Published: Sunday Times, 28 June 2009
This week, parliament will take through all stages of the Parliamentary Standards Bill, giving effect to the commitments made by the prime minister and now supported by all sides of the house.
Who could deny the need for the new MPs’ code of practice, including the requirement for absolute and total transparency about earnings outside parliament? Certainly not me. But the road to hell is paved with good intentions.
I will not be one of those having suddenly to declare on the members’ register of interests something that’s not already known; and I’ll not be one of those who are withdrawing their “interests” because they have something untoward to hide.
I’m happy to endorse any pledge or commitment required by my party or arising from Sir Christopher Kelly’s recommendations that reinforces what I’m already doing — spending a minimum of 60 hours a week on my prime task: representing the interests of the people of Sheffield Brightside.
But I’m lucky. I’m not authoring books — and I’m not a farmer. Why should I pick these two innocuous pastimes to highlight? Because they underline the difficulty when we get into treating MPs not as professionals, but as jobbing builders — or, more likely, “build-by-the- hour” lawyers, for it may be the former background of those who drew up the rules that led them to think in terms of the way solicitors bill their clients.
Quite simply, Tony Benn’s extensive diaries — dictated late at night and typed up lovingly later — would’ve had to have been registered hour by hour, with the advance specifically linked to the time committed. Dick Crossman’s farm, or Jim Callaghan’s, would have been a burden around their necks, as they detailed how much time they spent with their farm managers, the hours spent on crises with livestock or overseeing accounts.
There is a wider point here: the varied role that MPs play at different times in their political and parliamentary life.
For 17 years I had two jobs. One was as a constituency MP. The other was on the front bench of my party — with eight of those years in gruelling cabinet roles.
Making a difference to my constituents and playing my part on the national scene involves me in direct approaches to ministers, rather than putting down parliamentary questions; developing policy reports, not merely scrutinising or criticising someone else’s; and giving a voice, publicly, to a constituency whose voice would otherwise never be heard at national level.
Others have important roles as new or experienced backbenchers. They do things in a different way, by using procedure or sitting on committees. I don’t eschew this either. I’m an assiduous attendee of the Speaker’s conference and I have been asked by the prime minister and the home secretary to review party policy on policing.
So we each make our contributions in our own way — and the real question is: how do we do our job and how do we make a difference? There are several spurious notions bandied around about this.
Some, for instance, feel that the more parliamentary questions you ask, the more effective you are. It’s certainly the case that some MPs are very effective at putting down questions that eventually lead to a revelation or an exposure of a new set of facts — but one MP has asked more than 700 questions in the past year, at a cost of over £100,000. Mostly, questions are put down to highlight facts already known, or to try to embarrass the government. Most questions lead to no clarification, no revelation and no change in policy. Doing some profound research and producing well-thought-through documents can be much more effective — if less visible — in changing minds.
There is also a belief that those who have voted or spoken the most in the house are much more “active” than those ferreting away on select committees, or who are actually out there meeting people and learning something about what they really think.
The simple fact of the matter is that keeping in touch with reality and mobilising political action outside parliament is as much a part of the job of an MP as being on the green benches — including meeting voluntary and community organisations and those without a voice.
Let us by all means reinforce tough standards for MPs’ conduct, tighten the rules for pay and allowances and earn back the trust of the public. But let us do it by being honest with ourselves about what it is that MPs should be doing. They can’t simply bob up and down in the Commons, earning Brownie points for their attendance. They have to be able to think, consider and contribute to the political life of the nation, which goes beyond the four walls of the chamber.
If we can’t recognise that, then we are fated to end up with a parliament that talks to no one but itself.
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