Sleazegate has a sting in the tail for Boris
The PM’S abysmal handling of the Owen Paterson case has made things far worse
OIn what possible way would the public be served by having these meetings turned into anodyne talking shops?
ne of the unfortunate consequences of the Government’s mishandling of the sleaze scandal is that it overshadowed legitimate concerns about the system for investigating MPS. The vilification of Owen Paterson has only served to sanctify the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards – a curious result, really, when you consider that Kathryn Stone’s perceived partisanship was one of the reasons for the call for reform.
Tories rightly questioned why the nose-stud wearing former victims’ commissioner for Northern Ireland, who refused to describe the IRA as “terrorists”, appeared so intent on investigating Brexiteers. In the 2020-21 period, investigations were opened into the alleged wrongdoing of 13 Conservatives compared to just five Labour MPS. Of the Tories facing inquiries in the past year, all but three voted to leave the EU.
Why had Labour MP Bambos Charalambous been cleared in 2018 for sending a letter on Commons notepaper to deal with a claim made against him by a former landlord when Tory MP Mark Francois had been forced to apologise, not once but twice, for writing a letter to Michel Barnier carrying the portcullis design in the summer of 2020? These questions remain unanswered.
What appears to have been lost in a crisis entirely of the Government’s own making is that it was possible to find both Mr Paterson in breach of the rules and the system in need of drastic overhaul. Indeed, there had already been talk of a review long before Mr Paterson started complaining about the lack of natural justice. The catastrophic mistake Boris Johnson made was to try to make those two positions mutually exclusive.
Yet if the Prime Minister thinks it was bad that he “crashed the car into a ditch on a clear day”, he should be even more worried about the recovery operation currently under way in Parliament.
It took the Standards Commissioner and committee 550 days to investigate Mr Paterson (compared with less than a week to rectify a failure by committee chairman Chris Bryant to disclose a trip to Poland he had taken in 2019). Now, with uncharacteristic breakneck speed, it has come up with a 123-page consultation document on how the code of conduct should be reviewed. Suffice to say it makes for rather concerning reading.
One of the main worries about what former speaker John Bercow described as the “Kafkaesque” system (despite never being investigated for alleged bullying by the Commissioner), is the lack of an appeals process – and the fact that Ms Stone appears to act as both prosecutor and judge.
Yet rather than reducing her role as investigator, decision-maker, presenter and adviser to the committee by introducing a more appellate system, the review appears to be proposing an extraordinary power grab.
Under standing orders that were established more than 20 years ago, Ms Stone had the right to refer any contentious cases, such as Mr Paterson’s, to an independent investigatory panel. Astonishingly, the review is now recommending “that the provision should be removed from the standing order”, arguing that the committee of seven MPS and seven lay people represents the only right of appeal an MP needs. Yet if the Commissioner is advising the committee on her own investigation, how on earth can it claim to be independently minded?
There is thankfully going to be a judge-led review of all the procedures, but whichever legal eagle is appointed might like to take a closer look at paragraph 58 of the consultation document, which proposes “making it an investigable breach of the code for a member to subject anyone to unreasonable and excessive personal attack in any medium”, in a bid to bring the House into line with the devolved bodies. It further suggests that the commissioner should investigate whether “offending behaviour has occurred in a committee or a division lobby”.
Not only would this amount to a total undermining of the speaker of the House of Commons, who is – and should remain – the ultimate arbiter of MPS’ behaviour, but it would surely also be in direct contravention of Article 9 of the Bill of Rights?
The parliamentary privilege enshrined in the words: “That the freedom of speech and debates or proceedings in Parliament ought not to be impeached or questioned in any court or place out of Parliament,” is central to our democracy. It ensures that MPS have the freedom to speak without fear or favour.
Is the committee seriously suggesting that the Commissioner, of all people, should extend her remit to policing the language used in select committees?
By their very definition, these forums for scrutiny of those at the highest echelons of public life – including the prime minister – depend on aggressive questioning to elicit the answers the voters demand.
In what possible way would the public be served by having these meetings turned into anodyne talking shops where MPS are fearful of minding their Ps and Qs?
Of course, we are all for politicians disagreeing agreeably and in the wake of the deaths of Jo Cox and Sir David Amess, there is certainly a strong case for detoxifying political discourse. But surely the perception of the “unreasonableness or excessiveness” of a personal attack is a purely subjective one – and largely dictated these days by the response on social media, which we all know is rabidly Left-wing. That’s why Angela Rayner gets to keep her job after calling Tories “scum” but Boris Johnson is constantly told to mind his far less aggressive language.
The Commissioner is in no better position than you or I to judge what is or isn’t unreasonable or excessive. What is she going to be basing her decision to investigate on, complaints by the general public? The Guardian? Twitter? All this does is expose MPS to further mischief-making.
Moreover, the power in such cases shouldn’t be held by a commissioner or any other unelected representative, but by the electorate.
The Conservative MP Sir Desmond Swayne was right this week to pour scorn on another attempt at control freakery by the committee in proposing that MPS should “demonstrate anti-discriminatory attitudes and behaviours through the promotion of anti-racism, inclusion and diversity”. Note the use of the term “anti-racism”, a Black Lives Matter construct which suggests that not being racist is not enough, you have to be “anti-racist”. What does this actually mean in practice – the mandatory taking of the knee by every MP in the Commons?
As Sir Desmond pointed out on Thursday: “The principle of democracy is undermined by the requirement that we may be required to subscribe to behaviours to promote certain attitudes. I hope that my constituents never elect a racist or a misogynist, but they have a right to do so.”
There are some good recommendations in this review, including a new contract for MPS undertaking outside work, increasing from six to 12 months the period during which lobbying is banned following receipt of a payment from an outside interest, and introducing a new “safe harbour” provision so MPS can be protected from investigation for potential breaches of the code of conduct if they consult officials before taking up a role. But the others I have highlighted point to virtue-signalling and knee-jerk overkill.
You do not protect democracy by undermining it. We need our MPS to be straight but they do not have to be saints. And the Commissioner certainly doesn’t deserve to be deified.