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ON THE RECORD
RECORDED FROM TRANSMISSION BBC-1 DATE: 5.11.95
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JOHN HUMPHRYS: So the Labour Party has at least some
complications tomorrow but it's the government with the biggest difficulties.
One view is that they lose either way: even if they win the vote they risk
being painted as being in favour of sleaze.
So, Mr Newton, before we get into that
in some detail. Let's talk about the amendment that is going to be put forward
tomorrow which would say in effect let's delay bringing in these new rules
until the next session of parliament because afterall MPs who came in this time
came in under a certain set of rules?
TONY NEWTON MP: Well I'm obviously aware of the argument
and I think without breaching the confidentiality of the Select Committee's
discussions I can say that we did look at that very carefully. Indeed on one
point the timing of the application of the ban on advocacy to existing
agreements there was a difference in the committee but the overwhelming
majority of the committee felt that this ban should be immediate from the start
of the next session. And the plain fact is as far as that's concerned, that if
you have come to the conclusion - as the committee very clearly did unanimously
- that it is not right for people to be paid directly and specifically for
making speeches, introducing bills, moving amendments, we can hardly say that
that is wrong but it's going to be alright for the next eighteen months.
HUMPHRYS: Do you find it helpful on disclosure?
NEWTON: Helpful on disclosure...? I'm sorry I
not quite sure...
HUMPHRYS: The postponement - a postponement,a
possible postponement.
NEWTON: Well I can see the argument there and no
doubt some people will want to look very carefully at that issue but we
thought, the committee thought by a majority that given the - and it's
interesting your..the direction your programme is taking - the ban on advocacy
is very radical and sweeping and is quite different from and goes much further
than Nolan and it was in that context that we went on to look at the rules
about disclosure of remuneration. The contracts themselves of course would
have to be deposited with the parliamentary commissioner but it was proposed
that they should be deposited without the remuneration for reasons you may want
to press me on in a moment but that was the view of the committee by a
majority.
HUMPHRYS: You said you'd looked seriously at the
thought of postponing the disclosure?
NEWTON: No I said I thought many members would
want to look seriously at that possibility..
HUMPHRYS: And what would you recommend it
personally because this is afterall a free vote isn't it.
NEWTON: Yes but I was Chairman of the Committee
and I agree with its recommendations and I intend to support its
recommendations.
HUMPHRYS: Why are you opposed to the Nolan
recommendations on disclosure?
NEWTON: The programme has been making that point
throughout but I will now spell it....(interruption)..indeed absolutely right.
The...as I've said this ban on advocacy...and indeed a ban on advocacy even by
those who are simply advisors in the sense that they won't be able to table
amendments, introduce bills, ask written questions and the like or oral
questions other than supplementary ones and the like is very very far reaching.
It is much simpler and clearer than what Nolan suggested and I think that it
goes to the heart of what has been the cause of public concern. So you've got
the whole argument about disclosure in a somewhat different context, in which a
lot of the things that Nolan was aiming at or appeared to be aiming at, are
just not going to be allowed at all.
You then get into the grey area in which
you have indeed been probing in the programme of what this borderline is
between the areas where you would actually have to declare the remuneration and
where you weren't. You've already made one of the strongest points, it seems
to me, that manifestly a great deal of the broadcasting, writing, lecturing
that Members of Parliament do, which brings in quite a lot of income is..arises
only because they have been elected as MPs. Now there's quite a lot of income
involved in some cases but under the proposals, the Nolan proposals that
wouldn't have had to be declared as far as I can see.
HUMPHRYS: And under your proposals that will will
it?
NEWTON: Under our proposals...no what I'm saying
is that if you are going down this path, I'm drawing..making the point about
drawing the line, if you're going down this path you've got other grey areas as
well like the position of somebody whose contract requires only business
advice, but who in practice is almost certain to give some advice about
parliament as well. So what I'm really saying is that once you go down this
disclosure route, it seems to me that you inescapably are moving down a path
towards full disclosure of tax returns.
