In 1968, rumors circulated in Westminster that the new Greek military dictatorship had an M.P. on its payroll. Gordon Bagier, a Labor M.P. who had praised the new regime at a press conference in Athens in April, 1968, and who was active in it urging other M.P.’s to visit Greece to “learn the facts,” was queried by a newspaper as to what he knew about these rumors. Mr. Bagier indignantly declared: “The claim that Mr. Fraser [a public relations man representing Greece] has a British M.P. in the pay of the Greek Government has amazed and angered everyone. This would be an atrocious situation if true, but I have been in Parliament long enough to know that the claim is quite fantastic.”
The press printed his ringing denial. Several months later, a television news show obtained documentary proof that Mr. Bagier was receiving a retainer from the Fraser firm. Nominally, his assignment was to obtain “new business” but actually he acted as go-between with other M.P.’s on behalf of the Greek Government. Mr. Bagier promptly resigned from the firm but not from Parliament. He has since been renominated by his constituency party.
The Bagier affair touched a sensitive nerve. The association of M.P.’s with public relations firms having foreign clients has been growing. Back in 1962, the Sunday Telegraph revealed that two Conservative M.P.’s were tied up with a public relations firm representing the East German Government. One of them had signed a letter to the press without disclosing that it had been written for him by East Germany’s public relations firm. Both had arranged all-expenses-paid trips of other M.P.’s to the Leipzig Trade Fair where, it was argued, their presence could be misinterpreted by ordinary Germans as proof of British sympathy for the Ulbricht regime.
This kind of public relations activity is more a nuisance than a menace. Obscure members such as Mr. Bagier have no standing or influence in the House. Public relations firms hire them because the initials M.P. after their names impress gullible foreign clients. These M.P.’s arrange introductions to other Members and to civil servants. They reserve private dining rooms in the House of Commons to give luncheons in honor of clients. The latter are naturally impressed at being entertained in historic Westminster, but most of the time, it would be hard to say what comes out of the luncheons and the introductions. Usually, the more important and ambitious Members do not get involved in this prestige mongering and expense account racketeering. This problem soils the fringes of Parliament but does not strike to its heart.
Yet the Government and the House took a serious view of Bagier’s indiscretion. His attempt to wield influence in an undercover way offended convention. The traditional attitude is that in ethical matters, the House relies upon candor and custom, not upon codes and coercion. Since most Members have outside jobs and all of them have private interests, Bagier’s case raised the much larger and more troublesome question of how Members at one and the same time can defend the public interest, represent the many particular interests in their constituencies and in the nation, and tend to their personal financial affairs? Or, more accurately, one should say that reformers in the press and in Parliament tried to use the affair to raise this more significant question.
This big but awkward problem surfaces from time to time, but Parliament, like Congress, is always reluctant to confront it squarely. In July, 1965, James Callaghan, then Chancellor of the Exchequer, looked back upon the fight he had waged for the tax reforms in his first Budget that spring and then attacked the attitude of some Conservative M.P.’s: “I do not think of them as ‘the Honorable Member for X or Y or Z.’ I look at them and say, ‘investment trusts,’ ‘capital speculators,’ or ‘that is the fellow who is the Stock Exchange man who makes a profit on gilt edge.’ I have almost forgotten their constituencies, but I shall never forget their interests. I wonder sometimes whom they represent. The constituents or their own or friends’ particular interests?”
Callaghan made these remarks at a political meeting and not in the House, and he named no names, but the Speaker still ruled that his speech was a “prima facie case of Breach of Privilege.” Callaghan escaped by making an ambiguous apology. He had no real alternative because in a privilege case, truth is not a defense. A Member cannot substantiate his charges; he can only withdraw them or be censured. Some Labor backbenchers defended Callaghan’s remarks and wanted to widen the fight, but with a majority of only six, the Government could not risk a major controversy.
The conventional wisdom is that Parliament would suffer if its Members were full-time politicians and that it benefits from the variety of knowledge which Members acquire in their outside activities. But different Members have different ideas on whether they can make use of their specialized knowledge. Thus, Jeremy Thorpe, the leader of the Liberal Party, has said that during the several years he served in his private capacity as a marketing consultant to the Government of Tunisia on the sale of its citrus fruits in Britain, he was careful never to speak on Tunisian matters in the House. Similarly, Sir Spencer Summers, Conservative M.P. for Aylesbury, confessed in a debate last year that although he had been connected with the steel industry for 40 years, “This is the first occasion on which I have dared to intervene in a steel debate. I do so now because I am no longer connected with the Company, and am freer from the taint of vested interest.” But many Members have no such scruples and regard the attitude of Thorpe and Summers as needlessly stultifying.
