Wednesday 19 April 2017

Can a man serve two masters? Yes

George Osborne’s announcement today that he will not seek re-election as the Member for Tatton in June has resolved one of the most controversial conflicts of interest of the past year or so. Mr Osborne can now devote his time to the day job of being editor of the Evening Standard, while continuing his four-days-a-month gig at Blackrock, for which he earns a very respectable £650,000. Well, a man’s gotta eat (caviar).

This is not how it was supposed to be. When his surprise appointment at the ES was announced, he insisted that he would continue to sit for his Cheshire seat in the House of Commons. Indeed, he argued that Parliament would benefit, and that outside experience, remunerated handsomely or not, helped MPs, especially former ministers, in “continuing to contribute to the decisions we make”. (It should be noted that this would not necessarily have been a long-term conflict of interest: had the Boundary Commission’s proposals been implemented ahead of a general election in 2020, Mr Osborne’s Tatton constituency would have been broken up.)

Inevitably, the Opposition, because it is their job, decried Mr Osborne’s appointment and demanded that he resign from the Commons. Jeremy Corbyn muttered darkly about press freedom and impartiality, and one Labour MP spoke of the “deep overlap” between Mr Osborne’s role as a legislator and his position as a newspaper editor. Some of the sound and fury was synthetic and politically motivated, of course, and no-one should criticise the Labour Party for that. Oppositions are supposed to oppose. But it raised a deeper question. Should MPs have outside interests?

In times gone by, of course, it was commonplace for Members of Parliament to have other interests. This was reflected in the relatively paltry salary they received, and to some extent in the sitting hours of the House. The Commons sat in the afternoon and evenings because Members were at their day jobs the rest of the time. One great disadvantage of this system was that it in effect required MPs to be wealthy individuals, as the salary was not enough to support them, certainly not if they maintained two homes.

(Can I pause here to rehearse one of my bugbears: MPs are not paid enough. Sure, their salary is currently £74,000, plus allowances for offices, second homes and the like, and that’s way above the national average. But I would argue two things. Firstly, if you want to attract really bright people, you need to offer competitive salaries. I know friends with political ambitions who would be taking massive pay cuts to be MPs. The chief executive of Sunderland Council, to take a random example, is paid more than £600,000. Who do you want to scrutinise legislation and hold the Government to account? The second, more fundamental, point is that the work MPs do is important, and that should be reflected in their remuneration. Rant over.)

Outside interests are nowadays much less common. Some former ministers have City directorships, and there are still a few pre-eminent lawyers, like Sir Edward Garnier QC or Geoffrey Cox QC, who make good livings at the Bar. For a very few (George Osborne is one of them, as was Sir John Major in his time after 1997), speaking engagements offer lucrative rewards. In the main, however, Members rely on their salaries and concentrate on their duties in the House, whether in the Chamber, as members of select committees or on constituency work. That is commendable in its own way, and I know from experience that there are very few lazy MPs. They work hard and they work long hours, for very little public esteem. They are certainly not in it for the money.

My view is an unfashionable one now, but I think a moderate amount of outside interest is a healthy thing. Different experiences make MPs more rounded people, and allow them to maintain parallel careers. It means that the ambitious need not choose so starkly between public service and private remuneration, and offers the possibility of a continuing career after Parliament. The value added by outside interests is evident to anyone who spends a lot of time watching Commons debates, as I used to do as a Serjeant at Arms. Dr Phillip Lee, for example, until he became a minister, continued to practice as a GP part-time, so when he spoke on health issues, he did so with current, front-line experience. Equally, when you hear one of the really good lawyers, like Dominic Grieve QC, take apart a lazy argument with forensic skill, you see the value of all those hours spent in the courtroom. It’s a matter of balance, of course: being a Member of Parliament is time-consuming. But I think this kind of life experience enriches the quality of debate and scrutiny which the House of Commons can bring to bear.

Fundamentally, I don’t regard being an MP as a job in the normal sense. It is many things: an honour, a burden, an opportunity, a public service. Some Members devote themselves wholeheartedly to Parliament, and that is a fine and noble thing. Here’s a strange thing, though. George Osborne becomes editor of the Evening Standard and there is an outcry at his having another job as well as being an MP. Nobody complained when he was simultaneously MP for Tatton and Chancellor of the Exchequer, which I’m fairly sure is quite a demanding role. We accept without demur that MPs can be ministers – indeed, that, apart from the Lords, ministers must be MPs, though there is no constitutional requirement for this to be so – but anything outside Whitehall, particularly one which smacks of personal enrichment, is infra dig.

So, within reason, I say bring it on. Newspaper editors? Great. Iain Macleod’s constituents didn’t suffer during his brief but brilliant time at the helm of the Spectator. Doctors? Fantastic. Bring your experience of what delivering healthcare is really like to the deliberations of our legislature. Lawyers? Super. You have a very useful skill set and a knowledge of how the laws Westminster makes are applied day-to-day. Like Lord Mandelson, I am “intensely relaxed” about people making a decent amount of money, so long as it’s made honestly and they pay their taxes. If it attracts bright, talented, successful people to sit in Parliament, it can only be a good thing.

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