Sir Bernard Jenkin

First, I apologise to the hon. Member for Mid Dunbartonshire (Susan Murray) for missing her opening remarks. I was rushing to the Chamber from another meeting. I very much welcome a debate about the Nolan principles. To start with a point that the hon. Member for Bishop Auckland (Dr Rushworth) made at the beginning of his speech, it is indeed surprising and perplexing that we would regard nearly 100% of the colleagues in this Chamber—from whichever party—as careful, diligent and morally upstanding people. There is a tiny minority who we perhaps do not trust, but basically, although we might not be able to remember the seven principles of public life by heart, that is the way we want to live our lives. That is the example we want to demonstrate in the work we do, yet the more paraphernalia created around the enforcement of standards in the House of Commons, the worse the reputation of politicians seems to become. I think that is because we think of ourselves as legislators, and the hon. Member for Bishop Auckland fell into that trap: “We need more rules about this. We need more rules about that. We need rules to address this.” I spent the previous Parliament on the Standards Committee, and I participated in producing the report that came out in May 2022. That report was a complete revision of the House of Commons code of conduct, and was trying to start a different conversation. One witness, who was a Chief Whip of a major political party, told us in evidence, “The seven principles are quite simple, and if you do not understand them, you should not be in public life.” On the face of it, they are very simple, but is navigating conflicts of interest as a Member of Parliament simple? We all have them; whether we are paid as an outside director or sponsored by a trade union, everybody has conflicts of interest. What about the conflicts of interest—even if they are not necessarily declarable—between our parties’ programmes and the interests of our constituents? We all have to deal with conflicts of interest. The image we were given in one piece of evidence from the Westminster Abbey Institute was that we are trying to navigate our way across a stormy sea, with lots of conflicting pressures and priorities, and it is not always easy to decide what to do in a given set of circumstances. If any hon. Member present thinks it has been easy, they probably do not realise what they have stumbled into. Yes, we want transparency, and yes, there need to be rules, but the rules should not be the culture. If you go into the Tea Room and talk about the House of Commons code of conduct, Madam Deputy Speaker, I am sure that you find—like everyone else—that people discuss how to stay clear of the rules. That is what the conversation appears to be about; it does not tend to be about how to deal sincerely and honestly with conflicts. The problem with the way in which the House of Commons has set up the adjudication of the code is that it tends to be a very legalistic process. Anyone who has been under the cosh of an investigation by the Commissioner for Standards finds first that they have got nobody to talk to. I have recommended that we should split the role of the commissioner, with somebody to advise and counsel Members of Parliament about conflicts of interest and the code, and somebody—preferably a former High Court judge—to adjudicate. Of course, I have no criticism to make of the present commissioner, but we could upgrade the juridical process of adjudicating the code as we have done for appeals, which are now presided over by a High Court judge and a panel in a much more strictly judicial process. The advantage of that is a High Court judge is used to adjudicating: judging evidence and facts and coming to a conclusion.