There is also ambiguity about voting. Patrick Jenkin, Conservative M.P. for Wanstead, was an employee of the Distillers Company before he entered Parliament. After his election the company kept him in its employ at half-salary and allowed his secretary to handle his constituency mail. Jenkin does not conceal this relationship, and he speaks in most debates affecting the whisky industry. But in 1968, he told the House he would not vote on a section of the Finance Act, which altered the taxes on whisky, because he might be thought to have an “immediate and personal” interest. Interestingly enough, no other Members followed his example in voting on other sections of the bill affecting industries with which they were connected, and both the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Conservative “Shadow Chancellor” told Jenkin that he was “carrying things too far” in refusing to vote.
Because of these and other uncertainties, in May, 1969, on the motion of Mr. Fred Peart, the leader of the House, a committee of nine members was appointed to re-examine the whole issue.
The relaxed British attitude toward conflicts of interest has developed because of Parliament’s unique history. There is, first of all, the tradition deriving from a pre-democratic age that the House of Commons is a gentleman’s private club. Members drift in the late afternoon. Nothing of importance happens in the House until 2:30 p.m. and, unlike Washington, night sessions are the rule rather than the exception in Westminster.
Members were not paid until 1911, and then only L 400, a figure, which did not meet the personal and political expenses of an M.P. with a family. Subsequent increases only reflected the changing value of money. It was not until October, 1964, that Parliament, acting on the recommendation of an all-party committee, enacted a significant raise in salaries, lifting them from L 1,750 a year to L 3,250. The latter is still notably modest (about $8,000) by American standards, but in Britain it is a middle class salary. This is the closest Britain has yet edged toward making service in Parliament into a full-time job. Another salary increase is now under consideration, but most Members, if they can, supplement their salary by some kind of outside work.
The only restriction on outside activities affects lawyers. This is not surprising inasmuch as lawyers, by definition, are the paid agents and advisers of other men’s interests. Beginning in 1666, a series of precedents has developed which forbids M.P.’s who are lawyers from accepting fees for professional services connected with any proceeding of Parliament. They cannot practice as counsel before any House committee or advise on a private or public bill. During the railroad-building boom of the mid-19th century when parliamentary approval was needed for rights-of-way, private companies had over 200 M.P.’s on retainers. In 1858, the House declared: “That it is contrary to the usage and derogatory to the dignity of this House that any of its members should bring forward, promote or advocate in this House any proceeding or measure in which he may have acted or been concerned for or in consideration of any pecuniary fee or reward.” Although primarily directed against lawyers, this language was broad enough to encompass all members.
At about that time, the House also changed its procedure regarding private bills, which then bulked much larger in the work of Parliament than they do today. Previously, the custom had been to place on committees to consider these bills those members who had some personal knowledge of the situation or who came from the locality affected by them. Because of the potential for corruption, this procedure was reversed. Since 1855, only members who are in no way involved are placed on such committees. Moreover, a member assigned to such a committee has to take a special oath: “I … hereby declare that my constituents have no local interest and that I have no personal interest in the said bill.” A member who voted on a private bill in which he had a financial interest could have his vote challenged and, if the Speaker permitted the challenge, disallowed. But the last time a vote on a private bill was disallowed was in 1836, and none has been challenged since 1901. Clearly the combination of an honest civil service, which reports the facts on private bills, careful screening by select committees, and the oath taken by members appointed to such committees is working well as a safeguard against corruption.
With regard to public bills, there is virtually no restraint on a member’s voting. When the coalmines were nationalized, M.P.’s who were directors and stockholders of the coal companies voted on the legislation. The same was true on the steel nationalization bill and on other economic bills. The House’s rule on voting is that no member who has a direct pecuniary interest in a question is allowed to vote upon it. The rule dates back to the early 17th century during the reign of King James I. But like similar laws and rules in the United States, it is more loophole than law. The prevailing interpretation was laid down by the Speaker of the House in 1811, when he declared: “This interest must be a direct pecuniary interest, and separately belonging to the persons…and not in common with the rest of His Majesty’s subjects, or on a matter of state policy.”
