What’s the correct response to the news that Lord (Chris) Rennard has been cleared by the Clerk of the Parliaments of any wrong-doing over his allowances claims? I ask because I think there are some important issues at play here for how we, the Lib Dems, as a party can help restore trust in democracy.
First, we need to separate the personal from the political (and, incidentally, this applies just as much to Chris’s critics). Most of us who have met, or in some way know, Chris will be pleased for him on a personal level. The allegations that he’d somehow fiddled the system has dogged him since April, and brought about a more-hasty-than-planned exit to his time as the party’s chief executive.
Above all, though, Chris’s friends and the wider party will be relieved. The allegations against him have hung like a dark cloud over the Lib Dems’ pronouncements on expenses for several months now.
To be blunt, it’s been an embarrassment, and one which the party has handled poorly – precisely because we’ve failed to separate the personal from the political. The fact that Chris was not only a Lib Dem peer, but also the party’s chief executive, and one of its most loyal servants for decades, led to a paralysis in what was owed to Chris, to the party, and to the wider public: namely, an independent system of due process to resolve the allegations.
The response from the highest level within the party to this case has, I’m afraid, been severely lacking. The party’s Federal Executive meeting of May left it unclear how the allegations against individual peers would be dealt with; and there has been no subsequent statement from the Federal Executive on the issue. Instead of openness and transparency, there has been embarrassed silence. And that is, quite simply, not good enough.
Before writing this post, I re-read my Lib Dem Voice article from May – Papering over the crack of the elephant in the room – to see if I’d been in any way unfair to Chris in the light of the allegations against him being dismissed. I think I can stand by its every word, especially this section:
Of course these things are never easy. Allegations involving friends and colleagues never are. But if we cannot get right the processes for dealing with our internal difficulties, how can we convince anyone else (or ourselves) that we would be any different and better at reforming the wider political system?
My criticism of the party’s response to the expenses row is not restricted to the leadership, by the way. There are still 21 Lib Dem MPs whose Legg letters remain (to the best of my knowledge) secret, despite the recommendation of the whip’s office that they all issue a statement on their websites.
This is frustrating stuff – most especially because the Lib Dems have been the one major party which has consistently fought for greater transparency of Parliamentary expenses, and for real reform of our systems of government. A quick search through the LDV archives shows just a handful of the ways the party has been pushing for change for years, often in the teeth of opposition from Labour and Tory MPs:
-
Expenses reform: Clegg pushes ahead despite Labour and Conservative opposition (4/7/08) -
How Conservative MPs sunk expenses reform (4/7/08) -
Lib Dem MP to put down motion against expenses cover-up (18/1/09) -
The right noises on expenses (23/3/09) -
The MPs who blocked expenses reform last summer (19/5/09)
In short, the party needs to walk the talk, and prove that our commitment to expenses reform – to openness and transparency – apply to all our Parliamentarians, regardless of the position they hold or the esteem in which they’re held.
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29 Comments
Perhaps our MP’s could disclose their letters by a certain deadline?
Ok, this is getting annoying.
Both you and Mark are taking it as read that the investigation has fully exonerated Rennard, but if you take the time to read it, it does no such thing.
It presents evidence that the allegations are not true now.
It presents Rennards own claims that the allegations are not true now.
It clears Rennard on the basis that the rules are poorly defined.
What it does not do is show that the sunlight centers allegations at the time they were made were false. To try and mislead your readership (who are mostly I presume like me Lib Dem supporters) is frankly grubby as hell.
“It presents evidence that the allegations are not true now.”
Frankly, it doesn’t even do that, because on Rennard’s own account he must be spending well under half his time in Eastbourne.
On that basis, his residence in Eastbourne would fail the test that applies to MPs “main residences”. It appears to be only because a Lord’s “main residence” is completely undefined that the complaint was not upheld.
James S – the assumption of Chris’s critics of ‘guilty until proven innocent’ is also getting pretty annoying, too.
Stephen, I don’t assume he’s guilty. I really have no anti-Rennard agenda, I’d love to see a robust defense showing up Guido & Sunlight as over-zealous in going after Lib Dems. It would be lovely if Lib Dems could be shown to never do anything wrong.
