............................................................................... ON THE RECORD RECORDED FROM TRANSMISSION: BBC-1 DATE: 30.10.94 ............................................................................... JOHN HUMPHRYS: How do we want our politicians to behave? Honestly, of course, but should they change the way they conduct their affairs inside and outside parliament in the wake of all the allegations we've been hearing. I'll be talking to politicians representing the three parties and three different generations and trying to see where the common ground lies. That's On The Record after the news read by Moira Stuart. NEWS HUMPHRYS: But first - yes, you've guessed it - sleaze. But let's take our minds away for the moment from paying for questions or not paying for posh hotels and look at what the Nolan Commission might come up with. Its task is to draw up new guidelines to tell MPs and public servants of all sorts how they ought to behave. To consider that we've invited three politicians who represent not only the three main parties but three different generations: Roy Hattersley, in his sixties, just, elder statesmen, former deputy leader of the Labour Party who will NOT be returning to Westminster after the next election; Alex Carlile, in his forties, a Liberal Democrat who has every intention of coming back; and Alan Duncan, in his thirties, the new boy who came in with the last intake and who's already had personal experience of losing a job because of what was in the newspapers. Let's begin, gentlemen, by asking you what ought to happen now. We'll look at the future, in a moment. What ought to happen now, Roy Hattersley, in this latest round of allegations? ROY HATTERSLEY MP: I want, above all, the Nolan Committee to recommend and Parliament to accept that Members of Parliament must not use their jobs in Parliament to argue for, advocate or lobby on behalf of outside interests - companies or Governments. The thing that concerns me - more than anything else - more than hotel bills, more than personal conduct, is the lobbying activity. The man or woman who takes money not to speak for his Party or his Constituency but for an interest. HUMPHRYS: I want to come back to that in a bit more detail. But, immediately, what should be happening, do you think - now? HATTERSLEY: Well, the Privileges Committee ought to have its meetings in public and the specific cases should be dealt with by the Privileges Committee in a way which satisfies the people outside Parliament. Parliament's got to learn that the conduct of Members is not just a matter for Members, it's a matter for the whole country. HUMPHRYS: Do you think we're not getting at the truth, at the moment, then? HATTERSLEY: Well, it's always difficult to be sure you're getting the truth. And there's...I've never been afraid of the adage - there's an old cliche about justice must be seen to be done. And, whilst it's done in some sort of secrecy, neither you nor I, or the people watching this
programme can be sure that we're getting the truth. HUMPHRYS: Sir Robin Butler is a very distinguished figure? HATTERSLEY: Well, Sir Robin Butler, in my view, is making a terrible mistake by identifying himself so closely with the Government. I've never known a Permanent Secretary of any sort - let alone the most senior Permanent Secretary - who, for instance, has allowed himself to be used as a character reference for a Minister. I've never known a Permanent Secretary who allowed the Prime Minister to hide behind him. I think it's a very great mistake for the Civil Service to get into this position. HUMPHRYS: Alex Carlile? ALEX CARLILE MP: Well I think the Butler inquiry was a very odd way of carrying out an inquisition into something which needs objective judgment and the examination of witnesses. That sort of private inquiry is entirely unsatisfactory. I think, three things should happen now. First, the Select Committee on Members' Interests should meet in public to hear evidence in relation to the allegations concerning Neil Hamilton. Secondly, the Committee of Privileges should meet in public to hear the allegations which have been placed before it. And, thirdly, the Nolan Commission should have as its early priority the production of a clear code of conduct for MPs and later for other people in public life. The bottom line has to be that an MP should be there exercising his or her own independent discretion and judgment. It appears that there may have been cases in which an MP's discretion and judgment has been led by money, rather than their own careful and objective opinion. Apparently, we need a Commission now to help us out of that trap. HUMPHRYS: Alan Duncan? ALAN DUNCAN MP: The first thing we should all do is just settle down. I think, this whole frenzy has gone quite over the top. But, if people want reassurance, then, reassurance is what they should get and the Nolan Committee should be allowed to get on with its work and draw up those procedures, with which it has been entrusted to study. HUMPHRYS: But, that's not looking at the specifics. What about