Sir Bernard Jenkin
MP for Harwich and North Essex · Conservative · United Kingdom
“Despite long and historic disagreements between successive UK Governments and Israel, it has remained a steadfast ally in counter-terrorist efforts to keep our people safe in this country. We are now embarked, it seems, on a full diplomatic dispute with Israel and tit-for-tat expulsions of diplomats.”
“I would very much have liked to have discussed the medical devices questions arising from the Bill. The Minister made an incredibly short speech about that important matter. It is quite clear that these provisions are part of the covert dynamic alignment with the EU and the covert rejoin agenda being pursued by the Government.”
“I am as keen as anybody to get on with discussing the Health Bill, but this topic is too serious an opportunity to miss, given that the hon. Member for Leeds Central and Headingley (Alex Sobel) has raised such important issues. I really commend his speech and his initiative. Everybody should read it.”
“The Minister shakes her head, but she is yet to give a good reason as to why this measure is in the Bill. When we had an Adjournment debate in July with the then Minister for patient safety, the hon.”
“The chief executive of the CQC is wantonly conflicted in terms of looking after the safe space, so he cannot be the one left in charge of that function. The real point here is that we are missing the opportunity to save so much money. Governments keep having public inquiries.”
“I asked the Minister, in a letter I sent her after the debate in July, to give us the information on how much the transfer of all this would cost. Nothing has arrived. I never had a reply to the letter. Of course, the Government have changed the Minister and the new Minister for patient safety, the right hon.”
The complete record
Every one of 4,591 lines we hold for Sir Bernard Jenkin, in date order, each linked to its source. Free to read, in full, without an account. Page 75 of 92.
“Rather than asking the defence chiefs to give the Prime Minister an assurance that, as he put it in his carefully chosen words, “we have the manpower we need for the current operations”, will he ask them whether we have the manpower successfully to deliver the current strategy? Were he to do so, I think that he might get a different answer.”
“On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Today the Ministry of Defence issued a written statement. While I have no doubt that that was perfectly in order, the statement contained the sensational announcement that the Government were making preparations for a strategic defence review. They have resisted calls for such a review for some considerable time. While this may be within the letter of your admonition that the House of Commons should hear major policy announcements first, Mr. Speaker, do you really believe that it is within the spirit of your admonition? Are there any means that you can use to bring a Minister to the House to make an oral statement? Alternatively, will you allow an urgent question on the topic tomorrow?”
“Members a great deal of anxiety, while also giving comfort to IPSA and the commissioner that the Member was capable of dealing with the matter in an informed and practical way, and was not being left on his own or facing huge legal expenses.”
“That would be simple to arrange, and my two amendments seek to put those obligations on IPSA and the commissioner to ensure that that advice is afforded to Members without additional and unnecessary expense. That would avoid the situation wherein hon. Members are left completely isolated in a system that they are fighting. The accusations may be unjust or arise out of a misunderstanding, but we still ought to have a means of providing, in a fairly relaxed way, relatively informal advice. Obviously it remains open to a Member of Parliament to obtain formal legal advice if he or she so chooses, but I hope that my proposal would save right hon. and hon.”
“I have great sympathy with that view, and now that, between IPSA and the commissioner, we are having a separation between the management of rules, and the investigation of and adjudication on breaches, it should be simple for IPSA and/or the commissioner—here I link my amendment 45 with my amendment 46, which seeks to amend clause 8—to ensure that a servant of IPSA or a Clerk in the service of the House, which means someone who does not cost the Member money and does not cost the House of Commons additional money, is made available to the Member who is subject to an investigation or to a direction by the commissioner under clause 8. There should be an informal way of ensuring that right hon. and hon. Members have access to independent advice without having to resort to expensive lawyers.”
“I had found that I had inadvertently breached the rules, so I went to him to present him with a letter, which was, in effect, a self-referral. He said that he was minded not to accept it, but when I asked him what action he would take, he said that he would wait for a complaint. I then asked him what he would advise me to do, to which he said that he could not advise me, because he might receive a complaint and have to adjudicate on the case. I asked him which servant of the House of Commons could advise me on the matter, but he told me that nobody could. I then asked whether I should seek legal advice—that seems to relate to the import of my right hon. Friend’s amendment—but he said that his body discourages from people taking legal advice because it makes its proceedings so much more protracted.”
