House of Commons Hansard Debates for 7 Mar 1990

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I am invited to declare the Lloyd's syndicates to which I belong, because the hon. Member for Nottingham, North wants to know whether or not I am making a loss over Louthwaite. That does not affect my attitude in the House of Commons, however, because I never take part in any debate on Lloyd's or ask a question about it--for the same reason : I do not want any misunderstanding. Let me tell the hon. Gentleman in confidence, however, that the losses on Louthwaite are considerable. They are not going to drive me out of the House of Commons, though. In fact, they may well keep me in.

I beg my right hon. and learned Friend the Leader of the House, and whichever Select Committee deals with the matter, to be realistic, and, above all, to depend on the integrity of Members of the House of Commons.

7.17 pm

Mr. Jeremy Corbyn (Islington, North) : I am grateful to you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, for selecting the amendment to which I have put my name, calling on the hon. Member for Winchester (Mr. Browne) to resign in view of the findings of the Select Committee on Members' Interests. We tabled the amendment for a simple reason. The House is made up of people who have been elected by their constituents to represent them, and--as many others have said--they should be answerable to those constituents for their activities and interests, and for how they conduct those interests.

If the House takes it upon itself to expel hon. Members whom it did not elect--they were elected in a general election or by-election--it is, in effect, depriving them of the ability to represent their constituents in Parliament. The hon. Member for Winchester may have apologised, but he has admitted making a serious error in, for example, not declaring an income of $88,000--I imagine that amounts to more than £50,000--and a number of other interests. That is very serious.

The idea that a Member of Parliament is anything but full time may seem perfectly normal to many Conservative Members, but people outside do not see it the same way. They regard us as people who have been elected to the House on a substantial salary, which is far above the average industrial wage, far above the income of old-age pensioners and far above that of many people in ordinary middle-income jobs. Not unreasonably, they expect us to devote our energies to working to represent them, rather than creating income for ourselves through outside financial interests.

I support the principle of having a Register of Members' Interests. That is important. However, I do not think that the Register of Members' Interests goes anywhere like far enough. There is, for example, the question of for whom a particular company is working. If an hon. Member is a director of a public relations company, a statement to that effect is absolutely meaningless to me or to anybody else reading the Register. I want to know on behalf of what interests that public relations company is working. If an hon. Member is a director of a holding company, do we know what its subsidiaries are? Do we know what transactions are taking place? Do we know what influence that hon. Member can bring to bear on any decisions that are made?

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We now come to the murkier area where an hon. Member might be a director or a substantial shareholder in a company that has direct dealings with central Government, such as the Ministry of Defence or any other Department. Frankly, that stinks to people outside the House. They ask, "Why can't we get a house to live in? We have insufficient pension to live on. We have all sorts of environmental problems in our constituency, but not only do Members of Parliament vote themselves a salary that to many of us is considerable, but they sanction substantial outside interests for themselves."

Mr. Flannery : My hon. Friends and I have considered this fact for several years now. Does my hon. Friend agree that many Conservative Members entered the House without any directorships whatever? Entry to the House is like opening an Aladdin's cave for them and that fact impels them to try to enter the House. Having become a Member, people make vast amounts of money that they would not have made if they had not managed to become a Member of the House.

Mr. Corbyn : I thank my hon. Friend for his excellent and apposite intervention. Having become a Member of Parliament by an elective process, through the ballot box, some hon. Members are saying, "I will take on this directorship, that advisership, this consultancy and that consultancy. I will act on your behalf in the House." There are many occasions when there is a potential conflict of interest and any number of occasions when those conflicts of interest become apparent.

I compare that with the attitude that is taken in statute towards local councillors. A local councillor, who is elected to represent a particular ward on a local authority, is absolutely prevented from voting on matters in which he or she might be deemed to have a direct interest. Council tenants, for example, are prevented from voting on rent increases or otherwise for council tenants in their wards. I regard that as iniquitous, but that is what happens. Likewise, if a councillor is deemed to have a particular pecuniary interest, he or she must declare it, take no part whatever in that debate, and withdraw from the chamber or committee concerned.

Furthermore, councillors are liable in law for any actions that they take as councillors. The Clay Cross councillors were debarred from holding public office under the Housing Act 1971. Councillors in Lambeth and Liverpool were debarred from holding public office and substantially surcharged following the rate capping of their local authorities, on the issue of whether they had overspent. Those councillors had not committed a crime. They had not made any money for themselves. They had simply acted in what they believed to be the best interests of the people they represented- -and were punished severely as a result.