what Roy Hattersley says? DUNCAN: No. Well, on the specifics, I mean, I think, again, a lot of these stories have been completely blown up, they've been one-sided. If we wanted to throw mud at Labour on questions of sleaze, we could do it just as well and we could make it stick - probably even better. But, frankly, that's not very good for Parliament and I think there is a danger in the Nolan Committee that it will begin to tell Parliament what sort of Parliament it should have. And I think we should resist that. HUMPHRYS: Let's come back to that, in a moment, with the Nolan Committee. Just another thought about Sir Robin Butler. Is he the right man to be doing what he has been doing? DUNCAN: Well, as the senior Civil Servant he is responsible for overseeing the procedures for the conduct of Ministerial behaviour and that's exactly what he did. And to try and impugn his good name, as Roy Hattersley has done... HATTERSLEY: No, I'm not at all. CARLILE: It is totally unprecedented for the Cabinet Secretary to carry out an inquiry which should be carried out by a Committee of Parliament or now, the Nolan Commission has been reported by an outside and independent body. And, nobody is going to be satisfied whether a Member of Parliament or members of the public by that sort of inquiry. HUMPHRYS: He's not a judge, after all, is he? He's not a trained inquisitor. DUNCAN: No, but trouble is, the Press are behaving as if they were and I think they are judging Members of Parliament on rules and procedures which appear to be criminal when, in fact, in the case of backbenchers are just technical. If anything, technical breaches of high..
of rules of high standards which Parliament itself has said - which is why the Committee of Privileges is the right forum for looking at.... HUMPHRYS: Let's look at the broader issues, now - where the Nolan Committee might be going and what it ought to be looking at, and look at the sort of issues that, I daresay, your constituents are worried about. Now, let's take the simplest one first. Perhaps, it's the simplest anyway. Should MPs have other jobs outside their job in Westminster, Roy Hattersley? HATTERSLEY: I think, many of them should and I think it would be absurd to try and prevent that from happening. I think, very many Members of Parliament are better Members of Parliament for having jobs outside. HUMPHRYS: Why? HATTERSLEY: Because they get some experience of the world outside, rather than the cloistered atmosphere of Westminster. HUMPHRYS: But they're not in Westminster all the time. They talk to lots of other people. You see lots of other people, in the normal part of the... HATTERSLEY: But, they don't get the experience which I think is enormously helpful for a Member of Parliament and you can't expect Members of Parliament to do anything else, or many of them to do anything else. What they must do is have the right sort of jobs. Now, the right sort of jobs are jobs which do not require them to compromise their Parliamentary position. The wrong sort of job is when it's possible for someone to say because he did that he advocated the cause of an outside interest and he's paid by that outside interest and we, therefore, suspect he's a professional advocate on their behalf. That's the sort of job they shouldn't have. HUMPHRYS: But a lot of your constituents say "Look, you're paid thirty-two thousand pounds a year, which may not be a fortune but which is a perfectly good living wage for most people anyway. We expect you to do this job full time. Of course you can go and find out lots of other things, you can talk to as many people as you like in the normal course of conducting your affairs as an MP, but why on earth should you be anything else other than an MP?" HATTERSELY: Well it maybe some of my constituents think that. None of them have ever said it to me. I actually have a rather visible old job outside parliament. I am a journalist, and therefore they know that I'm doing something else. Not in thirty years has anyone ever said to me, "You ought to be here rather than writing a column for the Guardian" - never. I think they understand, that very many Members of Parliament will want to do other things as well while they're in opposition - not all of them, and those who don't well, they want to make a full time whole career of it, they want to do nothing else, but I think the idea of saying you can't do anything else would be quite absurd. HUMPHRYS: Alex Carlile you're a lawyer. Why should you be a lawyer and an MP? CARLILE: Well, I'd like to approach the question from a slightly different angle from Roy. I think if MPs could do nothing else you'd get a very dull and largely unsuccessful type of person becoming an MP. The second point I'd like ... HUMPHRYS: Because why? CARLILE: Because I think, because I think ... HUMPHRYS: Being an MP is an entirely honourable and full time job isn't it? CARLILE: Well, it's an entirely honourable job, and it's a full time job and anybody who doesn't do the job properly will be kicked out by their constituents. But if you take my case, as you said I'm a