On Sunday 17 May Andrew Marr discussed MPs expenses with Sir Alistair Graham, Lord Falconer and Richard Shepherd MP
Please note 'The Andrew Marr Show' must be credited if any part of this transcript is used.
Former Lord Chancellor, Lord Falconer, says some MPs could face a criminal investigation.
ANDREW MARR:
Former Lord Chancellor, Lord Falconer
First we're going to hear from Sir Alistair Graham.
Now he's the former Chairman of the Committee on Standards in Public Life with a ringside seat through the years when today's crisis was brewing.
And then on the 'what's next?' question, Lord Falconer, Charlie Falconer, former Lord Chancellor, piloted the Freedom of Information Act through the Lords.
That was the one that arguably led to all of this information being in the hands of the public.
And he's compared the scandal to "the toxic debt crisis" facing the banks. And with him, Richard Shepherd, who's a Conservative MP who's been a longstanding Freedom of Information campaigner, touted by some as a possible future Speaker.
Sir Alistair, first of all. You were there through the sort of key parts of the Blair years when a lot of people would say this culture of MP's claiming more and more and more was growing up.
Did you or did anybody else notice what was happening at the time?
SIR ALISTAIR GRAHAM:
Yes, I did. At the end of my three year term, I made a couple of important speeches in public saying that the key issue to deal with for the Committee on Standards in Public Life was a root and branch reform of the MP's expenses system and particularly concentrating on this issue that it's not enough to say they're within the rules if the rules themselves are wrong.
And that was the key issue that I suggested should be the next inquiry by the Committee of Standards after I had left, but you remember Blair took up to a year to appoint a successor to myself.
ANDREW MARR:
Did you go to him? Did you go to the Speaker at the time and say look, this is a problem. Frankly, you have to tackle it?
SIR ALISTAIR GRAHAM:
I didn't go to the Speaker. I did go to Gordon Brown. I had a series of meetings with Gordon Brown when he was Chancellor of the Exchequer and it was clear he was going to become the next Prime Minister.
He agreed that that would be a good issue for the Committee of Standards to look at. I raised this with the Cabinet Secretary, who was my main point of contact as Chairman of the Committee on Standards. He agreed.
My understanding - I can't prove it because I subsequently left - is that the person who stopped that inquiry from going ahead was Jack Straw. He was Leader of the House of Commons at the time, I think was genuinely concerned about a sort of febrile atmosphere on the Labour back benches, and the last thing that they wanted was a review of MP's expenses. So I did identify it. It could have happened in 2007 and how much better it would have been if it had.
ANDREW MARR:
But it runs back a lot beyond Jack Straw 2007, doesn't it? I mean this goes back many, many years.
SIR ALISTAIR GRAHAM:
Well I suspect it goes past to when it's been very difficult to improve MP's pay, even perhaps as far back as incomes policy times when the nod and the wink was given either by chief whips or leaders of parties to say well it's very difficult to improve your basic pay, but we can do something about the allowances.
ANDREW MARR:
Do you think it's fair to say there is no such thing as self-regulation?
SIR ALISTAIR GRAHAM:
Well self-regulation leads to this insularity and the privileged position MP's have been in fixing their own rules, which really was a dreadful state of affairs.
ANDREW MARR:
Everyone's waiting for the report of your successor. It's got to be a dramatic change now, doesn't it?
SIR ALISTAIR GRAHAM:
It's got to be dramatic change. And you know I agree with Nick Clegg, Frank Field and all those others, it has to go way beyond the expenses system into how our parliamentary system operates. And I mean I think David Cameron's right to pinpoint do we need the number of MP's?
The last inquiry I did, we asked David Butler, Nuffield College Oxford, to do some review about the size of constituencies, and we've got the wide spectrum in terms of numbers of population from the Isle of Wight, from some of these tiny inner city constituencies and we really could reduce the numbers of Members of Parliament without dramatic change just having the same number of electorate in each constituency.
And he pointed how this should be done, and I recommended as part of the report we did on the electoral commission that this should be a priority for the government.
ANDREW MARR:
When it comes to cutting the number of MP's or reforming the expenses system radically, we're still left with the problem, aren't we, that turkeys don't vote for Christmas, and actually getting it through the House of Commons is the big problem?