However, in this place, an hon. Member can have any number of shareholdings, directorships, outside consultancies, PR consultancies or anything else, and provided that they are declared, it is all okay. The debate is timely because it opens up that question. Most employees work to a job description, which states that they are employed to work for a particular company. Someone who is employed as a salesman for a major company, such as GEC, would find that that company would not take kindly to one of its salaried salesmen also working privately as a salaried salesman for Siemens or for

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any other competitor company. Company employees are not allowed to get involved in such things, any more than local councillors. Why should it be so very different for Members of Parliament? Why should hon. Members be allowed to stack up so many outside financial interests from which they personally can benefit a great deal? I am also concerned about the amount of time that is taken up on those outside interests. I do not know about the social problems or the constituency case work loads of Conservative Members who have substantial directorships, but I do know that in the community that I represent, I deal with several thousand individual cases per year. It would not only be totally wrong, it would be impossible, to try to represent such a community if, at the same time, I had to attend 50 or 60 company meetings per year or various other meetings of boards of directors, or if I had to spend time in other places when I should be working for the people who elected me to this place.

Conservative Members may make light of the whole thing and say that it is a House of Commons matter. Frankly, when the House decides that something is a House of Commons matter, the House is not at its best ; it is often at its very worst. This is not a House of Commons matter. It is a matter of public importance and public interest. A great many people outside the House think, "There they go again--voting themselves a substantial rise, not turning up in the House, not voting and not taking part in the debates because they all have outside directorships." I have no outside directorships. I have no outside interests at all, yet because Conservative Members--and perhaps even some of my hon. Friends--have such interests, the whole House, and the names of the elective process and of democracy are smeared as a result. We have a responsibility, not just individually, but to the electoral and democratic process as a whole.

The right hon. Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (Mr. Heath) said--and quoted others who said the same--that if the House were composed of people with no other interests, it would be a boring place. He said that one of the problems of the 1945 Labour Government was that they did not have people of sufficient experience who could take an overview or a wider view of matters. If those who are elected to the House come from different backgrounds--from working for a company, working in the Health Service, working down a mine, being unemployed, being a housewife or a single parent or whatever--they have those reosurces, that knowledge and that experience on which to draw. Hon. Members do not need to hold a dozen directorships to have an idea how the financial system works. An hon. Member does not need to hold directorships in 25 companies to be able to travel abroad and to find out what other people are thinking. Such outside interests do not broaden one's interests--they narrow them. They narrow an hon. Member's range of options and opinions. They have the very opposite of the effect that some hon. Members claim.

The constituency of the hon. Member for Winchester deserves representation. Serious issues face that constituency, such as the construction of a motorway through Twyford Down. Those are the sort of issues on which we were sent here to represent our constituents. That is why we are in the House. None of us was elected because we have shareholdings or directorships with certain companies.

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My right hon. Friend the Member for Chesterfield (Mr. Benn) advanced an idea that particularly appealed to me-- that the electorate should be told of all the directorships that are held by Members of Parliament. When my hon. Friend the Member for Brent, East (Mr. Livingstone) stood for election in Hampstead in 1979, I was impressed by the fact that he printed the list of directorships of the sitting Member for that constituency in his election address. We were told that that was foul play. All that my hon. Friend was doing was informing the people of Hampstead and Highgate about what their sitting Member of Parliament was doing. I thought that it was a perfectly reasonable and fair thing to do. In an election, the electorate should know who and what we are standing for and what we actually represent when we enter this place. All such interests should be registered.

The question of how the House should punish a particular hon. Member is important. I was not here when the last reprimand was delivered and have no idea of the importance or consequences of it. Presumably it would be televised and no doubt there would be great solemnity, which would be a distinct advantage.

There is also the question of suspension. The obvious point is, how can the House decide to deprive the people of Winchester of their right to be represented? The question of expulsion has also arisen, although that option is not included on the Order Paper. In an expulsion, the House is taking unto itself powers over and above those that it has been given by the people.

The Select Committee on Members' Interests spent a great deal of time going into this matter in the most incredible detail, and produced an excellent report. The hon. Member for Winchester delivered an apology to the House, but how much is an apology worth? He made a great deal of money that he did not declare. I do not know what his total income is. I do not think it unreasonable that the public should know the total income of all hon. Members from all sources, as Members, through directorships or through shareholdings. Then people could see in whose interests we are working and how we are spending our time in the House.

I should have thought that the only honourable course for the hon. Member for Winchester is to resign as a Member of the House. If he then wishes to seek nomination for subsequent re-election, that is a matter for the people of Winchester. There is no other course of action by which the people of Winchester can decide whether they wish the present Member to continue as their Member of Parliament or whether they wish to choose someone else. Anything less would damage the reputation of the House and of the democratic elective process. I am pleased that the Leader of the House has at least accepted that the current Register of Members' Interests has shortcomings and, for that reason, has moved the second motion. I wish that the motion went further. I endorse the proposals of my right hon. Friend the Member for Chesterfield, who lists a series of specific cases and offices that should debar one from being a Member of Parliament. It is ludicrous that one cannot be a Member of Parliament if one holds the stewardship of the Chiltern Hundreds or any other minor, almost non- existent archaic office of profit under the Crown, whereas one can make as much money as one likes as a chairman or captain of industry and spend little time on being a Member of

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Parliament, save for using the facilities, lobbying facilities and privileges awarded to Members of the House. I support my right hon. Friend's amendment.