Each of these three phrases helps to rob the rule of any meaning. Thus, “direct pecuniary interest” has been held by subsequent Speakers to mean that an interest must not only be private and particular but also not dependent upon the exercise of discretionary powers by any other body. For example, in 1890, the House of Commons considered a bill, which reduced the number of public houses and provided compensation to those who lost their licenses. Three Members who owned public houses voted on the bill and their votes were challenged. The Speaker disallowed the challenge, ruling that compensation to be granted under the bill was contingent on county councils exercising discretionary powers and therefore although the three Members had a “pecuniary interest” it was not a “direct” one.
“Separately belonging to the person and not in common with the rest of His Majesty’s subjects” means that if a Member is part of a broad category of citizens, which stands to benefit from a bill, he can cast his vote. An M.P. who owns a farm, for example, could vote for a bill to increase farm subsidies. The theory is that he would not benefit from the bill in a unique way since the pecuniary interest he has is one, which he shares in common with the rest of His Majesty’s subjects.
The final phrase “on a matter of state policy” is the largest loophole of all. It has been interpreted to mean that regardless of whether the bill involved the pecuniary interests of all of the nation or just one segment of it, an M.P. can vote if it is an issue of broad public policy.
Under these circumstances, it is not astonishing that only once in the past two centuries have votes ever been disallowed on a public matter because of a conflicting private interest.
The British assumption is that Parliament in one of its aspects is an assembly of interests and that it is to be expected that every member has an interest of some kind. Moreover, it is desirable that every interest have its champion in the House. Indeed, to an American, it often seems as if Britain has achieved a functioning corporate state in which interest groups are directly represented but without the Fascist trappings of Mussolini’s Italy or Salazar’s Portugal.
As long as a Member’s interests are known to his colleagues, he is free to speak and vote on any issue. In recent decades, a custom of obscure origin has evolved by which a Member who has a financial interest in a particular subject declares his interest at the outset of his speech. This declaration of interest can be quite general (“Honorable Members will be aware that I am a director of a glass-making company…” or simply, “I have a private interest in this measure…”) and having been made once in a session of Parliament, it need not be made again every time the subject arises.
American reformers have tried to draw a viable distinction between the interests of one’s constituency and one’s own financial interests. For example, it would seem permissible for a senator from Texas to argue for the oil-and-gas industry since that is a major industry in his state. But, it was argued, it was improper for the late Senator Robert Kerr of Oklahoma to sponsor a bill to decontrol Federal regulation of natural gas prices since he not only represented a gas-producing state but he was also a major stockholder in an oil-and-gas company. Passage of the bill would have enriched him by several millions of dollars.
This kind of problem seems not to worry the British. When a visitor raises the issue, a British M.P. or political observer will usually cite the farming interest as an example of the impracticability of sorting out the public from the private interest. Until the present generation, land was the most widely represented interest in the House of Commons, and today dozens of Conservative M.P.’s are still substantial landowners. Yet this is so much taken for granted that farming is often not declared as a Member’s interest. Usually, only an industrial or commercial connection such as a directorship is thought to be worth mentioning.
The British extended this tolerance toward private interests to include trade unionists. When Disraeli broadened the suffrage in 1868, it meant that for the first time members of the working class would probably be elected to Parliament. Since M.P.’s were then unsalaried, working class M.P.’s would obviously have to be subsidized by someone. The first two working-class members were subsidized by their unions, and the practice grew up of “sponsored” trade union M.P.’s. (The alternative, of course, would have been to pay M.P.’s a decent salary. Congressmen at that time were already being paid $5,OOO a year, a figure M.P.’s were not to reach for another sixty years.)
The number of these sponsored M.P.’s slowly increased until in 1900, they organized themselves into a bloc called the Labor Representation Committee. Some of these M.P.’s were financed by their union. (Most of them were mineworkers because the miners were the most cohesive and politically self-conscious workers.) Others were unionists who were elected and financed by local branches of the Liberal Party and were consequently known as Lib-Labs. When the Parliamentary Labor Party was formed in 1906, not all trade union M.P.’s joined it. It was not until 1918 that virtually all trade union M.P.’s had joined the Labor Party, and the Labor Representation Committee was transformed into that party’s Trade-Union Group. This Group still survives with its own identity, its own funds, and its own meetings, some of which are closed to other members of the Labor Party in Parliament.