I fully agree with the meat of your article. The Lib Dems have done better on this in terms of campaigning to reform the system and in their behavior which has come to light. It is hugely frustrating that despite being better we’re not getting any real improvement with the Electorate!
Now I think that a big part of the problem is any voter who bothers to dig into our scandals will find Lib Dem party organs behaving with hypocrisy and grubbiness. Sure, Labour and the Conservatives are much worse, but it’s a pretty hard sell “Vote Lib Dem, we’re mildly less bad than the other two!”.
When the the Rennard story broke we swept it under the carpet, then when the expenses scandal gave it a renewed importance we had loud exclamations that the Fed was looking into it. Then he stepped down with no mention of what the Fed had found.
Clegg tried to maintain that he hadn’t really done much wrong with his clever capital gains maneuver, until Legg started poking and now he’s paid money back.
Now LDV is following in this trend by taking the headline dismissal of the complaint and ignoring that the dismissal says nothing about the truth of the allegations. The perception is that the Lib Dems talk a good talk on policy, but when it comes down to actually behaving with integrity in their own affairs they fall short and spin like mad.
As a supporter this deeply saddens me, no Rennard is not guilty, he has not been proven to be guilty. Chris Rennard has not been proven to be anything. Given his colleagues presumably know when he was in the office and if he was doing a 3 hour commute, I’d rather like for them to step forward and exonerate him fully.
I am personally very happy for Chris. He didn’t deserve this cloud hanging over him.
Looking at the Lords situation generally, however, it appears that the expenses/allowances rules are/were even vaguer than those in the Commons. That is saying something….
As a party, I think you’re right Stephen. The silence of the Fedex was deafening. The party seemed to be just keeping schtum and hoping the problem would go away.
I thought the Fedex commissioned some sort of independent audit of the LibDem Lords’ expenses, didn’t they? In which case what happened to that?
All this has convinced me that no expenses or allowances should be paid to any parliamentarians apart from the normal travel expenses and hotel expenses that would be paid to most employees in business.
We need to completely wipe clean the House of Lords, in terms of membership, and start with a completely fresh set of senators. A Senate! Crikey! That’s revolutionary isn’t it?!!!! How on earth will the country survive the shock!!!!!!!! Noone’s ever done that before have they????!!!
Those Senators should be elected under the understanding they will only receive travel and hotel expenses on the production of receipts and that they will not receive allowances. If they don’t like it then they shouldn’t stand for election.
Ditto the Commons. Any accomodation for MPs in London should either be hotels reimbursed with the production of a receipt or state-owned accomodation with state-owned furniture. If MPs don’t like it then they can sod off and get another job.
It really is the time to stop faffing around and get on with properly our system.
properly reforming our system.
“I thought the Fedex commissioned some sort of independent audit of the LibDem Lords’ expenses, didn’t they? In which case what happened to that?”
I think a lot of people got that impression from the statement in May, but evidently the reference was not to any assessment on behalf of the party, but to an official House of Lords assessment, which is apparently now being carried out by the Senior Salaries Review Body.
As far as I’ve heard, there has been no party enquiry into Lords’ allowances at all.
@Paul Walter What would you say to a block of standardized flats for MPs and Lords if needed – I’ve been thinking about this and how I would deign them. They could very carbon efficient and environmentally friendly. No roofs would have to be repaired or lawns mowed. All repairs would go to the commons as they would maintain the flats.
It would foster a nice atmosphere between the parties – making friends in the corridors etc in dressing gowns, no worries about expenses…
Paul, Herbert is correct. The impression that there would be an independent enquiry carried out by the Federal Executive stems from a misinterpretation of Ros Scott’s original statement by Alix Mortimer. The expectation at that time was that a fully independent inquiry into Lords’ allowances would take place. That was subsequently transformed into a review by the SSRB, which is currently at work and due to report back fairly soon.
As for the Federal Executive, what could it have done? The Parliamentary Party in the Lords is sovereign, as a quick look at the Federal Constitution will confirm, the review of Lords’ allowances is under way, and the one Peer at whom allegations have been formally levelled was under investigation by the Lords authorities. What exactly was the Federal Executive supposed to do, or to report back?