If we are serious about being elected to the House to represent our constituents and the people of Britain, what message do we give to those who cannot afford to pay the poll tax, those who sleep in cardboard boxes, those on endless housing waiting lists, and those struggling by on a state old-age pension of less than £2,500 a year when we condone someone for forgetting or omitting to record in the Register that he received more than £50,000 from one foreign Government for one contract? Being a public representative demands the highest possible standard of public probity. For that reason and because we must defend the principle of democracy, I believe that the only honourable course is for the hon. Member for Winchester to resign.

7.32 pm

Mr. Ivan Lawrence (Burton) : I shall not follow the hon. Member for Islington, North (Mr. Corbyn). It is a pity that we could not have called for the question to be put when my right hon. Friend the Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (Mr. Heath) completed his speech-- [Interruption.] My right hon. Friend can go now, as I shall not mention him again.

The media will be disappointed with the debate. The House has been broadly sympathetic to my hon. Friend the Member for Winchester (Mr. Browne) and, therefore, the debate has been constructive, moderately keyed and in good humour, despite the efforts of Members such as the hon. Member for Southwark and Bermondsey (Mr. Hughes) to raise the temperature and to substitute a load of cant and little of the milk of human kindness.

There is here a human tragedy. We still have to vote on whether to punish my hon. Friend, merely to endorse the findings of the Committee or to accept my hon. Friend's apology and do nothing further. I wish to address myself to that tragedy. The House should do something constructive about it.

I found the insight of my hon. Friend the Member for Streatham (Sir W. Shelton) interesting. He was a member of the Committee and he told us about the agony through which the Committee put itself. It drove him to the conclusion--he did not utter it, but he has told me that he would like me to tell the House of it--that he will vote against the suspension of my hon. Friend.

I am no particular friend of my hon. Friend the Member for Winchester, because our paths hardly ever cross. I do not know whether he is a good or a bad man. I do not know whether he is an honourable or a dishonourable man. I do not know whether he makes more errors of judgment than the rest of us or fewer. But the pursuit of him at one point certainly had the smell of scapegoat. From the media the smell wafted in of witch hunt. There has been more than a hint of hypocrisy during our discussion of these matters. I do not agree with any of the motions. We are tending to allow ourselves to be carried along by what we think people are saying in response to media hype. I deplore the fact that we decided to spend an entire day debating the motion when we cannot have a day to debate Hong Kong,

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or eastern and even western Europe, or a whole list of domestic matters, including those near the heart of the hon. Member for Sheffield, Hillsborough (Mr. Flannery).

Mr. Flannery : Does the hon. Gentleman remember when he was out on a famous court case and we did not see him here for a month? Does he remember that, because we do?

Mr. Lawrence : Clearly, the hon. Gentleman is short-sighted. There has never been an occasion when I have been engaged in any criminal case when I have not been here at the conclusion of that day's business. I have often stayed here until one or two o'clock in the morning. As the hon. Gentleman does not walk around the areas where people work in this place he cannot be expected to have noticed that. There has been no day on which I have been here for less than five, six or seven hours. The hon. Gentleman could not talk more ridiculous rubbish.

To return to the matter which is really important--it would be helpful if the hon. Gentleman were to concentrate his mind on what we are debating and not on his pet illnesses--as a result of media hype, the public have come to the conclusion that, because my hon. Friend the Member for Winchester failed to declare certain interests, the Committee found that he had made money from that failure and that he obtained advantages for his clients. Both conclusions are wrong. The Select Committee on Members' Interests came to no such conclusion, as was clearly stated in the debate today. Nevertheless, that is the impression that so many constituents seemed to have formed. I am anxious that we should not do anything in response to a wrong impression formed for reasons which I shall give. I cannot rid myself of the feeling shared by several hon. Members who have spoken that the intensity of the media vituperation against my hon. Friend has something to do with the fact that he introduced a Private Member's Bill last year to limit the freedom of the press to invade people's privacy--a Bill which the press bitterly opposed. I consider that a worrying matter for the future of Parliament.

To use this debate--personalised, as it is, to some extent--against my hon. Friend as an excuse for examining whether our rules on Members' interests are appropriate is, in my view, not called for. I am pleased that we are considering rather more the future procedure of the House and that more emphasis is being put on that than at first we thought. I do not like to think that we are using my hon. Friend's personal misfortune as a trigger for doing that. We should have done it anyway.

