MPs 'could be given an app' to stop them breaking House of Commons' rules

 
Police investigation: the House of Lords office of a Labour peer was searched (Picture: PA)
James Tapsfield24 June 2014
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MPs could be asked to download a mobile phone app to help them avoid breaking Commons conduct rules, a committee has heard.

The idea is one of several being considered by the cross-party Standards Committee as part of a "fundamental" rethink of the system, following heavy criticism over the probe into former Culture Secretary Maria Miller's expenses.

The inquiry could even result an end to self-regulation after the Miller row saw MPs water down the findings of the independent standards commissioner.

The move triggered renewed complaints that politicians are allowed to "mark their own homework" when it comes to their behaviour.

At a briefing for journalists today, Peter Jinman - the lay committee member heading the inquiry - said it was "quite possible" Mrs Miller and other controversial figures such as ex-Lib Dem MP Mike Hancock would be called to give evidence.

Mr Jinman expressed frustration that the Commons had yet to consider changes to conduct rules proposed by the committee in December 2012, which would tighten lobbying restrictions and allow the commissioner to examine private behaviour that brought the House into disrepute.

"I think it is important that if indeed a committee comes up with suggested changes then the House has got to take that seriously," Mr Jinman said.

Tory committee member Geoffrey Cox QC said it might demand the standing orders of the Commons be amended so its recommendations are put before MPs within a time limit in future.

"We might propose, for example, that if the commissioner recommends a change and the committee then approves it, that it is debated on the floor of the House within a matter of weeks or months," Mr Cox said.

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Mr Cox bemoaned the "unclear, incoherent" rules that "busy" MPs were subject to, insisting conduct was not always a simple matter of right and wrong.

"The difficulty at the moment is that individual members with some guidance from this committee, from the commissioner, from (the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority), are left to navigate a quite often rather unclear, rather incoherent set of rules which are quite difficult for them to understand, which at the borderlines at least of behaviour are not always very clearly expressed.

"What we need in parliament is to see a sort of permanent focus on the whole question and practice of ethics as it relates and impacts on political action and the behaviour of members of parliament.

"One model that we need to look at - and I know members of the committee have already started to think about it - is the Office of Congressional Ethics in the US, which involves a permanent work on this subject by both independent officers and members of Congress.

"By putting it on a kind of scientific permanent basis, we alert members of parliament, we make it part of their everyday life."

He added: "You can't just leave it to one's individual moral judgement. There needs to be a group in parliament, a body in parliament, an institution in parliament that is constantly working on this subject."

Mr Jinman said MPs were already issued with a guide to the rules, but it needed to be rethought.

"They do have already a guide. It may well be in this day and age it should be in an app," he added.

Another Conservative committee member, Robert Buckland, stressed that it would consider all options - including the possibility of handing responsibility for regulating behaviour to an outside body.

"This isn't rearranging the deckchairs, this is a fundamental review," he said.

The committee is aiming to complete its inquiry by the end of the year, and members expressed hope that its conclusions will be put before the House before the general election.

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