To launch an inquiry into the allegations made against Chris Rennard would have brought the Party potentially into conflict with basic employment law whilst he was an employee of the Party and, given the conclusion of the Clerk, it is hard to imagine that any inquiry would have come up with a different verdict in any event.
Whether you are a friend of Chris or not, the ruling is as it is, the Rules pertaining to Lords allowances are as they are (for the time being at least), and whilst the moral high ground can be fought over all you like, the fact is that the only things left to be done are to, in the short term, reform Lords’ allowances to make them transparent, and in the long term, work towards a fully elected second chamber.
There are lots of things that FedEx could have done. They could have listed those Lords who did and did not claim the “I don’t live in London” allowances. They could have asked whether those who claim not to live in London:
1) Lived in London prior to becoming Lords.
2) Are on the electoral register at their non-London residence
3) Where they voted in the last general election
4) Whether their spouse works in a place compatible with their non-London residence
5) Whether their kids go to school in a place compatible with their non-London residence
When this scandal broke I googled 10 of our Peers team. The websites of two claimed that they lived in London when they told the Lords’ authorities that they did not. A year ago the partner of one of our peers told me that they had recently acquired a weekend home. Now I know why they did – they have registered it as their main home.
And they could recommend that any person who does not answer their questions should be suspended from the party. If Nick is serious about cleaning up politics, he would have supported this.
Or FedEx could sit on their hands and do nothing.
And as an ordinary party member there is nothing I can do. I can’t even vote to clear FedEx of the useless people who seem to think their job is to do nothing at times like this. It makes me sick.
Mark
“The impression that there would be an independent enquiry carried out by the Federal Executive stems from a misinterpretation of Ros Scott’s original statement by Alix Mortimer.”
No it didn’t.
I interpreted it in exactly the same way as Alix. I’m sure others did as well. I think it was a perfectly natural interpretation of the statement.
It is unfortunate that none of those “in the know” made any effort to correct that widespread false impression of what had been announced.
Anyhow, one thing the Federal Executive did manage to announce in May – I’m not sure how, in view of your assurance of its impotence in these matters – was the following:
“By mid-June the Chief Whips in both Houses, working with other relevant parts of the party will produce a Code of Conduct for Liberal Democrat parliamentarians. The party’s Audit and Compliance Board will outline principles which will inform this Code of Conduct. …
All Liberal Democrat parliamentary candidates will agree to abide by the Code of Conduct as a condition of selection. Other state parties and the European parliamentary party will be asked to produce a Code of Conduct which will similarly apply to all candidates.”
Has any of that happened? Certainly when I asked Lord McNally in July he appeared to know nothing whatsoever about it.
Herbert,
Yes, it did. Whether or not it was a reasonable interpretation, it wasn’t the correct one.
And as for whether those ‘in the know’ should have corrected it, you presume that they read LDV in the first place. I’m not sure that many of them do.
Tim,
I’m not sure that your questions would be that helpful. Very few of our Peers have children still at school, indeed many of them are of retirement age or older, which makes questions four and five rather futile for most of them. Having two residences means that you are entitled to be on the register in two places, so question two is inconclusive. You’re not allowed to vote in the same type of election in both of them, so question three makes sense, but four years later isn’t conclusive. In 2005, I voted in Dulwich & West Norwood. In 2007, I would have been eligible to vote in Brent North. In 2010, I’ll be voting in Bury St Edmunds. Question one is a matter of record for most, so makes sense, but again isn’t conclusive. George Mackie has been in the Lords since 1974. Is his residence now obliged to be his residence then? What if you remarry after you enter the Lords, like Baronesses Maddock, Scott or Walmsley did? Is it not reasonable that your residence might change? I merely make the point that it isn’t as easy as you might think to come up with a consistent test.
