Tackling Corruption While Preserving Expertise

The new register: throwing the baby out with the bathwater?

Of late it has seemed as if we are moving towards a new Puritan era in

It can certainly be a painful experience for those subjected to the trial by media or press process because that is a somewhat one-sided exercise.  Inevitably the questions raised are given a more sensationalised treatment while the responses and rebuttals come later and even if they fully exonerate they don't make good news and only get a fraction of the coverage.  This is a risk one takes when going into public life.

However, it seems to me that accountability and transparency are very important and generally speaking, worth the extra administrative burden and time involved if they give reassurance to the users of public money, politicians etc, as well as the providers of that money, the tax payer.   I just hope that that is what will emerge from this present focus on expenses because a more serious outbreak of Puritanism could have untold effects and not all benign ones at that.

We Conservative MEPs adopted a Code of Conduct on our expenses and allowances last year including publishing a break-down of them in our "Right to Know" returns online.  As a consequence I believe we were better able to weather the storm over the MPs expenses issue which blew up at the beginning of the campaign.  We signed up to a commitment at the launch of our campaign which covered issues of transparency and ethics in public life as well as re-affirming our policy positions on a range of issues covering constitutional matters, the economy and what we called "more for less" or getting better value for money from the EU budget.

In the transparency section we made the reporting requirements even more stringent and detailed.  And an additional requirement or reporting burden was introduced which I believe was little noticed yet is an important aspect of making what we do more open.  We must publish online details of all meetings with lobbyists and interest groups.  We may only accept hospitality from them where it is relevant to our role as MEPs and must list it in the Members Register of Interests if it is of a value greater than £50.  We may not accept gifts from lobbyists or interest groups.

I hope this does not have the perverse effect of making us repel all approaches from, and repudiate all contact with, these groups as one way of dealing with the extra administrative burden to us and our staff which will be involved.  This is because I firmly believe that these groups play an important role in the EU legislative process which is on the whole helpful in giving added value.  MEPs have to deal with a very wide range of topics and issues even within the confines of our individual committee work.  I know that well from the long, varied list of subjects we cover in my committee (Industry, Research and Energy).  We cannot be expected to be an expert on all of them.

For me an essential requirement of a politician is to know something about everything and yet be willing to turn to experts for more facts and detailed briefing.  That is what these lobby and interest groups can provide and it is up to us MEPs to use our judgement as to whether we accept or reject the information they put before us.  We have to do exactly the same with proposals from the Commission after all.  I expect a wide range of these groups to contact me to argue their particular position or try to persuade me to support, oppose or change some aspect of legislation.  I regard it as part of the legislative process.

I hope that this new reporting requirement will not create too much extra admin for me and my staff nor will it pose too many dilemmas about what is an interest group or lobby, how do I define a meeting (i.e does a phone conversation or email exchange count as one), how do I decide what is relevant to my role as MEP and so forth.  This concern brings me back to my starting point of the possible consequences of this outbreak of puritanical obsession with expenses and who we meet that might influence our decisions.

I think it might be a case of not seeing the wood for the trees.  That this focus on the detail of expenses and the detail of our working day may be at the expense of scrutinising what we are really meant to be doing.  The press and media have long seemed far more interested in the minutiae of our expenses than the political or legislative issues we are addressing.  I think that is a pity and it does little to help explain to the public and our voters how our institutions work and what part we MEPs play in the process.

There is also the remote possibility that Puritanism will not only extinguish creativity but lead to revolutionary change.  Heaven save us from another dose of Cromwell!  Finally, I recall being told by a very experienced journalist many years ago a few home truths about how his colleagues organised their expenses.  Of course I am sure it is all quite different now but I can't help wondering whether the old adages about people in glass houses not throwing stones or the pot calling the kettle black might apply to the fourth estate.  Quis custodiet ipsos custodies?