Lack of transparency

The Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards has announced it is investigating the Conservative MP Miriam Cates on a charge of causing “significant damage to the reputation of the House as a whole, or of its members generally”. What on earth is she accused of doing? The answer is we do not know. She is forbidden from discussing the allegations against her and details are kept confidential by Daniel Greenberg, the Standards Commissioner. Three other Conservative MPs – Sir Bernard Jenkin, Virginia Crosbie and Dame Eleanor Laing – are also under investigation for precisely the same worded charge under paragraph 17 of the Code of Conduct. 

We do not know what they are alleged to have done either. It is suggested that they all attended an event during the Covid lockdown in 2020 that might have been construed as a breach of the rules, though the police have taken no action. Does this constitute “significant damage to the reputation and integrity of the House”? We should be told. It cannot be right for our elected representatives to have been accused of something that, on the face of it, sounds serious without their constituents and the public knowing what it is. 

MPs have handed over their rights and sovereignty to an outside body with rules of confidentiality that it suits some of them to hide behind. Ironically, one of the general principles of conduct under the code is transparency, whereby “holders of public office should be as open as possible about all the decisions and actions that they take… and restrict information only when the wider public interest clearly demands.” Why does that not apply here?