The number of trade union sponsored Labor M.P.’s is now the highest in history. Labor controls the House with 346 seats to 262 for the Conservatives, 13 for the Liberals, and the rest scattered. 130 of the 346 Labor M.P.’s are trade union sponsored. (There are, in addition, M.P.’s who are members or officials of trade unions but who receive no financial assistance from their unions.)
What does sponsorship amount to? In the old days, it meant that the union paid the M.P. the same wage he had previously earned as a worker. Since 1911 when M.P.’s began to receive salaries, unions paid their M.P.’s a differential, perhaps L 100 annually, to help him make ends meet and to cover travel expenses to and from his constituency. Since Parliament voted itself a sharp hike in salary in 1964, several unions have discontinued these supplementary payments and others have reduced them to L 50 a year. Douglas Houghton, the chairman of the Parliamentary Labor Party, says: “I know of no union which pays more than L 250 ($600) to its sponsored M.P.’s.”
Whatever is paid is a matter between an M.P. and his union. There are no laws or party rules concerning the matter.
There are, however, party rules concerning the help, which a union can give to a Constituency Labor Party. In a city constituency, a union can contribute L 350 ($840) or pay half the salary of a political agent whichever is the greater. (Because canvassing is thought to be more difficult and therefore more costly in thinly-populated rural districts, the ceilings are slightly higher in those constituencies.) Since party agents now receive higher pay than at the time these limits were fixed, unions in effect can give L 500 to L 600 ($1,200 to $1,440) a year. In addition, a union may contribute up to 80 per cent of the election expenses if the local party nominates a candidate sponsored by the union. Candidates are not multiply sponsored. That is, several unions could not get around the rule by each of them adopting the same man and each of them putting up 80 per cent of his expenses or each of them paying one-half of a political agent’s salary. A candidate is only sponsored by one union but, of course, other unions can strengthen the local party by paying party dues for their members who live in the constituency. There is no limit to the number of dues-payers. As in the United States, a local party may be weak, surviving only as an organizational shell, while in another district, political interest may be high and a party has thousands of dues-paying members. Sponsored M.P.’s come from both kinds of districts. Sometimes, a district adopts a union-backed candidate because the local party is so weak that it cannot finance or carry through an effective campaign without union help. Alternatively, a district may have a strong local party because it is the scene of union militancy.
The relationship between Labor Party M.P.’s and the unions, which sponsor them, is normally a relaxed one. Like Northern Democrats who accept the support of the AFL-CIO, the politician and the union share the same philosophic outlook and react to issues in predictable ways. Arm-twisting is unnecessary. In the early days of union weakness and sweatshop conditions, a union-sponsored M.P. would use the floor of the House as a forum in which to call attention to the grievances of the workers and fight for particular union interests. But nowadays, unions are strong and have ready access to Government departments. They do not need their own M.P. to speak up for them or to fight their battles. A modern union sponsors M.P.’s because it wants to advance its larger, less immediate aims.
The Wilson Government’s economic difficulties, however, have strained this amiable relationship. To control wage costs and make British exports more competitive, the Government adopted a “prices and incomes policy” which amounted to a modified version of wage-and-price controls. This policy has been keenly unpopular with most unions. In the summer of 1968, one union, the Draughtsmen’s and Allied Technicians’ Association, (D.A.T.A.) adopted a resolution denouncing the Government’s position and warning that it would “review the sponsorship of M.P.’s who consistently support policies which are in opposition to the interests of D.A.T.A. members.”
D.A.T.A. actually sponsors only two Members. Both of them kept discreetly silent. However, Will Howie, Labor M.P. for Luton, and a member of the union but not sponsored by it, took up this challenge. He resigned from the union and denounced the efforts of all unions to intimidate their sponsored M.P.’s. He called attention to a resolution adopted by the House of Commons in 1947, which stated: “It is inconsistent with the dignity of the House, with the duty of a Member to his constituents, and with the maintenance of the privilege of freedom of speech for any Member of this House to enter into any contractual agreement with an outside body, controlling or limiting the Member’s complete independence and freedom of action in Parliament, or stipulating that he shall act in any way as the representative of such outside body in regard to any matters to be transacted in Parliament, the duty of a Member being to his constituents and to the country as a whole, rather than to any particular section thereof.”