If we support the motion and return any verdict which is hurtful to my hon. Friend, we shall take an irreversible step towards the destruction of a parliamentary colleague. Such a step might be perfectly justifiable and in order if he had been convicted of armed robbery, rape, murder, large-scale fraud or child abuse in a court of law, but it would not be justifiable for the errors of judgment of which he has been found guilty.

Although the Committee on Members' Interests is not a court of law, outside this place it is perceived to be one. The dire consequences that will follow a decision adverse to my hon. Friend's interests will as assuredly follow as if this were a court of law. [Interruption.] We observe, do we

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not, the milk of human kindness that flows from the hon. Member for Sheffield, Hillsborough (Mr. Flannery)? I believe that he was a teacher of children.

Mr. Flannery : I was indeed.

Mr. Lawrence : We should be thankful that the hon. Gentleman spends most of his time in the House and can no longer pollute those particular waters.

I wish to dwell on the wrongs of the matter. I refer to the absolute unfairness of the trial to which my hon. Friend was subjected for nine months by the Committee--a trial is what it turned out to be and it is perceived as such by the public. I do not blame any of those hon. Members who serve on the Committee. They were doing what they thought to be their duty as decent, honourable Members of the House, but everything got terribly out of hand.

The truth is that my hon. Friend has broken no law of the land. He has broken no rule of Parliament that we feel so strongly about as to make it obligatory to honour it.

Mr. Dalyell : I remind the hon. and learned Gentleman that at the beginning of the debate I asked the Leader of the House whether in his view the hon. Member for Winchester (Mr. Browne) had broken any law. Why does the hon. and learned Gentleman think that the Leader of the House was so coy in his reply? Was it not a simple enough question to answer?

Mr. Lawrence : My right hon. and learned Friend the Leader of the House answered the question in a most characteristic and endearing way. He said that since the Committee was not a court of law, the question was one which it never considered. I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for underlining my point. He is being uncharitable to my right hon. and learned Friend, who certainly answered the question, albeit not as directly as the hon. Gentleman wished.

Before we take any action which condemns or makes matters worse for my hon. Friend the Member for Winchester we should consider this plain fact. Had he simply failed to register any interests, he would never have been subjected to nine months' misery and he would not now be subject to a motion which could help to destroy him. He has been tried by no court of law, yet the Committee sought to try him. The Committee has never previously tried anybody. It had no experience of trying people and no proper procedure for doing so. It lacks the most fundamental elements of a court of fair trial. I was amazed when my right hon. and learned Friend the Leader of the House said that it had breached no rules of natural justice. Whether intentionally or not, it was the worst type of kangaroo court, but the press have been noticeably silent about that.

What court of fair trial or natural justice allows judges who are politically apposed to the accused to sit in judgment? One of the judges in this case was the hon. Member for Workington (Mr. Campbell-Savours). I am sure that he will not mind me mentioning that he has tabled an early-day motion praising the prosecutor, Mr. Leigh, the journalist.

Mr. Campbell-Savours : If the hon. and learned Gentleman wishes to draw attention to these matters, will he point out to the House that the references to Mr. Leigh in my motion relate to The Observer newspaper controlled by Mr. "Tiny" Rowland and Mr. Leigh's valiant attempt

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to change the nature of that newspaper so that it was not unreasonably influenced by an overbearing proprietor? My motion has nothing to do with this affair. Why does the hon. and learned Gentleman not present his case properly instead of trying to discredit members of the Committee?

Mr. Lawrence : I accept what the hon. Gentleman has said. Nevertheless, the hon. Gentleman would not sit in judgment in a court of law over my hon. Friend the Member for Winchester when the primary prosecutor was someone whom the hon. Gentleman found praiseworthy. That is a rule of natural justice, yet the hon. Gentleman sat in judgment. The hon. Members for Workington and for Bradford, South (Mr. Cryer) may be the most charming, gentlemanly and delightful colleagues in Parliament, but how many of my hon. Friends would like to be tried by them? How many of their hon. Friends would like to be tried by them?

Mr. Cryer rose--

Mr. Campbell-Savours rose--

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Paul Dean) : Order. To which hon. Member is the hon. and learned Gentleman giving way?

Mr. Lawrence : With either or both, how happy should I be. [Laughter.]

Mr. Deputy Speaker : I call Mr. Cryer.

Mr. Cryer : I know that all this is supposed to be terribly funny, but the Committee spent nine months meticulously and, I hope, fairly examining in detail the evidence presented under the rules which this House, not individual members of the Committee, had decided. The hon. and learned Gentleman is making a party political point. Does he accept that the majority on the Committee are Conservatives? When he traduces members of the Committee as he has been doing, he criticises members of his own party.