“I will not detain the House for long, and I apologise for not having been present at the beginning of our proceedings—although not so that I could have moved the amendment in my name in the previous group; I had no intention of wasting the House’s time on that, given the Secretary of State’s statement that he was withdrawing the clause concerned. My amendment in this group echoes the concern of my right hon. Friend the Member for North-West Hampshire (Sir George Young) that Members subject to the procedures of IPSA and the commissioner should be properly informed of what is going on and have proper advice. My particular concern relates to a personal experience, which I discussed in abstract terms with the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards, so as to avoid lobbying him about a complaint that might arrive in his in-tray.”
“I did not say “informal legal advice”, but “advice”. In fact, my amendment referred to “advice and counsel”. Let us suppose a Clerk of the House was allocated the duty of advising Members who were the subject of complaints, or of advising Members on how to conduct themselves if they believe that they have broken the rules. It seems quite reasonable that an hon. Member should have someone in the House to turn to. They might well say, “Well, in your circumstances you should go and get legal advice,” but we should avoid somebody’s having to take that step initially as it might be quite a low-level complaint. There should be some way of dealing with low-level complaints without resorting to lawyers.”
“As the right hon. Gentleman rightly said, I do not intend that the Exchequer should end up providing legal aid to Members of Parliament. I am talking about practical, reasonably expert advice that might result in a Clerk of the House saying, “Go and get a lawyer. You’re in trouble.” Before reaching that stage, there should be provision for some advice. If I may say so, the exception for Members of Parliament is justified in this case, given that we are creating offences that apply only to Members of Parliament, who are particularly vulnerable to attack from members of the public who may have grudges against us for some peculiar reason.”
“In view of the Secretary of State’s assurances, perhaps my amendment could be dealt with administratively in the House rather than by legislation. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.”
“I am out of practice again, Mrs. Heal. I wish to speak to amendments 65, 66, 64 and 67, which relate to privilege and should be read in conjunction with amendment 94, which will be debated under clause 10, should we get that far.”
“The explanatory notes continue: “It is not to be limited to acting only following an investigation by the Commissioner or a recommendation from the IPSA.” If we believe that we are sovereign, how could any implication in the Bill limit what the House of Commons does? The very fact that the Government have sought to put this provision into the Bill at all underlines the weakness of their case that so much of this is justiciable: they are putting provisions in legislation to try to prevent the actions of the House from becoming justiciable and limited.”
“I have also proposed a similar amendment to clause 7, for debate on Report, which would mean that all investigations would be regarded as proceedings in Parliament. My amendment 64 would remove clause 8(8). I have read subsection (8) many times, but I simply do not quite understand what it means. It seems to me to have been drafted highly ambiguously—although that probably means that parliamentary counsel are much cleverer people than I. However, even the explanatory notes say that subsection (8) “preserves the right of the House of Commons to exercise any disciplinary powers which it may have.” I do not know why we need to legislate in the Bill to allow a sovereign House of Commons to continue to exercise its own disciplinary powers. Why is that in the Bill?”
“Therefore, my amendment 65 proposes a new subsection (2A) of clause 8, which reads: “Any recommendation under subsection (2)”— I am led to understand that that would also mean any direction under subsection (1)— “shall be deemed to be proceedings in Parliament as expressed in the Bill of Rights 1689 notwithstanding any other provisions of this Act.” That would have the effect of making the activities under clause 8 privileged—that is, beyond question by the courts, so that they could take in evidence what Members of Parliament had said in this place, because their proceedings would be privileged. There would then be no question of any of our proceedings leaking into the jurisdiction of the courts outside Parliament.”
“We should put an envelope of privilege round the entirety of the Bill’s operation, with the exception of the criminal offences, which is another matter that I shall not try to address. However, the principle is that privilege should envelope the entire Bill.”
“I wholeheartedly agree with my hon. and learned Friend. I would submit that, not by virtue of the erosion of our sovereignty but by virtue of the imposition of whipping—the whipping on this Bill on the Government Benches is an example of that—the House of Commons is not losing its sovereignty, but simply giving away our influence. We should use this opportunity to wrest it back. I support the principle of independent regulation. Indeed, I do not think that anyone speaking in this debate has suggested that we should take the principle of independent regulation out of the Bill. The scheme that I propose with the amendments standing in my name would mean that the process of independent regulation would become privileged itself.”