SIR ALISTAIR GRAHAM:
And also the issue of why we haven't developed - and this has been very depressing for me - across party approach. I mean in some other countries, with crises of this scale and profundity, we would have a national government of some sort.
ANDREW MARR:
So what do you … What are the two or three things that you think need to happen now first and foremost?
SIR ALISTAIR GRAHAM:
Well I think we do need, the public need to see a cross party approach. And I think … I have to say that Gordon Brown with his YouTube initiative was a disaster to achieving that, but I think there should be an attempt by the three party leaders to come forward with a prescription of reform, which may go beyond the expenses issue, to restore some faith in our parliamentary system. I think that's absolutely critical because there will be a rush to extremist parties if we don't get this right.
ANDREW MARR:
For now, Alistair Graham, thank you very much indeed. Can I turn to Lord Falconer and Richard Shepherd? Lord Falconer, you piloted the Freedom of Information Act through the House of Lords. Candidly, do you think the political class realised what was going to happen as a result?
LORD FALCONER:
I think they were aware of what the likely outcome was because there was an issue even when it was going through initially as to whether parliament should be excluded and a decision was made not to exclude parliament. People wouldn't have envisaged the level of disclosure that has now taken place, but the consequence of keeping parliament in was that what's now happening became possible.
I mean in a way if there had been freedom of information twenty years ago, this would never have happened because everybody would have known the transparency about expenses. So in a way the problem is it wasn't there a lot earlier.
ANDREW MARR:
Do you think that the political class - and I know that you're no longer an active politician but I suppose in many peoples' minds you're associated with the political class - do you think they've got it? Do they understand the level of public anger?
LORD FALCONER:
Well I think if we haven't got it, we're in very big trouble because I believe that the abusive cases -and there are very many abusive cases - now define in the public mind what the political class - and I include myself in this - are like. And unless we, the political class, together put forward immediately proposals and change our behaviour, then the public will turn their back not just on the main political parties but also on parliament as a whole.
ANDREW MARR:
I think the problem in a way is that I mean you all must have known some of these things that were going on and it's not until the headlines have erupted that politicians have come out and said these kinds of things.
LORD FALCONER:
Completely right, and that is the problem. And, therefore, you know trust has gone. You need trust back urgently. It takes years to get trust back. The starting point, I think, on a cross-party basis is that politicians need to say these are the urgent interim steps that need to be taken, but that needs to be in agreement across party.
ANDREW MARR:
Richard Shepherd, you have been campaigning on these matters for a long time. Did MP's in the Commons understand what was going to happen? Did they first of all feel embarrassed way back about what they were claiming? I mean were conversations going on saying, "This is a bit difficult, we know this is difficult, but …"?
RICHARD SHEPHERD:
I hesitate only on that because I'm not necessarily the best lightning rod (laughter) as to what was going on.
ANDREW MARR:
Shady conversations behind the toilet sheds or …
RICHARD SHEPHERD:
But there's no question that the expansion, which was evident as the rules were changing - communications allowances … Lots of things emerged when I first was elected. You weren't allowed to charge newspapers.
I only discovered about that, for instance, when Andrew McKinley said he had only just discovered it - like that. Food allowances - none of that was available, the assumption being that you put in a hotel bill for your visit to London and that was clear and easy. This has grown like topsy, and it's grown like topsy because of secrecy.
I absolutely agree with Lord Falconer, the Commons certainly knew that the House of Commons was to remain a public authority for the purposes of the Act and the consequences of it. I served on the scrutiny of that bill in the Public Administration Committee.
ANDREW MARR:
But the Commons, and indeed the Speaker, fought very, very hard to keep as much secret as possible.
RICHARD SHEPHERD:
(over) Yuh, I mean that's the outrage. And this was a concerted effort quite clearly now, looking back at the time.
The problem with the Commons is of course no-one likes to ever criticise anything, and particularly where the Chair is concerned, because of course the Chair has the power to call you and your only asset in parliament is your voice - certainly as a backbencher. So there's a timidity about that.
There's lots of good people in the House of Commons, there's no question about that, and there is a sense of public ethos.
ANDREW MARR:
But all the party leaders candidly have known what's going on, including in the Conservative Party, and turned blind eyes to this. Don't you think?
RICHARD SHEPHERD:
(over) No. Well one of the difficulties … The whipping system should have alerted them, of course. There's no easy scrutiny of your colleagues' expenses, so the global figures is all one sees, and you've seen that rise exponentially almost in the last eleven years particularly because it's a new type of MP has come into the House of Commons.