Mr. Lawrence : My point is that no court of natural justice has judges who are biased for whatever reason. I do not blame the hon. Gentleman for being biased against Conservatives. The strength of his feeling for Socialism is well known. No court of natural justice ever has judges who are so placed. I began by making nice comments about the hon. Member for Bradford, South, so he need not be--

Mr. Winnick rose--

Mr. Lawrence : I have not mentioned the hon. Member for Walsall, North (Mr. Winnick) and I might not say such nice things.

Mr. Winnick : Do I understand the hon. and learned Gentleman to say that no Committee in any circumstances should look into the conduct of an hon. Member, as the Committee has done? If that is not his view, does he conclude that the Committee should be composed only of the political supporters of the hon. Member for Winchester (Mr. Browne)? The logic of his remarks is that Labour Members are so biased as to be incapable of reaching a proper conclusion.

Mr. Lawrence : The House must be careful how it judges hon. Members, and it is not doing so in accordance with

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the rules of natural justice. Having judged them, we must not conclude what punishment should be inflicted if it is clear that, had they been tried in a court of law, they would have been acquitted. Natural justice does not rely on documents which have been provided selectively by accusers--a journalist who has got them from a former, not very happy, wife. When the accused asks for other documents which would throw a different light on the picture, it is not natural justice for the Committee to refrain either from calling for them or from taking them into account before making its judgments. That is a breach of natural justice. The Committee is not a court of law and does not have to follow the rules of natural justice, but it must not punish or convict a man. That is my point.

What court of fair trail or natural justice does not allow or invite the accused to be present to hear or question his accusers? What such court does not allow him to put his case before he is questioned?

Sir Geoffrey Johnson Smith : There are so many errors in my hon. and learned Friend's speech that I should need to make another speech to put them right, but I hope that hon. Members who served on the Committee will have the chance to rebut them, as I believe that they can do effectively. I must ask my hon. and learned Friend to bear in mind that there is no question of our punishing or convicting my hon. Friend the Member for Winchester (Mr. Browne). We did no such thing and it is for the House to decide. My hon. Friend the Member for Winchester had every chance to produce any documents he darned well wanted to. My hon. and learned Friend will spoil the debate if he goes on. I can speak with my hand on my heart when I say that the hon. Members for Workington (Mr. Campbell-Savours) and for Bradford, South (Mr. Cryer), whose reputations he tried to traduce a moment ago, and who were honourable members of that Committee, were totally bipartisan. No sign of political passion crept into the Committee to prejudice the case against my hon. Friend the Member for Winchester.

Mr. Lawrence : Of course I accept what my hon. Friend has said. I was not talking about any prejudice; I was talking about having judges who are known to be biased to the accused. I stand on that and on my assertion that my hon. Friend the Member for Winchester was not allowed to be present when accusations were made against him, nor was he allowed to challenge his accusers.

Whether my hon. Friend was allowed to send in written documentation is neither here nor there. Parts of the report show that, if he had sent in such written documentation, he would not have been believed, because the Committee was not minded to believe all the written documents that he sent in. To say that my hon. Friend could have sent in written documentation is not equivalent to natural justice. No court of trial or system of natural justice would have 13 judges, only three of whom attended all the sittings and heard all the evidence and only five of whom attended all but one of the sittings. A judge must hear all the evidence before coming to a conclusion. I am not criticising my hon. Friend the Member for Wealden (Sir G. Johnson Smith) as he was not sitting as a court of law, but we are being invited to punish my hon. Friend the Member for

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Winchester, based upon the Committee's report, in such a way that someone who has not been tried in a court of law or according to the principles of law should not be punished.

It is not consistent with a court of fair trial or with natural justice for my hon. Friend the Member for Winchester to have been unable to call a witness--Mr. Chattington--who hopes to speak about a material incident. That witness wanted to be called, but he was not. Never mind why that happened: here was someone whom my hon. Friend the Member for Winchester wanted to assist his case.

What court of fair trial looks at a bundle of letters, eight years old, and comes to the conclusion--doubtless, rightly--that it looks suspiciously as though there was a contractual relationship between my hon. Friend the Member for Winchester and Mr. Chidiac? The Committee then heard my hon. Friend say that there was no such contractual relationship, however it looked. Mr. Chidiac also told the Committee that there was no such relationship ; yet the Committee came to the conclusion that the suspicion was more cogent than the oral evidence heard from someone of good character.

The burden of proof should never have been on my hon. Friend--he should not have had to prove anything. Before we convict or punish anyone, the burden of proof must be on the prosecution. If one has suspicious documents and oral evidence--

Mr. David Harris (St. Ives) : He admitted it.