lawyer. I told my potential constituents before I gained my seat from somebody else, from another party, quite clearly that I would carry on doing some work as a lawyer, and I have done throughout my time in parliament. I don't believe it's diminished my ability to be an MP. I believe actually that it's enhanced it because I've often been able to use my up to date legal knowledge to help constituents. But it's totally unrealistic to think that busy and in many cases successful people who have made their way in other spheres of life are just going to give them up completely when they go into parliament, as long as their first priority is doing the job of MP properly HUMPHRYS: But other people give up jobs to move to other jobs, and when you become an MP that is a new job. Why shouldn't you give up what you've been doing? You can go back to it if you get thrown out at the next election. CARLILE: I think being an MP is being an MP, I think it's very difficult to describe it either as a career - I've certainly never looked upon politics as a career .. HUMPHRYS: It is for an awful lot of people. CARLILE .. or indeed as a job in the conventional sense. As an MP you go to parliament for a number of months in the year to represent your constituents. If you're fortunate and your party gains power you may become a minister. HUMPHRYS: I think they reckon you represent them all the time, not just when you're in parliament, twelve months of the year in parliament. CARLILE: No, when you're not in parliament you represent them in another way. I spend my recess largely in my constituency dealing with the nuts and bolts of political life, but the suggestion that one should not be allowed to do anything else would in my view produce a very dull collection of people. I mean take Roy as an example. Why shouldn't Roy write for newspapers though it takes some time to do so, why shouldn't an MP who happens to have been a farmer when he got into parliament continue to own his land, and why shouldn't a lawyer carry on with a certain amount of legal practice as long as his independence is not compromised? Now being a businessman's a different issue. HUMPHRYS: Alan Duncan, you're a businessman., CARLILE: Well, I think one has to say why, because people who are businessmen and like many Tory MPs have strings of very well-paid directorships, see their work as an MP in financial terms, diminishing almost to nothing as compared with being an MP. DUNCAN: We all come to parliament representing interests of a sort be it our own experience, primarily of course the interests of our constituents, and the thinking which we bring to parliament, and I think the point you essentially made earlier is important, which is to look at those interests which are artificially accumulated on being elected to parliament which are paid for, for parliamentary purposes. Now this is the area where there is a grey area. Now as it happens I've been active in the oil business. I still retain some oil interests, so when there's something affecting oil I'm qualified to talk about it in the House, and it may be for instance that if there's an oil company with which I'm associated which doesn't like a piece of legislation that I will know what I'm talking about when that company says to me.. HUMPHRYS: And you'll lobby on its behalf? DUNCAN: Yes, but I will not be paid and frankly it's a rule I've always set myself to do that for parliamentary purposes. Now this should all be looked into I agree, but not amid this frenzy where we're trying to diminish the reputation of parliament by making it look corrupt where in my view it is not. HUMPHRYS: So you're happy with that role. Roy Hattersley, are you happy with the sort of thing Alan Duncan's just described? HATTERSLEY: Yes, I am. As long as you can trust Members of Parliament to draw the distinction between saying; I work for, let's say, a steel company and that means I know something about steel, but I'm not going to simply pursue the interests of my own company. HUMPHRYS: But Alan Duncan's just said he would pursue the interest - if I understood him correctly - of oil companies, or oil interests. DUNCAN: If I were convinced that what that oil company was saying was right, and I believed in myself that that was the right thing to do, then I'd do it. But to say that I would be bought by it would be absolutely wrong. The trouble is: how do you draw the rules? It's getting almost impossible. HATTERLSEY: One of the problems, indeed THE problem in my view, is that we've passed out of the era of self restraint. I remember when I was first a Member of Parliament, John Osborne - the Member for my home town of Sheffield, a member of the great steel family - Osbornes - said that he felt able to speak in the House of Commons on every subject except steel. But he didn't speak on steel because he was always afraid he would be speaking in a way which was in his interests, rather than the country's. HUMPHRYS: So the argument is: Alan Duncan shouldn't speak on oil. CARLILE: It's the amount of money involved, you see, that's the big problem. HATTERSLEY: Exactly, this has now expanded and extended in a way which no one thought possible. Thank God, it wasn't thirty years ago. CARLILE: There have been reports that some Conservative MPs are receiving fifty thousand, a hundred thousand pounds a year for Directorships and consultancies. That cannot be right becuase it removes the objectivity and MPs are there to take a bird's eye view of our national political life and you can't take a bird's eye view if you've being paid to look the other way sometimes. HUMPHRYS: You're described as running a consultancy company, I think, in the register of interests. DUNCAN: That is misleading for you to point that out in that way. HUMPHRYS: Well, no I'm just repeating.... DUNCAN: It's simply a name as a commercial vehicle for what is an oil broking activity, which is now actually not doing very much, at all. HUMPHRYS: So, if it were a consulting company, it wouldn't be right? DUNCAN: It's not a consulting company. I have never done anything as a consultant for Parliamentary purposes. And, as it happens, I wouldn't and the reason I don't is because, luckily, I can afford not to and this really brings us to the problem of the remuneration of MPs. HUMPHRYS: Well, but let's just pursue that, for a moment: the reason I don't is because I can afford not to, the implication is that if you couldn't afford not to, you would? DUNCAN: There are a lot of people who need to top up their salary as an MP, and unfortunately it has drawn a lot of them into doing so for Parliamentary purposes. That I agree is an area that has to be looked into. But to say that Parliament is really corrupted, or that these people have particularly changed their view of how they should vote in Parliament because of it, is, I think wrong. CARLILE: Oh, you know that's not right, Alan. You know that's not right. Your party is full of people...the Conservative Party is full of people whose activities in Parliament have as a major consideration the amount of money they earn from outside consultancies and Directorships. You only have to look at the Register of Members' Interests and that is the distinction between the Conservative Party and the other parties in the House. DUNCAN: But the whole Labour Party was born out of the working class interests, paid for and supported by the Trade Union movement. CARLILE: I'll leave that for Roy to defend. DUNCAN: That is the interest which gave birth to the whole political movement, which is the Labour Party. HUMPHRYS: But the MPs don't get paid by their respective unions, do they? I mean, all the money that goes to an MP, that comes from a union, goes to the constituency and not to the individual. DUNCAN: Well, may be that's even worse. HUMPHRYS: Well. HATTERSLEY: I know, Alan resents and I think he's tactically right to pretend to resent the political implications. But what he has to face as the cutting iron descends, is the problem is intensified because it's not just the isolated incidents, which we've talked about this morning. First of all, there'a a pattern of conduct, which has gone on for some time and secondly, there's the implication of the whole Government and the whole Conservative Party in this. I mean, some of the more sinister figures - at the background of these concerns - contribute very large sums of money to the Conservative Party. There's the problem, which I hope Nolan is going to look at, of ex-Conservative Ministers who've privatised industries then getting very well-paid jobs on the Boards of those industries. There's the problem of patronage. The Tory Party placing its own nominees - Party nominees - in outside jobs with enormous.... DUNCAN: Let me just answer that. HUMPHRYS: Let Alan Duncan answer that. DUNCAN: I think there's a lot of humbug here because it's really suggesting that Conservatives are bad, everyone else good. Let me give you another example which, I think, would readdress the balance. Tony Blair received seventy-nine thousand pounds for his Leadership campaign, as yet undeclared. The man, supposedly, who organised that money, Mr Barry Cox, former Director of LWT has a son called Buster, who is now being given preferential treatment to join the Bar of Tony Blair's wife, Cherie Booth - a unique position. Now, why is just... CARLILE: You know nothing about the Bar, Alan. DUNCAN: I most certainly do. Okay, let me tell you. Let me.... CARLILE: That is really. You know he tells us we shouldn't be indulging in this and then he sinks to the absolute pits. I happen to have been at the Bar for twenty-four years and I know that in Chambers, of course when people want to go to the Bar, if they have a good academic pedigree - sometimes, even if they're related or know well someone in Chambers - it can help them. But, the idea that any Chambers as reputable as the one he's talked about - and, I'm defending someone not of my own Party - would allow a consideration like that to dictate: that someone's who is not worthy of entry should be given entry is wrong and is outrageous and unjustified. DUNCAN: In which case Alex Carlile and, more importantly, Tony