But, how do you oblige an individual to answer the questions? Membership is a matter for State, Regional and Local Parties, the Whip is an issue for the Parliamentary Party in the Lords (which, I would remind you, is sovereign). If the Federal Executive makes a recommendation, does that allow any individual a fair hearing in front of whatever body has sovereignty? And what if that recommendation is ignored? The Federal Executive has no power to enforce it. The Party’s constitution is, in that regard, a dog’s breakfast but, unfortunately, it’s the dog’s breakfast that members wanted, it seems. Perhaps the Federal Executive understood that at the time…
But if you want a vote in the next Federal Executive elections, why not run to be a Federal Conference delegate? If you win, you’ll get a vote in next year’s election for fifteen members of the Federal Executive. That might be more useful than wringing your hands claiming that you are powerless. You aren’t, that’s the beauty of the Constitution.
Mark
What part of my previous comment didn’t you understand? The misconception didn’t “stem” from what Alix Mortimer wrote, because other people independently made the same interpretation of the ambiguous statement from the Federal Executive. I know, because I was one of them!
But as you seem to have slipped back into your accustomed role as unofficial presidential spokesman, perhaps you can respond to my other question about the Code of Conduct that was meant to be produced more than four months ago. If you’re not “in the know”, maybe you can ask someone who is …
Greedy man gets off on technicality and too few of his political colleagues are willing to call it for what it is. Pathetic.
Mark
My questions would be a start, and as you say would work for at least some peers. Of course peers can explain their behaviour – as you say, someone who has been a peer for 30+ years may well have moved. No doubt the collective wisdom of FedEx could do better at devising questions than I managed in 5 minutes, and of course people should have the right to explain themselves, although those explanations should be public.
It would be better if the Lords chief whip was on board, but do you really think that if FedEx had come up with a decent proposal and Nick had backed them on that, that the peers would have insisted on covering everything up? If so, then yes, FedEx should do everything in its power, de jure and de facto, to ensure that the full weight of the party, leadership, state, regional and local, be brought to bear on any such individual.
I am not a conference rep because I can rarely make it to conference. To be a conference rep in those circumstances would be to deny someone else in my local area the right to play a full part in our party’s democratic processes, which I think would be unreasonable and undemocratic of me. I can hardly stand as a conference rep under the slogan “Vote for me, I can’t attend conference”. As a result I am powerless to do anything except to resign from the party, or reduce my level of activity.
Tim
Herbert,
Let’s see if I get this right. As the husband of the Party President, you presume that I am either incapable of holding a view based on my personal knowledge of the Federal Constitution or of party structures, or am simply not permitted to have one? The fact that I’ve been a party bureaucrat, holding organisational office for more than twenty years, and married to the Party President for only eighteen months of that time, means that I might actually know what I’m talking about without the need for reference to the Federal Executive or its members.
Curiously, people tend to ask me how they can go about doing things because, as a former Regional Secretary, English Conference Commttee member and process geek, I actually keep a copy of the Federal and English Constitutions on the desktop of my laptop. As a Senior Returning Officer of the Party, I need to have a firm grasp on the Selection Rules and who can actually do what and to whom.
However, you judge me to be merely a mouthpiece, so I’ll not bother trying to provide those answers that my own party activity makes me privy to, and some of which is a matter of public record – you probably wouldn’t believe me anyway. You can get the information yourself, some of which can be found by dint of some easy Googling…
Mark
“You can get the information yourself, some of which can be found by dint of some easy Googling…”
Perhaps you missed my previous comment, where I explained that I’d asked the leader of the party in the Lords about this Code of Conduct that was meant to have been formulated more than four months ago – and he hadn’t even heard of it.
But as that is the case, I think a moment’s reflection will show that a silly bluff along the lines of “I can’t be bothered to answer the question – you can find out using Google” isn’t going to fool anyone.
Do you really think that posting this kind of nonsense does the party any good?
And as for the arcane debate about the best way of determining which of their homes is a peer’s “main residence”, I think this kind of thing must make ordinary people wonder which planet we’re living on!
If a peer has a home in London, why on earth should they expect to be paid £20,000 a year from the public purse for sleeping in their own bed, under their own roof?
Reimburse reasonable expenses, by all means. But I can see no earthly reason why peers should be given these huge handouts when they are staying in their own homes and incurring not one penny of additional expenses.