Mr. Lawrence : He has accepted the Committee's conclusion about not declaring his interest. He has not admitted any wrongdoing, and it would be wrong for my hon. Friend to draw that conclusion. That is no good in a court of law, but the Committee ended up as a court of law and now my hon. Friend the Member for Winchester is on trial. What court of law and fair trial bases its verdict on a law which says in rule 11 :

"The purpose of this Register is to provide information of any pecuniary interest or other material benefit which a Member of Parliament may receive which might be thought to affect his conduct as a Member of Parliament or influence his actions, speeches or vote in Parliament"?

An hon. Member does not have to sign that register and the rules are so imprecise as to be invalid as an instrument of judgment. To say in 1989 that my hon. Friend the Member for Winchester should have applied the interpretation of that rule to events some eight years ago is not natural justice. That is borne out by what my hon. Friend the Member for Streatham told us. He said that the Committee had great difficulty about that and yet did not always resolve the matter in favour of my hon. Friend the Member for Winchester.

I do not mean any offence to the Select Committee on Members' Interests, which never set out to be a court of law or pretended to follow the rules of natural justice, but in practice it turned out to be a kangaroo court. It was unprepared for the task of doing justice to a colleague and we ended up with the justice of well-meaning amateurs.

Without observing the rules of natural justice, observing few of the rules of evidence, and without inquiring into matters that needed to be inquired into, the Committee produced two important criticisms. The first concerned the Saudi connection and the other the Chidiac connection. My hon. Friend the Member for Winchester

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has agreed that he should have declared an interest, but the errors made must be seen in perspective before anyone-- the media, people outside or people in this place--takes any step to harm or crucify my hon. Friend.

For example, the question that my hon. Friend the Member for Winchester put to the Prime Minister on the freezing of assets was a supplementary one and he could not possibly have known in advance that he would be called to ask it. He did not have to declare an interest for a supplementary question under any rule and it could not possibly have resulted in any advantage to him or to his client as Government policy is not changed by asking a supplementary question of my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister of all people. Certainly my hon. Friend was not asked to ask that question, nor was any money received for that question. The Committee has accepted that. My hon. Friend did register his company, Falcon, and, as the Committee says :

"there is, of course, no general obligation to register clients and in our view there is no obligation to register income from abroad unless it might be thought to influence parliamentary conduct". My hon. Friend told the Committee that it did not influence his parliamentary conduct and there is no evidence to suggest that it did.

Therefore, my hon. Friend's failure to register, although open to criticism on the grounds of common sense or good sense, apart from anything else, cannot be said to be all that grave an offence. People outside this place, however, think that he has done some terrible, heinous wrong.

On the failure of my hon. Friend the Member for Winchester to register his interests in relation to Mr. Chidiac, it is best to refer to what is said in paragraph 99 of the Committee's report : "In examining this complaint we were faced with a direct conflict of evidence and interpretation of that evidence. We regret that we have not been able entirely to get to the bottom of this matter. Although we might have been able to move closer to the whole truth if we had called additional witnesses ... we have not been able to take oral evidence from Mr. Charles Chidiac The complaint relates to events which took place some nine years ago : some of those persons we might have interviewed have died : some of the company records that might have shed an impartial light on certain of Mr. Browne's and Mr. Chidiac's actions have been destroyed or dispersed. It is tempting to leap to conclusions but we recognise that the information we have is incomplete and is likely to remain so. In the circumstances, we felt we should reach such conclusions as we could from the evidence available".

The conclusion it reached was a criticism and indictment of my hon. Friend the Member for Winchester. The statements in that paragraph demonstrate that a court of law, the decision of which would end in conviction and punishment, would not have reached the same conclusion as the Committee.

Those who understand the workings of Parliament will know that it is absurd to suppose that the non-disclosure of the name of a client would have had any effect on the answers given to questions, still less than the non- disclosure of a name would have had the slightest effect on Government policy or been of the slightest benefit to my hon. Friend. But we should be concerned about those who do not understand the working of Parliament and who might be forgiven for thinking that the failings of my hon. Friend the Member for Winchester were significant and sinister. Our constituents often think that ordinary Members of Parliament have the executive power of

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Ministers but there is no excuse for Members of Parliament to believe that, still less for them to encourage that belief. There is a catalogue of manifest injustices which have been perpetrated against my hon. Friend. I could have listed more. He is a parliamentary colleague who has been no worse than short on judgment, perhaps long on stupidity. We all feel immensely embarrassed about these matters and want to give them the greatest possible airing. However, it would be a great injustice for us to use my hon. Friend as a scapegoat to exorcise that embarrassment about our own vulnerability as a House of Commons to the criticism that our rules on Members' interests are inadequate. It would be still less fair to punish him as set out in the first motion, which states that we should suspend him for however short a period.