For his own part, Mr. Howie added: “It is worth reminding you that a Member of Parliament represents his constituency and not merely a section of it, whether that section sponsors him or not. You do not buy a Member of Parliament when you pay some of his constituency expenses.”
Like a summer thunderstorm, this outburst quickly passed away. A year earlier, the much more powerful Transport and General Workers Union (analogous in strength though not in corruption to the Teamsters Union in the U.S.) had passed a similar resolution warning the 25 M.P.’s which it sponsors that they risked losing the union’s financial support if they continued to support the Government’s prices and incomes policy.
Some sponsored M.P.’s have spoken out against the Government. But most of these Members, caught between the pressure from their unions and the discipline of the party whips in the House, have grumbled in private, kept their mouths shut in public, and voted with the Government, The Government’s gradual abandonment of this unpopular policy in 1969-70 eased their lot.
Numerous outside organizations pay retainers to Members to serve as “parliamentary counsels.” The retainer is paid not to have the Member argue the organization’s case in the House but rather to provide “advice.” In practice, it seems to be a form of public relations. A statement by an M.P. gets more attention in the press and on television than would the same statement issued by the official of the organization. The organization of British policemen has the interesting custom of employing a leading M.P. as its parliamentary counsel who is a member of the opposition. When the Conservatives were in power, the police retained James Callaghan, now Home Secretary and responsible for the police. The present counsel for the police is Eldon Griffiths, a Conservative M.P. who was well-known as a journalist for Newsweek and who is regarded as one of the coming men in the Tory Party. The theory underlying the choice of a spokesman from the opposition party is that he can speak more freely in criticizing the Home Secretary than could a member of the party in power.
In choosing the nine members of the committee to review conflicts of interest, the House of Commons acted very much, like Congress in similar situations. That is, it appointed dignified old-timers whose own conduct is impeccable but who are loath to believe that anything could really be wrong about an institution to which they have devoted the best years of their lives. The only reform-minded man on the committee was Eric Lubbock, Liberal M.P. for Orpington.
The committee met six times and heard eleven witnesses which, by American standards of congressional prolixity, was a modest sampling of opinion on this complicated subject. Since a public relations firm had been the occasion for the inquiry, four of the witnesses were officers of the Institute of Public Relations. The committee also took testimony from the Clerk of the House. With one exception, the remaining witnesses were all Members. The lone outsider was Andrew Roth, a journalist who has written extensively on conflict-of-interest questions and in each of the last three parliaments has published a volume entitled, “The Business Background of M.P.’s.”
The formality, which prevailed in the hearings, was striking. In Washington, whenever a congressman is a witness this is an occasion for either lighthearted joshing or elaborate praise or both. There was no Rotarian amiability or mutual congratulations in these British hearings. The last hearing I attended in Washington was delayed for several minutes while a Minnesota congressman singled out the janitor of his home town church who was sitting in the audience and praised his services to man, God and country. It is painful to try to imagine the cutting remarks which Sir Derek Walker-Smith or other members of this committee would have made if a colleague attempted such a time-wasting pleasantry.
Much of the committee’s attention was devoted to the problem of public relations firms, which like to have an M.P. or two on their letterhead because it impresses clients. Should there be a public register kept by the Clerk of the House in which such organizations would list themselves as professional lobbyists now do? The committee finally decided that inasmuch as there are thousands of public relations firms and it is virtually impossible to define exactly what it is that public relations consists of, it would be too cumbersome to keep such a register and too difficult to decide who would have to list themselves.
Another issue, which concerned the committee, was that of foreign trips. Witnesses pointed out that most Members couldn’t afford to travel abroad to controversial areas such as Russia or the Middle East unless they accept hospitality from a foreign government or from a public relations firm acting on behalf of a foreign client. No stigma attaches to accepting such hospitality from the U.S. or from Commonwealth countries. But the situation is different when it comes to the hospitality of East Germany’s Communist regime or the Greek colonels or—if an M.P. wishes to maintain a public posture of impartiality—of Israel or Egypt. M.P.’s do not have the comparatively easy access to foreign travel through committee work which American congressman does.