The Party could have done and could still do a lot more about the sleaze that pervades the Liberal Democrats in the Lords if it wanted Mark. It could use its soft power to ensure that Lib Dem Lords are properly investigated and ultimately withdraw party membership from fraudulent Peers. If could even communicate that flipping your designated home for financial gain was some how objectionable. Instead the Party and its President have chosen to lavish praise on Chris Rennard at Autumn Conference, when he was invited to speak at the rally (I am afraid I do not know what he said – I had walked out by that point). There is a lot that still could and can be done, I guess it comes down to how important you believe proper standards in peoples personal financial affairs are, as well as how serious you consider accusations of fraud and corruption in pubic office to be.
Herbert,
You choose to believe that anything I say is Ros’s answer, or on her behalf. I have no right, nor do I claim to represent her views, although I do have the right to represent mine. Given that you seem incapable of understanding that we are separate individuals, why should I respond any further?
Mark,
I’m baffled by this statement:
To launch an inquiry into the allegations made against Chris Rennard would have brought the Party potentially into conflict with basic employment law whilst he was an employee of the Party
Now, I claim no expertise in employment law, but I should imagine that if my employer were presented with allegations that I had acted so as to bring my employer into disrepute, they would have no hesitation in investigating the matter. How is Rennard’s case different?
I accept that any such inquiry would have almost certainly reached the same conclusion as the Clerk of Parliaments – but it could have reached that conclusion much more quickly. That wouldn’t have satisfied critics from other parties, of course, but it could have done a lot to put minds at rest within our own party.
Mark
“You can get the information yourself, some of which can be found by dint of some easy Googling…”
I may not be much of a Googler, but I can’t find any evidence of this code of conduct for parliamentarians having been published – just multiple references to the promise made in May that it would be forthcoming by mid-June. Could you provide some guidance on search terms to use, or perhaps even a URL to take interested readers straight to the Code?
Inevitably, there is a huge grey area surrounding what anyone calls a second home. I know someone (not a politician or peer) who works five days a week in London then returns at weekends to their family home in Devon. This person spends more time in London than in Devon yet wouldn’t dream of saying that they ‘live’ in London. If a peer were in this position (and claiming for a London residence), they could easily be accused of cheating the system and would be hard pushed to PROVE otherwise.
If a peer lived in London when appointed but at some point wanted to join the many people who relocate to the provinces (e.g. as old age beckons) yet needed to maintain a base in London to do parliamentary work, would it necessarily be improper for them to redesignate their London residence as their second home, if that’s how they now regard it?
People may even choose for convenience to vote where their second home is, if it’s an address maintained for work purposes and thus where they are likely to be on polling days.
And yet one can well see that people will be tempted to use second home allowances as a sly way of getting the taxpayer to fund their weekend retreat. The trouble is that there is no easy hard and fast rule that determine where someone ‘lives’ or where they think of as ‘home’.
So it is always going to be easy to make allegations, but difficult either to prove or disprove them. In this instance, as the above discussion shows, those who want to give Chris the benefit of the doubt are doing so, while those who want to judge him guilty until proven innocent are taking that view.
Iain
That’s all very well, but the more I think about it, the less justification I can see for paying someone £20,000 a year for sleeping in their own home, just because they happen to own another home elsewhere. If there is an argument to be made for this system, I wish someone would explain it to me.
Surely the only real justification for an overnight subsistence allowance is that peers should be reimbursed for the additional expense they incur by having to stay overnight in London when attending the House of Lords.
Why not simply adopt this system and require peers to produce receipts for their overnight accommodation expenses (like people in the real world)?
The question I would like answered is this: of all the days when Lord Rennard signed in for his allowance in the Lords; for how many was he present for (let’s say) three hours a day in the Palace of Westminster, voting, holding meetings with Peers and MPs or researching. And for how many did he spend NO time additional to that involved in “signing in”?
I expect a deafening silence and a closing of ranks to protect other “Working” Peers.
To be fair, most of that activity would be unrecorded – or at least finding records of it would take a lot of effort. You could look at his voting record, but I can’t see that that alone could prove anything either way.