It would be equally unjust for us to be influenced by my hon. Friend's matrimonial problems and behaviour. They are no concern of this House. We should not be influenced by the way in which my hon. Friend carries out his responsibilities as Member of Parliament for Winchester. The people of Winchester may love or loathe him, but his future as Conservative Member of Parliament for Winchester should be entirely a matter for them and for him, but not for us. For what my hon. Friend has, or has not done, he has suffered immensely, as have his wife and family for nine months.

In the motion, although it does not follow the rules of a court of law or the normal rules of justice, let alone natural justice, we are being asked to punish my hon. Friend and to take a step that will lead to his destruction in public life. I will have none of it. I shall vote against the motions in this debate on the Register of Members' Interests and I hope that I shall be followed into the Lobby by a number of hon. Members from both sides of the House.

8.3 pm

Mr. Joseph Ashton (Bassetlaw) : I shall not attempt to follow the hon. and learned Member for Burton (Mr. Lawrence), who filibustered for more than half an hour and made an excellent case showing why this place should be run not on lawyers' principles, but, as happens, with "Erskine May" as a guide on which Members should operate. I am glad that the name of Mr. David Leigh has been mentioned in this debate. It seemed as though we had missed out the major point as to who points the finger at people who make mistakes or come to this place to try to make money out of it. Often that is the most difficult part. There is no point in having a tougher system if it cannot be policed. All my hon. Friends, with the best of intentions, say that everything should be made much tougher, but there is then the problem who does the policing.

I had a very unfortunate experience when I was severely censured by the House in 1974 simply for defending the House at the time of the Poulson debate. I said that the number of Members who indulged in that sort of thing could be counted on the fingers of one hand. Fleet street immediately said, "Name the guilty five". After I had written an article in Labour Weekly and said it on the Jimmy Young show, Sir Harmar Nicholls, the then hon. Member for Peterborough, who had a majority of three

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after the February 1974 election, saw it as a marvellous opportunity to make some political capital and referred me to the Committee of Privileges.

I was hauled up in exactly the same way as the hon. Member for Winchester has been. We did not have a Select Committee on Members' Interests then, so I had to go before the Committee of Privileges. Everything that the hon. and learned Member for Burton has just said about taking evidence was absolutely true. One writes to the Committee, its members write back, and there is no cross-examination or proper Hansard. At the end, the Committee makes a pronouncement and the word goes out to grovel.

If hon. Members grovel and apologise, they will be let off with a caution and it will all be over in two or three weeks. I did not grovel because I knew that what I was saying was true. I put in a defiant defence, aided by a good friend, Arthur Davidson, the then hon. Member for Accrington, who was a libel lawyer. He helped me with my defence and put the cat among the pigeons because I said I could prove that there were Members of Parliament for hire. He put the Committee of Privileges into a hell of a dilemma because I had the information that I had collected.

One of the biggest scandals that went through the House happened in 1971 when a Bill that we all supported was brought in by a Conservative Government to let the Tote set up betting shops on high streets. The bookies had a fit because that would take hundreds of millions of pounds out of their takings. They fought the Bill tooth and nail and lobbied against it, and Committee Members, none of whom is in the House now, put down thousands of amendments. They were paid to filibuster and delay, and eventually they won.

The Tote never got to set up shops on high streets. The Bill never completed its Third Reading. It went through Committee but was quashed on Third Reading. It was a scandal, but it was never revealed to anybody. It was at a time, in the early 1970s, when Members of Parliament were badly paid. Free trips to Iceland were advertised on the Whip, declaring, "Take your wife and family for £10 and have a holiday while studying the effects of the Icelandic cold war." Questions were tabled every day in Parliament about independent radio and which frequencies would be allocated to the new commercial radio stations. It was common knowledge around the House. There were stories going round that the banqueting rooms downstairs could be booked for public relations companies. They were paying £350 a time to book the banqueting rooms when Members of Parliament were getting about £80 a week.

When I was up before the Committee of Privileges trying to defend myself, I went to the Select Committee on House of Commons (Services) because I wanted to see who booked those banqueting rooms, who paid for them and where the cash came from. I was told that I could not see them, even though I was trying to defend myself. Even today it is impossible to find out how much public relations companies pay to sponsor Members to book those rooms. There is a lot that still happens in this place which we do not know about but which we ought to know about.

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The Register of Members' Interests came about because I wrote an article on the day that T. Dan Smith was sentenced, so it was no longer sub judice. It was like throwing petrol on fire. Every newspaper and television programme in the country hounded me. The people who were carrying on were all named, and all I had said was that they could be counted on one hand and in 99 per cent. of cases there was no problem. However, it was a mistake to say that. At that time there was the famous incident of the coffee pot, when it was alleged that Tony Crosland, the then Secretary of State for Education, had received a silver Georgian coffee pot worth about £4, 000 or £5,000. He was smart enough to have it valued at Sothebys where it was valued at £50. He was astute enough to do that, but the innuendos continued. Eventually, Ted Short was named as a friend of Mr. Poulson and Mr. T. Dan Smith. Mr. Short was Leader of the House at the time and he was angry.