Blair and his wife should answer this question: why did this man bypass all the Procedures Committees in that Chambers by which people are normally admitted to. HUMPHRYS: Well, look, he isn't here. We can't ask him and I think... HATTERSLEY: Well, just one thing, against the Leader of my Party. I mean, what we've just seen a moment ago is really what gets politics a bad name. What the people outside, who are much more intelligent than Mr Duncan realises, now understand is that Mr Duncan had his little gem prepared, waiting under the table to bring out at the last minute to smear the television screen. It demeans your programme, as well as demeaning politics. HUMPHRYS: It has of course been reported in the newspapers. CARLILE: That esoteric gem from a remote corner of the Temple really doesn't do anything to add to our debate. HUMPRYS: Well, neither Tony Blair nor Cherie Blair is here, we can't put it to them. So, I don't think we ought to pursue that. Let's try and narrow the field down a little bit: of what jobs MPs ought to be allowed to do. We touched on that. You said it's alright, so long as it clearly doesn't interfere. So long as they don't use those jobs to further their own financial interests. Now, what about lobbying? And we all know, I think, what we mean, broadly, by lobbying, although we can break that down a bit maybe. But Roy Hattersley, should people who are MPs sit on the Boards of companies that are lobbying organisations? HATTERSLEY: There's only one possible answer to that question: certainly not. I think, it's absolutely intolerable because what they're there for is to bring pressure to bear on Governments, on Ministers, on Public Departments. And the idea that a Member of Parliament, with all the advantages that he or she possesses should do that is absurd. You know, when the Committee who are examining these things, looked at lobbyists, I think two years ago, they said that a company which wanted something from the Government, obviously had enormous advantages if it had on its side an MP who could get easy access and make its point in Parliament, having announced that there was this his advantage then the Committee decided not to prohibit lobbyists and lobbying and lobbyists and lobbying ought to be prohibited in Parliament - full stop. HUMPHRYS: Alan Duncan? DUNCAN: I don't think lobbying should be prohibited because that is part of politics and is a legitimate part of politics. HATTERSLEY: What about paid lobbyists? DUNCAN: I agree. I think, it is improper for a Member of Parliament to sit on the Board of a lobbying company. I agree with that and I think that that should be studied. HUMPHRYS: So, Angela Rumbold shouldn't have done what she did? DUNCAN: I think that this grey area which, so far, has been subject to the House of Commons rules must be looked into and I've always thought that but I don't think it merits the sort of frenzied attacks it's getting, at the moment. It should be conducted as a sensible debate and we must look properly at the way Parliament should work, for fear of actually destroying its reputation. HUMPHRYS: But just to deal with the Angela Rumbold thing, she did resign eventually from that board, but she was on it as an MP. You're saying she was wrong to be on it, she shouldn't have been on it as an MP. DUNCAN: What I'm saying is that while the rules are there and permitted it is not wrong, but I question whether the rules should permit it. CARLILE: It's not right either. I think he's saying it's not wrong but it's not right either, which is a muddled argument. HUMPHRYS: Is that what you're saying? DUNCAN: It happens to be my view that I don't think that Members of Parliament should sit on lobbying companies and be paid for it. HUMPHRYS: And you're saying Alex Carlile it clearly shouldn't be allowed? CARLILE: I think lobbying should be allowed. I find lobbying ... HUMPHRYS: No, no sitting on the board of a.... CARLILE: That certainly shouldn't be allowed, and Alan Duncan's answer which I understood as being yes in the sense of no, or no in the sense of yes, really is fudging the question, but lobbying as a general.. (INTERRUPTION) CARLILE: But lobbying as a general proposition, lobbying can be very valuable to MPs. There are organisations for example in the charitable sector and some in the commercial sector which have superb lobbying facilities and are very helpful to MPs, but lobbying for money is illegitimate. Roy Hattersley incidentally who's one of the great experts in this country on a good lunch, would probably confirm that one of the last thing MPs want is yet another free lunch, and the lobbying organisations which imagine that MPs are tempted by yet another lunch or dinner are probably sadly mistaken. HUMPHRYS: But you wrote yourself Roy Hattersley with some enthusiasm of the lobbying efforts of the MP who supports the - who lobbies for the Police Federation. What's the difference between lobbying openly as he does, and you approve of this for the Police Federation, and for say, Mr Al-Fayed, so long as you declare your interests pretty clearly. HATTERSLEY This