“He wants independent regulation, he wants the independent regulator to be able to look at all the evidence, and he wants the commission to be able to conduct investigations as freely as possible, but he really does not want the courts interfering with these processes and he does not want to provide an avenue for the courts to look at what has been happening in Parliament and to have a chilling effect on free speech. If my amendments are accepted, along with those in the name of my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Grieve) that strike out the final subsection of clause 10, we will have created a perfect envelope to allow the Bill to go forward—enveloped by privilege exactly as I believe the Secretary of State intends, but as the Bill fails to deliver at the moment, which is completely unacceptable.”
“It would amend clause 10, and it states: “Where proceedings of the IPSA and proceedings of the Commissioner arise from section 7 (investigations), section 8 (enforcement) or section 9 (offences), they shall be deemed to be proceedings in Parliament in accordance with Article IX of the Bill of Rights 1689.” My amendments may be imperfectly drafted and they may not create a perfect envelope around the activities that need to be enveloped, but I honestly believe that they provide a solution to the Secretary of State’s problem.”
“The amendment proposes: “Where any criminal investigation or proceedings are concerned with the same or related matters which are the subject of an investigation by the Commissioner or of a recommendation by IPSA, the criminal investigation or proceedings shall take precedence”, and I add, “subject to the agreement of the House of Commons Committee on Standards and Privileges”, which should surely be the final arbiter of such a case. Finally, I shall briefly refer to amendment 94, which I appreciate is in a different group.”
“I will move on as swiftly as I can. My amendment 67 addresses the question of what should take precedence. Even if there is, as I propose, an envelope of privilege around the entire activities of IPSA and the commissioner, there would still need to be some means of deferring to criminal proceedings if they were in progress. It is in any case something that we do automatically on an administrative basis within the House.”
“The Bill contains other clauses, which have been put in for clarification, such as that which makes it clear that the House can continue to use its disciplinary procedures unfettered by IPSA. Why not have a clarification in the Bill of exactly what the hon. Lady has just said that she believes that the Bill will do? A great many people, including the learned Clerk of this House, do not agree with her.”
“The Minister mentioned the term “exclusive cognisance”. Can she explain to the House what she means by that, and what she understands by that term?”
“Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Without wishing to ask you what the rationale might be, I speculate that aspects of the Bill—”
“I beg to move amendment 6, page 4, line 33, at end insert— ‘(1A) Any investigations under this section shall be deemed to be proceedings in Parliament as expressed in the Bill of Rights 1689, notwithstanding any other provisions of this Act.’”
“I shall be extremely brief. The amendment is, very logically, an extension of the principle of removing clause 10 from the Bill. This is to make sure that investigations under clause 7 “shall be deemed to be proceedings in Parliament as expressed in the Bill of Rights 1689, notwithstanding any other provisions of this Act.” All I would add is that the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards operates under that principle at the moment. This is independent regulation, but operating on the same basis—that the investigations should be privileged. The provision also guards against double jeopardy. I urge the House to support it.”
“Amendment 11, page 9, line 24, leave out from ‘section’ to the end of line 25 and insert ‘may not be made unless a draft of the instrument has been laid before and approved by a resolution of the House of Commons.’. Amendment 2, page 9, line 24, leave out from ‘section’ to the end of line 25 and insert ‘shall not be made unless a draft of the instrument has first been laid before, and approved by a resolution of, the House of Commons.’.— (Mr. Straw.) Clause 14 Short title and commencement”
“I am grateful to the Secretary of State for not really advancing a single argument against my amendment 6. I am bound to say that he does not look that unhappy about the loss of clause 10. I see no need to press the amendment. I am grateful for his assurance that he will look at the matter. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn. Clause 12 Interpretation Amendment made: 9, page 8, line 5, leave out lines 5 to 7.— ( Mr. Straw.) Clause 13 Power to make transitional etc provision Amendments made: 10, page 8, line 36, leave out paragraph (c). Amendment 1, page 8, line 45, leave out subsections (5) and (6).”
“Why have the Government effectively served notice on National Express with regard to the East Anglia franchise and told the country, “I note that the parent groups of previous franchise failures are no longer in the UK rail business”, when it is obvious that the Government do not have the power to terminate that franchise, and are going to get locked into a legal dispute? Having created maximum uncertainty for passengers on the East Anglia franchise, will the Government be able to deliver the coup de grâce to National Express or will there be a long period of protracted dispute and uncertainty for passengers?”
“Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. The House is grateful for the statement that you made before the Minister’s statement, but it raises a new question. I realise that it is an extremely difficult matter for you to tackle and I greatly appreciate your efforts in that regard. However, if it is now possible for Ministers to issue a written statement to the House at 7 o’clock in the morning, which then allows them to go on the “Today” programme before Members of Parliament—here or in the other place—have had a chance to cross-examine them, we are back to square one. I do not know what the solution is, but I hope that you will consider the matter carefully.”