We got into such a state with all these allegations that the Register of Members' Interests had to be set up because the average Member was in a Catch 22 situation. If they named names outside the House, they were done for libel, and if they did not name names they were done for contempt. An hon. Member could stand up in the House and say, "This is a breach of privilege, a contempt which libels us because it has been said that a handful of us are taking money." Therefore, we were caught both ways.

The innuendoes, stories and rumours continued. Private Eye printed stuff every week without naming names. It was clear that we had to have a Register of Members' Interests. I raised the matter in the parliamentary Labour party because Labour was then in office. I was accused between the February and October 1974 elections. I was pressurised to apologise and grovel by hon. Members on both sides of the House whose neighbours were earning cash in this way and who knew that the dirt would rub off on them. If the hon. Member for Little Twittering, North was accused, the hon. Member for Little Twittering, South also suffered. We were between two elections at the time, and I was severely pressurised to drop the matter and not to name names. I agreed to drop the matter, provided that a register was set up. Eddie Milne also pressed hard for a register. He was sacked by his party and stood on his own in February 1974, winning by a majority of 66 which he could not hold in October 1974. Eddie Milne and I pressed hard in the parliamentary Labour party to have a register set up. One hot evening during the drought, at a packed meeting of the parliamentary Labour party, only one Member of Parliament spoke out strenuously against the register, and his name was John Stonehouse. He stormed out of the meeting, objecting that the idea was an unwarranted intrusion on privacy--and look what happened to him. He went to gaol for seven years after disappearing off the coast of Miami.

Perhaps there was an excuse in the early 1970s, because Members were badly paid then. We did not receive allowances for the cost of living in London, and many of us lived in scruffy bedsits at the back of Victoria station. We could not even afford a taxi home at night. We were very poor. That is no excuse, but the temptation was there. It no longer is. Members are well paid now, with good allowances. Members can afford proper flats, and to eat

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properly in the Dining Room. No longer do we have to take every free lunch to save on expenses, and that is why we have to look again at the Committee of Privileges.

One or two hon. Members have talked about the star chamber effect, and that is what we are dealing with. The way in which the Select Committee on Members' Interests and the Privileges Committee operate is not right. One is asked whether one wants to give evidence verbally. Many of the Members who serve on these Committees are lawyers who can take the average hon. Member apart. We are always advised to write to the Committee, and letters are exchanged. The process drags on for months, and that is the whole intention--by then the issue has cooled off and eventually it can be kicked under the carpet. Every 10 or 20 years, however, we hold a debate such as this one. We cannot go on like this, but the problem is where to draw the line.

If we make Members register everything, must they register every free lunch? An hon. Member said earlier that we should investigate every complaint from members of the public. If the public knew that Members were having free lunches at the Savoy, as Members occasionally do, they would all complain, and rightly so. The Committee would sit non-stop. Should we draw the line at £5 or £50? If the latter, people would hand over £49.50.

We are not daft : there is no such thing as a free lunch--or free crumpet-- for politicians. The public are not daft, and they know this. Free lunches are not handed out for nothing. I accept one in 20, and always because I have a specific interest. For instance, if the Football League invites me to its annual lunch, I go because I like football and I want to find out what is happening. The other 19 invitations go in the wastebin, although I usually reply politely to them.

We ought to know who is booking the banqueting rooms downstairs, and what they are paying for them. Is any hon. Member receiving a fee for hosting lunches in them? It is not just a matter of entering in the Register whether hon. Members are acting for public relations firms ; we also need to know who the clients of these PR firms are. The hon. Member for Winchester did wrong, but in my opinion he is a fool and an amateur. Nowadays the lobbying is done by professional lobbyists. Although they are supposed to register, and although they are inquired into, there should be a qualification for getting on the register. We should have an official, formal register of lobbyists who have been approved and who have deposited a substantial bond--perhaps £100,000--in, say, a Speaker's fund, which could be taken from them if they abused the rules of the House.

I am fed up with going to the bar for a pint of beer and not knowing who I am talking to. All sorts of strangers come up and talk to me. I do not know whether I am talking to the leader of Newcastle city council--I do not like to ask, because he thinks I should know--or to the political correspondent of The Independent, or to a lobbyist. There is a good case for saying that everyone should wear a badge. When we go to party conferences or a Government Department, we have to wear a badge identifying us as visitors and naming the organisations that send us there. It is time that visitors to the dining rooms and bars of this House wore badges identifying whom they represent and what they are doing in the building.

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