15 May 2009

“I work within the rules, but the rules are meant to be bent.” Not the words of an MP trying to explain away excessive expense claims, but, Lord Taylor of Blackburn when he offered to alter legislation for a Sunday Times journalist posing as a lobbyist. He now faces suspension for misconduct. It’s been the case that when there’s money to be had, parliament’s rules can become very flexible.

Let’s not forget that January’s cash-for-amendments scandal rocked parliament – the implications of public laws being bought is more grave, though less salacious, than fiddling the system. But MPs expenses have now shaken it to its core. The damage done to parliament’s “most precious asset” - public trust - is irreparable.

As the list of MPs caught bending the rules increases, so does the perception – or is it actuality? – that public officials are acting in their own interests or, as in the Lords’ case, for private interests. With a few notable exceptions, the idea that ‘they work for you’ becomes harder to swallow. The feeling of exclusion from politics is nearly complete.

Back in 2003, over half the British public agreed that they have ‘no say in what the government does’. In 2006, the Power Inquiry concluded that “too often, citizens are being evicted from decision-making.” In 2008, the Committee on Standards in Public Life found a public less confident that those in power were willing to uphold standards, and worse, had little faith that any wrongdoing would be punished. Earlier this year, Tony Wright’s Public Administration Committee concluded that “there is a genuine issue of concern, widely shared and reflected in measures of public trust, that there is an inside track who wield privileged access and disproportionate influence.”
 
Restoring trust must not be the focus of reform. People have had to rely on trust for too long that public officials will act in the public interest. The situation today calls for something new. Transparency. The public must now be allowed to scrutinise in whose interest politicians are acting – their own, the outside interests that pay them - as demonstrated by Lords Taylor and Truscott - or the public’s.

This is an opportunity to modernise the way that politics is conducted in Britain. Obama understands it. Speaker Michael Martin will never get it.

Concrete steps need to be taken. To start with, bring in a system that allows routine public scrutiny of money claimed from the public purse beyond an MPs salary. Second, require public officials to declare the precise nature of any paid work they do for outside private interests, including how much they are paid and by whom; and third, let’s see for the first time the whole political playing field – all the players. Introduce a register of lobbyists so that the public can see who is having an influence on politicians and policy.

Transparency is the only credible response to the failed relationship between the public and politicians.