It was suggested that a public register ought to be kept where a Member would list each foreign trip, by whom paid, and for what purpose. But again the members of the Committee worried that this could be misconstrued. What if one accepted an invitation to South Africa and came back loathing the South African Government even more than before one went? How could such an M.P. distinguish his trip from that of another Member whose mind was changed by the trip? These and similar questions seem more esoteric than troublesome, but they proved sufficient to persuade the Committee to drop the idea of a public register for overseas journeys.
The major argument in committee was whether Members should make an annual statement of their income and assets. The same arguments, which are rehearsed for and against this proposal in the U.S., were offered in Westminster. Those opposed said that it was unnecessary and an unwarranted intrusion on the privacy of Members. Furthermore, they argued, most Members are honest and the few who are not can be expected to circumvent any set of regulations. William Hamilton, a radical Labor M.P. from Scotland, offered what would seem to be the definitive answer to this argument: “Oh, yes, the same applies to income tax, does it not? There are a hundred and one ways you can evade income tax and surtax and death duties and road penalties, speed limits and the rest, but that is no reason why you should not have legislation on these matters.”
The Old Guard who predominated on the committee argued for what might be called the “club” or institutional view of the problem. George Darling, M.P., observed at one point: “It would be terribly unfortunate if an M.P. is known to be receiving money from an organization, which is perfectly proper, and because the register is open to the Press, the person concerned can be lambasted in the Press for quite the wrong reasons.”
George Strauss, M.P., the committee chairman, said to Andrew Roth, the journalist who testified in favor of putting Members’ finances on record: “Have you considered the other side of the picture? We appreciate the mischief, which you and many others want to cure or to limit in the interest of Parliament. But have you considered that Parliament might be very much damaged if the personal position, the changing position, of every Member of Parliament were open to comment, criticism, by the newspapers, many of which are anti-Parliament, anti-Members, on political and other grounds. There might be scurrilous but maybe semi-truthful matter in the papers about Members of Parliament’s private positions, income, investments and so on? Do you not think that might do great damage to Parliament as an institution?”
Roth replied: “There is already selective use of this sort of information by the newspapers. …. I think M.P.’s have the protection of possibly the toughest series of libel laws in the world. I think that this has got to be their protection.”
Eric Lubbock in offering a motion in favor of public declaration of income suggested this preamble: “Once an ordinary citizen becomes a Member of Parliament, he can no longer expect the same measure of personal privacy. His religion, his code of conduct and behavior and even such personal decisions as the way in which he chooses to educate his children become the subject of legitimate public knowledge and scrutiny. He has chosen deliberately ‘to live in a glass bowl’ and by so doing he accepts a different status from that of other citizens. The exposure to public view of his private financial interests, which could be a factor in his political thinking, would be consistent with that special status.”
There was never a chance that Lubbock’s proposal would be adopted. It was voted down, 7 to 1. The committee contented itself with proposing what it termed a “code of conduct” but which actually consisted only of refurbishing the two traditional resolutions on the subject: a Member should declare his interest in any debate and he should not do or say anything in the House specifically for a fee. The first rule was strengthened marginally by providing that a Member should declare his interest, not only in making a speech as in the past, but also in putting a question, written or oral, to a Minister. With regard to the second resolution, the Committee split the hair pretty finely between what is an improper fee and what is a proper retainer: “The distinction to be drawn is between advocacy of a cause in Parliament for a fee or retainer [which would be wrong] and the advancement of an argument by a Member who, through a continuing association with an industry, service or concern from which he may obtain some remuneration, is able to draw upon specialist knowledge of the subject under debate. Your Committee appreciate that the distinction may not always be precise.”
When made public in December, the committee’s report received a hostile reception in the press. None of the confusions had been cleared up, the difficulties of having a public register listing M.P.s’ sources of incomes had been exaggerated and, in short, the report came close to being nothing but a whitewash. But Parliament happily accepted the report and hoped that soon the attention of the press would be diverted to some other subject,
Received in New York on March 30, 1970.
Mr. Shannon is an Alicia Patterson Fund award winner, on leave from The New York Times. This article may be published with credit to Mr. Shannon, The New York Times, and the Alicia Patterson Fund.
© 1969 William Shannon