“Why, then, when I and several colleagues went to see Sir Christopher Kelly, did he specifically ask us what our thoughts were about external regulation? Why did he welcome me writing him a supplementary letter about external regulation that addressed all these issues? Was he acting outside his remit?”
“If he were acting purely for the House and independently of potential judicial review, he would be contributing something very positive, but he will be acting as a de facto legal adviser to IPSA in respect of any judicial review of its activities and functions of regulation and enforcement. I propose in other amendments that the construction of the Bill should be insulated from judicial review. I will not refer to them now, but they effectively propose that all proceedings of IPSA and the commissioner should be regarded as proceedings in Parliament under article 9 of the Bill of Rights so that they are themselves privileged and whatever they deal with within Parliament is not therefore subject to adjudication and review by the courts.”
“The purpose of the amendment is simply to ask the promoter of the Bill what the judge, or ex-judge, who is appointed to IPSA will be for, and whether we are appointing him to the right role. In principle, I have always been in favour of there being someone with juridical experience to help to adjudicate matters of fact, evidence and the interpretation of rules when enforcing those rules on Members of Parliament and dealing with complaints. That is lacking from our present arrangements. However, I fail to understand why it is a good thing to make the judge a member of IPSA.”
“I confess that, perhaps naively, I took sub-paragraph (2) to mean that it was intended that a person who held judicial office at the time of his appointment to IPSA would relinquish that office. If that is not clear, it should be made clear. I hope that that is the Government’s intention and that, if necessary, they will table a Government amendment to clarify matters. In addition, does my hon. and learned Friend agree that a person with experience of high juridical office would be more objective and less likely to be infected by party political matters than, say, a former civil servant?”
“The main point that I was seeking to make was that if we are to have someone with such experience, he should be on the investigation and prosecuting side, not on the administration and function side. That was the main point of my tabling this pair of amendments. I wonder whether my hon. and learned Friend has a view on that?”
“There has been a succession of very able Parliamentary Commissioners for Standards, but no holder of that office has had juridical experience, and that is a disadvantage. Surely the Bill is an opportunity to make sure that an improvement is made in the new arrangements.”
“I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn. Amendment made: 52, in schedule 1, page 11, line 23, leave out sub-paragraph (5).— (Mr. Heathcoat-Amory.)”
“I apologise to the right hon. Gentleman for missing the opening few minutes of his remarks, although I was pleased to hear his important comment about clause 5(8), which he will now take away and redraft. However, could he tell us how that will be done practically? Will he table an amendment tonight that will be dealt with on Report tomorrow or do we have to leave that to the House of Lords? We are scrutinising the Bill in very limited time, so it would seem to be awfully late in the day to bring forward such amendments, welcome though they would be.”
“Before my hon. and learned Friend sits down, will he give us some advice about amendment 74? It states: “The IPSA must prepare a code to be observed by members of the House of Commons, the content of which is provision made by virtue of subsections (7), (8) and (10).” Does that mean that the content of this code is limited to “provision made by virtue of subsections (7), (8) and (10)”, or could the code go wider than those provisions, as these are terms of art and there is considerable flexibility in the interpretation?”
“That should disqualify Ministers from being Members of the House of Commons.”
“Members by The Daily Telegraph and the Freedom of Information Act 2000. It was a purely vindictive and political act for the Prime Minister to bring that extra resolution before the House. It was done to create that political atmosphere. In parenthesis and perhaps not entirely relevantly, I might add that it has always struck me as slightly odd that a Member of Parliament resigns by accepting an office of profit under the Crown. I have never understood why being a Minister does not count as having an office of profit under the Crown. If we are to go on professionalising the House of Commons, as my hon. Friend the Member for Wycombe (Mr. Goodman) said yesterday, we should chuck the Executive out of Parliament altogether, on the basis that to be a Minister is to hold an office of profit under the Crown.”
“For that, he is justifiably rewarded with extra salary as a Cabinet Minister. I appreciate that he does not draw the Lord Chancellor’s salary. The inclusion of Ministers in the rules on declaration would, at a stroke, legitimise the view that other Members of Parliament without ministerial office would be perfectly justified in taking outside employment for a number of hours for a degree of extra remuneration. The failure to include Ministers in the rules on declaration seems deliberately to suggest that being a Minister is legitimate, but having a different outside interest, even if it is for the public good, is not legitimate. An invidious atmosphere has been created on the subject of outside interests. That was obviously political, and had absolutely nothing to do with the exposure of the expenses of right hon. and hon.”
