The Attack on Sleaze: Nolan committee expected to look at outside interests
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Your support makes all the difference.The rules covering ministerial conduct and the issue of whether, and on what scale, MPs should have commercial interests are expected to be considered by the Nolan committee on standards in public life announced yesterday, writes Donald Macintyre.
Although the committee will not consider individual cases, some members of the new committee are privately optimistic that it will take a fundamental look at these two issues - at the heart of the disquiet behind claims of 'sleaze' among Tory MPs.
Two women and two ex-Cabinet ministers are among the 10 members of the committee, chaired by Lord Nolan, a senior Law Lord, which expects to hear evidence in public. It includes: Sir Clifford Boulton, 64, the retiring Clerk of the House of Commons and the editor of Erskine May's Parliamentary Practice; Sir Martin Jacomb, 64, chairman of the British Council and deputy chairman of Barclays Bank and Commercial Union, and a director of the Bank of England; Professor Anthony King, 59, the Canadian born political scientist; Tom King, 61, former Secretary of State for Defence, Employment, Transport and Northern Ireland, and Conservative MP for Bridgwater; and Peter Shore, 70, former Secretary of State for Trade, and the Environment, member of the Commons Select Committee of Privileges, and Labour MP for Bethnal Green and Stepney.
Also on the committee will be Lord Thomson of Monifieth, 73, former chairman of the Independent Broadcasting Authority, EC Commissioner and Labour Secretary of State for Commonwealth Affairs, now a Liberal Democrat; Sir William Utting, 63, a former probation officer and director of social services for the London Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, now chairman of the National Institute for Social Work; Dame Anne Warburton, 67, former Ambassador to Denmark and to the UN, and retired President of Lucy Cavendish College, Cambridge; and Diana Warwick, 49, former general secretary of the Association of University Teachers and currently chief executive of the Westminster Foundation for Democracy, which gives help to the recently emerged democracies of Eastern Europe.
The terms of reference for the committee, expected to issue its first report in six months, cover civil servants, quangos, local government and the standards applying to ministers and MPs.
Mr Major said during a trip to Wales that he was happy to appear before the committee, though he added that there could be a 'small technical problem' in that it will report directly to him.
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