So there's no way in which you say, "Oh that one seems a bit racy there" or "That one seems a bit racy there". So there's no collective sort of suppression.
ANDREW MARR:
Yes. What do you think is going to happen to the Speaker now?
RICHARD SHEPHERD:
Well what is going to happen, there is, obviously a motion has been tabled. I think the tradition was that that is a matter that should be addressed immediately by terms of a debate and vote in the House.
We had an incident (Lord Mazeby as he now is, Michael Morris as he was) during Maastricht, had a no confidence motion - this is only a Deputy Speaker admittedly - raised against him. And in point of fact it was held immediately and Michael Martin survived the vote.
ANDREW MARR:
So there will be a challenge? People have said that you might be a candidate to replace the Speaker if he does go.
RICHARD SHEPHERD:
I was a candidate the last time and it makes it look as if what I say is self-serving. I was supported and that's why - by Martin Bell and by Tony Wright - and it was the standing and identification with them that encouraged me to go forward. I'm older than Speaker Martin now and I think my time is well past, but yes I did stand.
ANDREW MARR:
Did stand last time. Do you think this is going to end with prosecutions, Lord Falconer?
LORD FALCONER:
I don't know. I think what is now going to happen is the police will investigate. That investigation will take time. If there are prosecutions, the trials will take time. This is an issue that is going to be with us not just when the Daily Telegraph stop running their stories or the Publication Invoice which takes place in July.
It's going to be with us for eighteen months or two years. That is why it is so important that the politicians as a group acknowledge the effect on public trust and take specific measures now on an interim basis to reduce the damage that has been done because nobody will believe what the politicians say until there are active steps being taken.
ANDREW MARR:
Well let's talk about some of these active steps because among them you've got politicians who've been suspended from the parliamentary Labour Party because of the extreme gravity of their alleged offences …
LORD FALCONER:
Yeah.
ANDREW MARR:
… and yet there seems no way to get them out of the House of Commons. How do you regard something like Nick Clegg's idea that there should be some kind of recall mechanism?
LORD FALCONER:
I am against the idea of a constituency recall because I believe that there are certain times when Members of Parliament have got to do unpopular things and that they should be given some time in relation to that. I think it's for each individual party to …
ANDREW MARR:
Do you think these two particular people can remain as MP's all the way through to an election in June next year?
LORD FALCONER:
Well it's for their individual Labour Parties to decide what happens to them. They must make their own decision about whether or not it's in the interests of parliament and their constituencies for them to stay. But the implication of your question is if they want to stay, can they be removed? Answer: no, they cannot.
ANDREW MARR:
Richard Shepherd? Same sort of …?
RICHARD SHEPHERD:
We know there's going to be an election within twelve months. There's still further exposures to come about. There's the full publication of all expenses attached to the job of being a Member of Parliament. And I think incidentally on freedom of information, we'll see an enormous drop in the claims put in in this coming year, and that was always the intention of the freedom of information legislation.
ANDREW MARR:
Are you happy with what David Cameron's doing on this?
RICHARD SHEPHERD:
Well I'm grateful for the leadership and sharpness of response. It shows that the leader of my party, and certainly having heard …
ANDREW MARR:
(over) The Liberal Democrats.
RICHARD SHEPHERD:
… the Liberal Democrats, that they are seized of just how this is. And I don't doubt the Prime Minister after this last week is totally seized of it as well. But this is a matter that has to also be done rationally and the examination of this rationally. I don't like show trials in themselves.
ANDREW MARR:
No.
RICHARD SHEPHERD:
There is a due process and that's why I want Sir Graham's type approach where this is firmly stated in public reports. To self-judge ourselves gives enormous power to individuals within whips office and party structures.
ANDREW MARR:
Self-regulation does not exist is my view anyway.
RICHARD SHEPHERD:
I agree with that, absolutely.
ANDREW MARR:
Thank you gentlemen all.
INTERVIEW ENDS
Please note "The Andrew Marr Show" must be credited if any part of this transcript is used.
NB: This transcript was typed from a recording and not copied from an original script.
Because of the possibility of mis-hearing and the difficulty, in some cases, of identifying individual speakers, the BBC cannot vouch for its accuracy
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