Declare interests or face the law, MPs warned
MPs who fail to declare outside interests should be treated like criminals, three members of the parliamentary standards committee have said. The lay members – ordinary citizens – called for Westminster to make the failure to declare shares or business interests an offence.
MPs who fail to declare their outside interests should be treated like criminals, three members of the parliamentary standards committee have warned as concerns grow that the Commons will face another “public confidencesapping scandal”.
The “lay members” – ordinary citizens who sit on the Committee on Standards – have called for Westminster to follow the example of the Welsh Assembly by making the failure to declare shares or business interests a criminal offence. Their report also warned that there is “still significant room for improvement in both the awareness and observation of standards issues”.
Part of the problem is that MPs do not want to join the committee that scrutinises their behaviour because they fear their colleagues will think badly of them and believe membership will not be good for career progression, the report said.
Calling on Parliament to make it a criminal offence for MPs not to declare outside interests, the three members, Sharon Darcy, Peter Jinman and Walter Rader, said: “We consider that this would send a clear signal to the public that the House takes breaches of the Code of Conduct seriously.”
They also said the “fragmented” responsibility for standards and a “lack of willingness” by MPs to get involved, coupled with a “low appetite for change”, are creating significant problems.
MPs and the committee have previously been criticised for failing to uphold the standards expected.
The committee recently ruled that its chairman, Sir Kevin Barron, had breached the rules which he is meant to police by accepting payment by way of a charity donation for an event hosted in Parliament.
However, he was not dismissed or disciplined as the breach was “minor” and “inadvertent”, MPs ruled. The decision prompted Sir Alistair Graham, the former chairman of the Committee on Standards in Public Life, to warn members should be “whiter than white”.
The expenses scandal, exposed by The Daily Telegraph in 2009, prompted wide-ranging changes to the way MPs make claims, but the committee warns there is much more to do to protect confidence in British politics.
The report states: “Rather than ‘lead- ing’ on standards issues, Parliament is ‘following’. Without ‘keeping in step’ with wider changes, and addressing the barriers to change … Parliament is likely to be inadequately prepared for future controversy.”
It also warned that there are currently seven bodies responsible for ensuring that MPs do not break the rules and this has the effect of “diluting responsibility”.
The lay members also said that more should be done to look at how some MPs have the time to take on second jobs, while others report working more than 60 hours a week.