looking at improving the process now. When the consequences of those decisions are relatively minor the drive for change is dissipated. But in this case the consequence of the committee decision would be to deprive someone of their livelihood and their reputation. Of course, such consequences are entirely appropriate for someone guilty as charged. But because of the seriousness of the consequences, the adequacy or otherwise of the process came into sharp focus.
So, what was the enquiry trying to investigate? It was not investigating whether it is appropriate for an MP to have a second job and be paid. That is currently allowed within the rules – although I suspect this is something that there should be a proper review of. It is clear this is something the public do not like, however legal it may be. There are many arguments on both sides but here and now is not the place to debate them. The issue here is whether an MP used his position in Parliament and the access he had to effect a positive change for another party by whom, in this case, he was paid. MPs can and must always lobby for their constituents and constituencies, and many lobby for national issues and raise national wrongs which they believe should be put right. The issue here is did Mr Paterson lobby to right a national wrong or did he lobby to benefit the company that paid him as a consultant? The committee found the latter to be the case. Mr Paterson maintained it was the former.
In complex cases like this the legal arguments need to be made by both sides and debated. There also needs, in my view, to be a proper appeals process. And most importantly, there needs to be transparency. The system we currently have enables the commissioner to take evidence, which she did, and then take her findings to the committee. The committee’s role in practice is not to challenge the decision but to understand it and take further evidence to determine if the finding can be justified. That is not an appeal process. The committee were instead being asked to make a decision based on the case put to them by the Commissioner.
It might be said that even if the process is flawed, that is the process and the Commissioner’s view should be accepted. Yet there is this perhaps rather strange opportunity for the House of Commons to accept or reject the Standards Committee’s report. That itself is part of the process. In this case, Parliament felt sufficiently uncomfortable about the process that it voted to put it on hold and work with opposition parties to reform it. The discomfort many felt, I suspect, was that while the process may be flawed, was it right to apply a new process retrospectively? The view I have is that people should be bound by the laws as they find them – provided they are fair. I do not believe this process was fair and therefore voted to change it.
Since that vote the media has gone into freefall and so have the politicians – and not in a good way. What would have happened if the PM had rerun the vote? What would have happened if Mr Paterson had not resigned? This is a sad story with no winners. The hope is that in time we can address three things sensibly to sort out these running sores.
First, we should sort out the systems we have that hold those in public office to account – and that is not just MPs. They should be fair, transparent, and with a right of appeal with the same rigour as we would expect in a court of law.
Second, we need to have this debate about MPs having outside jobs on top of their MP salaries. This happens across all the parties.
And thirdly, given the MP is elected by the electorate, the electorate should have a say in whether an MP should be able to continue to represent that community following a transgression. For a considerable amount of my time in the House, I have campaigned for stronger recall powers for constituents, especially during the passage of the 2014 Recall of MPs Bill/Act. It is fundamentally right that these provisions are in place and that an MP can be subject to a recall vote by their electorate.