“I endorse much of what my hon. Friend the Member for Aldershot (Mr. Howarth) said about amendment 73, and what my hon. Friend the Member for South Staffordshire (Sir Patrick Cormack) said. Let me set out the strongest case for Ministers being brought into the scope of the rules on declarations. Just imagine what the inclusion of Ministers would show. If the right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr. Straw) were now the Foreign Secretary, it would probably show that he spent 80 or 90 per cent. of his working time being Foreign Secretary. I do not know how many hours he spends being Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice; I would submit that that must account for 70 or 75 per cent. of his working time. That would seem to be a reasonable proportion of his time to spend on ministerial office.”
“The principle of integrity states: “Holders of public office should not place themselves under any financial or other obligation to outside individuals or organisations”, so that one goes into the code. The principle of objectivity requires us to make choices for public office on merit. I wonder whether that could be squeezed in somehow. The principle of accountability certainly applies. People in public office should “submit themselves to whatever scrutiny is appropriate to their office.” I am sure IPSA will do that.”
“Grieve) accepted my comment that the new subsections (1) and (2) to clause 5, introduced by amendment 74, leave some ambiguity as to whether the code is confined purely to the issue of expenses and declarations, or whether it might go wider. I have since studied the Nolan principles of selflessness, integrity, objectivity, accountability, openness, honesty and leadership. It is not difficult to connect every single one of those principles with the declaration of financial interests. For example, the text on selflessness states: “Holders of public office should take decisions solely in terms of the public interest. They should not do so in order to gain financial or other material benefits for themselves”, so that one goes in.”
“It would, of course, be churlish of me not to acknowledge that the right hon. Gentleman has agreed to withdraw subsection (8). That is the subject that I want to move on to next. The withdrawing of parts of the Bill should amount to substantial concessions, but although we were initially delighted by what he announced about clause 6, we were not aware that while he was making that dramatic concession, other amendments were being tabled that seemed to undo his concession. I appreciate that there has been progress, but we have taken 10 steps forward and nine steps back. If I may, I shall spend a few moments explaining why I think that. My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Mr.”
“I am grateful for the Secretary of State’s concession. Contrary to what he suggested earlier, the question at the heart of the Bill is not the sovereignty of the House of Commons, but the exclusive cognisance of certain matters that for 300 years have been the exclusive competence of the House. The clause that really causes offence is clause 10, which the learned Clerk refers to as having a chilling effect on freedom of speech in the House. Until the right hon. Gentleman withdraws that clause, I will not be hopping around like a sand boy.”
“The Bill is even worse than the right hon. Gentleman suggests. Under the measure, the conversation that he outlined could be used as evidence against him in a court, which could be the result of a litigant—a private individual from outside the House—who does not like him perceiving an opportunity to pick on him. That is invidious and restricts freedom of speech in the House.”
“However, it is perfectly possible for the Bill to achieve the objective of independent regulation without compromising fundamental constitutional principles that have underpinned our democracy for more than 300 years.”
“It does so in three ways: by holding the Executive to account to prevent the abuse of power; by ensuring that legislation is well drafted and fit for purpose; and by scrutinising public spending to ensure value for the taxpayer. That is what we should be doing in this House for our constituents, but are we collectively doing a good job? In recent decades MPs have become increasingly ineffective, and much of the public anger now directed at MPs over expenses must be attributed to that wider failure. I have come to support the principle of independent regulation of MPs’ expenses, as I set out in a supplementary letter to the chairman of the Committee on Standards in Public Life, who raised the question with a group of MPs who were giving him informal evidence.”
“I very much enjoyed the speech by my hon. Friend the Member for Chichester (Mr. Tyrie), who conducted himself in a typically measured and cautious way. I may be about to be less cautious in my response to the Bill. The real test for the Bill is to ask whether it will make Parliament work better, whether it will make better MPs, and whether it will really address the anger that British people feel about MPs. I would submit that it will not, as currently drafted. Our expenses claims are not the sole source of the despair about politics and politicians in our country: the disillusionment of voters has far more profound causes. My hon. Friend the Member for Windsor (Adam Afriyie) spoke about the role of MPs. Why does Parliament exist? It exists, and it has always existed, to protect the public interest and the freedom of the citizen.”