Peers take the money but won’t admit it

Iwas intrigued to see all that excitement over the discovery, during the House of Lords Brexit debate, that its dozen or so members in receipt of EU pensions of up to £75,000 a year – including former Brussels commissioners, such as Lords Patten, Kinnock and Mandelson – are not bound by the normally strict rule that peers must declare a financial interest before speaking on any subject connected with it.

As long ago as 2004 I wrote about the persistent efforts made to query this by Lord Pearson of Rannoch, who had been formally instructed that he must always begin with a declaration of interest when speaking on issues relating to the disabled, because he had a mentally handicapped daughter.

Pearson argued that it was particularly relevant that former commissioners should declare their financial interest, because they were bound by a lifetime rule that if they ever said anything critical about the EU, they could be punished by losing the pension.

It was finally agreed that a subcommittee, chaired by a law lord, Lord Browne-Wilkinson, should consider the matter. They asked their chairman to draft a legal opinion, which concluded that being paid a Brussels pension did not qualify as a “financial interest”. When the four members of the committee agreed that they must vote on whether this should be accepted, they split 2-2. But Browne-Wilkinson ruled that, as chairman, he had an additional casting vote, and thus his opinion carried the day.

In 2007, thanks to Pearson and two former senior cabinet ministers, the issue arose again. This time a former Lord Chief Justice, Lord Woolf, was asked to pronounce on behalf of the Lords Privileges Committee. He recommended unequivocally that peers drawing an EU pension must whenever relevant declare it. But uniquely, the committee, which included Lord (Geoffrey) Howe, ruled that the learned judge’s opinion should be ignored.

Except in this column, neither of these two curious episodes were reported at the time. But as I have more recently observed, one of the hidden prices we have paid for being governed by the EU is that for years anything connected with “Europe” was generally regarded as too arcane and boring to be of any interest. It was good to see this issue at last arousing a little excitement.