Now, I understand of course that there
are some people and it certainly didn't include the committee and it evidently
doesn't include at least many in the Labour Party, who might feel that that
would be right. But I don't feel that that would be right, I think it would
inhibit large numbers of people from wanting to be Members of Parliament at
all, and I think you would then go down a path in which the only people who
wanted to become Members of Parliament would be either those with a great deal
of independent wealth which is what it used to be like, or those who are
professional politicians or if you like, those who are attracted into it by the
money.
HUMPHRYS: Right, so what you are saying is that
the restraint on advocacy, the new restraints on advocacy, proposed restraints
on advocacy are so tight that there's no need for disclosure because it's dealt
with that but you are also acknowledging that in truth they're not that tight,
there are lots of grey areas.
NEWTON: I think they are very tight. The report
itself acknowledges that wherever you draw distinctions of the kind that we are
talking about or indeed the rather different distinctions that Nolan was
suggesting, for example, between multi-lobbying, multi-client lobbying firms
and others, what were and were not parliamentary services, all that, there are
going to be difficulties of definition and there will have to be, if you like,
a body of experience and further guidance built up which we hope will be done
by the parliamentary commissioner and the new committee on standards and
privileges which we hope to get set up on Monday.
HUMPHRYS: So a lot of your people are quite right
to be worried aren't they. Let's look at an example that wasn't in that film,
that we've all heard talked about, Michael Shearsby (phon) Sir Michael Shearsby
of the Police Federation. He will not be allowed to initiate things, he won't
be able to put down an early day motion for instance, or even initiate a
question to use the word that occurs in the ruling, in the recommendation, to
put down a question to the Home Secretary. Now that's a very odd position for
the adviser of the Police Federation to find himself in isn't it? It's not
workable.
NEWTON: Well, I think it is workable. People may
not like it, but I think it is workable. The position is I don't know what
Michael's or anybody else's contract says. He would not be able to have a
contract at all which actually required him, in which he, as it were, undertook
for payment to make speeches, move bills, do all the things we have been
talking about....
HUMPHRYS: Ask a question of the Home Secretary?
NEWTON: Not a contract which actually required
him to ask - in which he undertook to ask questions of the Home Secretary.
HUMPHRYS: Oh, but in the real world you know
perfectly well what happens. He gets a fee from the Police Federation quite
properly - nobody is objecting to that - and they might say to him, "Look, why
don't you ask the Home Secretary about XYZ", he gets up and does it. He won't
be able to do that.
NEWTON: He will not be able to have an agreement
under these proposals that actually required him to initiate parliamentary
action in that kind - I mean you're quite right in a way to raise your
eyebrows. This is very far-reaching but the committee, and the committee I may
say was unanimous on this. There was no division at all on this point that
this is something which our rules in the House simply should not allow, to be
paid specifically for taking - using parliamentary procedures if you like.
HUMPHRYS: And we've got the case as well then,
another raising eyebrows issue maybe, certainly for a lot of your members,
Peter Atkinson, and Sir Michael Neubert we saw in that film whose constituency
duties as it were, responsiblities clash with the assertion (sic) or are
sympathetic with the duties that they have for the organisations who pay them.
Now, they've got a problem.
NEWTON: Well, the report again makes clear that
nothing in this is - seeks to override a member of parliament's first duty
which is to his constituents. If it is specifically a constituency interest
then there would manifestly ....
HUMPHRYS: Ah, but how do you say specifically, you
see, I mean if Michael Neubert wants to raise a point about the fishmonger in
his local market he could be doing it on behalf of the organisation he
represents. So he's got a problem, he can't do it.
NEWTON: Well, if he's being paid by an
organisation to represent the interests, to initiate, to agitate on behalf of
market traders generally, then I think he would need to confine his activity to
those that could be specifically related to the interests of his constituents.
HUMPHRYS: A void judgement, a Solomon time this
isn't it?