proves how objective I am even towards those companies that employ me. I wrote critically of the Member of Parliament who lobbies for the Police Federation, saying it was an honourable cause, but he was representing the people of Uxbridge not the boys in blue, Unfortunately the sentence of criticism was cut out. HUMPHRYS: Well, we weren't to know that, so ..... HATTERSLEY: So don't say I support the people who are paying me, I ...... HUMPHRYS: Right. so the Daily Mail got that wrong? HATTERSELY: Well, the Daily Mail cut that out. HUMPHRYS: Cut it out and therefore distorted what you meant to say, so in other words he ought not, that particular MP, ought not to be lobbying for the interests of the Police Federation. HATTERSLEY: I think it is quite absurd. He behaved perfectly honourably within the rules. He behaved perfectly normally according to parliamentary standards. There's nothing we can criticise him for as far as the rules of the House are concerned, but I quoted in the piece the number of times he gets up in parliament, and says "On behalf of the police I want to say this, the police's view on that is this" I don't think anyone should be there representing a specific interest, certainly not for money. I think they should be there working for their...... CARLILE: .... respect in the House anyway. I mean it's rather odd that the Police Federation believe that it helps them to have, I think it's now two people isn't it, who stand up one on either side and give pat representations for the police. HUMPHRYS: But don't you do the same for the BMA. You lobby on behalf of the BMA don't you - the General Medical Council? CARLILE: No, no, I am a lay member of the General Medical Council. I've never lobbied for the General Medical Council. I act as the unpaid parliamentary advisor to the Overseas Doctors' Association, and I exercise my judgement raising issues which are of interest and importance to overseas doctors, overseas qualified doctors who are twenty-seven per cent of the doctors of the National health Service. HUMPHRYS: The distinction you would draw is that you don't get paid for it in the first place. CARLILE: I don't get paid for it and they will tell you that I have always said to them, I've often said to them they're wrong about issues they wish to take up and I've always said to them I will not take up an issue unless I believe it to be true. DUNCAN: But may I just say, that Roy Hattersley said that the spokesman for the Police Federation works within the rules even though he's paid. Indeed, and so have all Members of Parliament who have been very heavily accused in the press over the last few weeks. We have to look at the rules, not reduce it to all these accusations. HUMPHRYS: Right. In the last couple of minutes then let's look at the rules. The rule changes that Nolan ought to come up with are what, Roy Hattersley in a couple of sentences? HATTERSLEY: First of all that Members of Parliament must not take money for lobbying, that lobbying is not a proper Member of Parliament's function. HUMPHRYS: Do the other two agree with that incidentally before I move on? DUNCAN: I do not consider it falls within the remit of the Nolan Commission to tell parliament how it should behave. This is for parliament to decide.... CARLILE: Ah, that's really ducking the issue. HATTERSLEY: This actually John, it's the most important question of all. It's - some people and Alan Duncan's got into bad habits very quickly in his parliamentary life - who actually believe that parliament is a closed institution and that we can run our own affairs. Parliament belongs to the nation and the nation has a right to have a view and indeed to determine how members of parliament behave.. HUMPHRYS: Okay, the other rule then. HATTERSLEY: The other rule is that ministers should not be allowed to serve on the boards of companies they've privatised within a prescribed period, I would say ten years. HUMPHRYS: Five years, ten years? HATTERSLEY: I would say ten years. HUMPHRYS: Ten years, right. CARLILE: I think that parliament is now under a duty to show that for a change it can take good advice from outside. Lord Nolan has been chosen for his skill and his independence with his committee and I think that parliament would be a laughing stock if it failed to take in fully into account the findings. HUMPHRYS: Alan Duncan - the change, what change ought there to come out of this? DUNCAN: It is within the gift of parliament to heal itself and its own reputation by the way it behaves in parliament and by the way individuals behave. HUMPHRYS: Roy Hattersley's point that you don't own parliament, we own parliament? DUNCAN: You are right. Parliament is owned by the people, but it also has the right to reform itself, because any kind of artificial reform won't be sustained. The Nolan Committee of course can recommend what we should do, but in the end parliament is a sovereign body and the maker of laws is the only place that can decide how itself, how it itself will behavel. HUMPHRYS: Alan Duncan, Alex Carlile, Roy Hattersley, thank you all very much indeed.