NEWTON: Yes, there are - don't get me wrong. As
I've said now several times, these are not easy matters which is why the
committee has spent - probably met longer and harder than any other select
committe in history, and has recognised that there will be areas in which as
experience develops furthere guidance will be needed from the new select
committee in the same way as has happened historically with the old committee
on members' interests, about the interpretation of the rules.
HUMPHRYS So, we may find the rules being
interpreted in such a way that these people are allowed to carry on doing what
they have been doing?
NEWTON: I think that would be virtually
impossible, if the House indorses our recommedations tomorrow night as
obviously I hope they will. I don't seek to shy away at all from the fact that
there will be difficult cases, and that we haven't in the report been able to
chart an exact path through every grey area. It's not that kind of problem,
but what I think we have done and which this programme has very clearly
focussed on, is to set a new line much clearer than anything else, anything
that's existed in the past, which gives us the best way in to meeting public
concerns about some of the things that they believe have been going on.
HUMPHRYS: It's a bit like the line (phon) in the
sand at the moment though isn't? The wind's blowing the sand all over the
place.
NEWTON: No, I don't think it is, and the other
point that I would make of course is that none of this applies to anybody who
is only - who is simply representing an interest because they support that
interest, rather than have any financial ...(INTERRUPTION).. or a constituency
interest where no question of financial payment arises.
HUMPHRYS: But you may a problem here may you not,
and Sir Micahel Neubert's made it clear that if this extremely limiting
ordinance goes through, he may say "I'm going to deny it, people say that Ted
Heath...are going to defy it". People say Ted Heath might do the same. They
could blow a huge hole through the side of it could they not?
NEWTON: Well, we are talking about the rules of
the House, and not an Act of Parliament, and at the end of the day as happened
when the Register of Members' Interests was introduced, Enoch Powell declined
to go along with it, members will have to make their own judgements, but I
think the overwhelming majority - in fact I'm sure that all MPs - that the
overwhelming majority of people outside will think that this is sensible and
right, and I don't believe they will put pressure on Members of Parliament to
do things which the House has said they ought not to be doing.
HUMPHRYS: But you don't think it will severely
embarrass you if a handful, maybe only a handful of some very high profile MPs
said, "No I'm just going to ignore this , I'm going to go my own way". People
will then say, "What's it solved?"
MEWTON: It would create a difficulty for the
House of course, because sooner or later no doubt there would be a complaint to
the new committee on standards and privileges, and they would have to make a
report to the House, making a recommendation of some kind, and the House would
have to decide exactly as the Committee of Privileges which I currently chair
made a recommendation in the Cash for Questions case.
HUMPHRYS: The object of this whole exercise has
been to restore the reputation of parliament hasn't it - of you people who
represent your constituency's interests. It's all becoming so complex now, so
difficult that people are going to say "Well, hang on, what's changed, we are
thoroughly confused" (INTERRUPTION) This has been an immensely complicated
and confusing conversation hasn't it? It's not your fault but it is now
becoming terribly confusing.
NEWTON: Well, I don't think that either the
situation or the problem has got any more complicated and confusing. What I
think has happened is that certainly for the first time since the introduction
of the Register of Members' interests just over twenty years ago, parliament
has taken a substantial fresh look at all this and sought to find new boundary
lines and new ways of meeting public concern, and I think that the select
committee have made a very good job of that.
HUMPHRYS: And how's the Commons going to vote
tomorrow?
NEWTON: Ah, well, individual members will no
doubt be considering things over this weekend. You've only got to listen to
some of the interviews at the beginning of this programme to know that
inevitably people are taking a bit of time to digest this report.
HUMPHRYS: It sounds as if you're preparing
yourself for a defeat.
NEWTON: No, no, I think these are good
proposals, I think that the House will support them, but as I've always said
and is fundamentally the case, it is a matter for the individual judgement of
Members of Parliament.
HUMPHRYS: Tony Newton, thank you very much.
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