Just before the last Parliament was dissolved the Joint Committee on Human Rights (JCHR) became convinced that Trevor Phillips, the Chair of the Equalities and Human Rights Commission, had behaved improperly in trying to nobble members of the Committee in an attempt to water down the Committee’s criticism of his stewardship of the Commission.  As a result, they referred him for investigation by the Privileges Committee to consider whether he had committed Contempt of Parliament (which in the old days – and for all I know now – could be punished by imprisonment in the clock tower under Big Ben).

The Privileges Committee report was considered this afternoon by the full House of Lords.  The Committee’s finding was that Trevor Phillips had behaved in a way that was “inappropriate and ill-advised” but concluded that he was not guilty of Contempt – at least in part because his lobbying had been ineffectual.

Normally, such reports are approved with little debate.  However, on this occasion there was considerable dissent.

The Earl of Onslow said:

“I was on the Joint Committee on Human Rights when these allegations were made. We were advised by our clerks that this was a clear breach of privilege. The effect of the lobbying—which there undoubtedly was—was obviously going to be minimal, because the three people whom others attempted to nobble were grown-up and intelligent enough to maintain the views that they had maintained the whole way through the discussion on Trevor Phillips’s behaviour. Admittedly, there was discussion in the committee and some people favoured a harsher report than others, but we came up with what was in effect a unanimous opinion. However, I am quite disappointed—that is the best way to put it—that this is what the Committee for Privileges found ….. at the time it seemed to us that there was a clear breach and I maintain that opinion.”

He was followed by Lord Dale Campbell-Savours who was even more scathing about the Committee’s findings:

“I will say a few words on the judgment of the committee, because I dissent from it. Perhaps I may take the time of the House to refer to a number of documents that underline my view. Paragraph 21 of the report states:

“We therefore conclude that, however inappropriate and ill-advised, Mr Phillips’ actions did not significantly obstruct or impede the work of the JCHR”.

The judgment of the Committee for Privileges seems to have turned on the words “significantly obstruct”. That should be seen in context. The chairman of the Joint Committee, Mr Dismore, in his submission to the House of Commons Standards and Privileges Committee, stated:

“The Committee’s consideration of its draft report on the EHRC was hampered by Mr Phillips’ actions. We were unable to agree a report on 9 February. Although we did agree a second version of the draft report on 2 March … I am in no doubt that Mr Phillips wanted either to tone down any criticisms we made of him in the draft Report or to delay the Committee’s deliberations so that we were unable to report before dissolution. Whether or not he was assisted by being familiar with the contents of the draft, he sought to achieve this aim by persuading Members he thought were ‘friends’ that the Committee’s inquiry was unbalanced and was motivated by hostility to him on the part of me or other Members. This represented a significant interference with our work which is why we looked to refer the matter to your Committee”.

The key words in that statement are:

“This represented a significant interference”.

We therefore have the chairman of the Joint Committee on Human Rights saying that, in the view of the committee, this was a significant interference; we also have the judgment of the Privileges Committee that it “did not significantly obstruct”. The matter turns on those words.

However, if we look back to an inquiry that took place in the Commons in 1994, we have some guidance on how the Privileges Committee deals with these matters. I think that it is worth explaining to the House that this matter was dealt with by the Privileges Committee in the House of Lords because the Commons went into recess and was not in a position to consider the matter fully, although it put into the public domain a number of memoranda that had been submitted to the committee for consideration for a report that it subsequently did not produce.

In the Willetts inquiry in 1994, Mr Willetts, a member of the other place, had been accused of trying to nobble the chairman of the Select Committee on Members’ Interests, Sir Geoffrey Johnson Smith. In response to a remit from the House to investigate an allegation of improper pressure brought to bear on a Select Committee, the conclusion of that inquiry was that,

“we have to consider how far the term ‘pressure’ is synonymous with ‘influence’. We recognize that, while assent to or reinforcement by one Member of an opinion held by another could be regarded as influence, something further is required, in the form of a positive and conscious [effort] to shift an existing opinion in one direction or another, for a Member’s words and actions to constitute pressure”.

I argue that there was a positive and conscious effort to shift existing opinion because the draft report of the Joint Committee on Human Rights had, in part, been leaked to Mr Phillips. My noble friend Lord Dubs says no, but perhaps I may refer him to another document, which provides us with evidence of that. It is a submission from Mr Phillips himself to the Standards and Privileges Committee, in which he states that he received a memorandum on 22 March this year. I am sorry to delay the House on this matter but it is extremely important, because it is about nobbling the members of a Select Committee prior to the publication of their report. An e-mail received by Mr Phillips from a member of staff of the Equality and Human Rights Commission dated 6 February 2010 states:

“I was talking to someone this evening”—

that is, a member of his staff is being quoted—

“who had had sight of the current draft of the JCHR report. He said the report, in its current state, was fairly weak and emphasised a few points”.

The leak of that report advises Mr Phillips of the contents that are critical of him, which is why he was seeking to influence the individual members of the committee.

All I am saying to the House is that this is an important matter. We are not going to divide on it, but I believe that the Privileges Committee could have produced a far stronger document. It has not taken into account the precedent of pressure on Select Committee members and I believe that today the House is taking the wrong decision.”

Then it was the turn of Lord Tyler:

“The fact that the attempt to influence members of the committee was unsuccessful is surely not entirely relevant. The fact that the members were successful in resisting any attempt to influence them is of course important in the outcome, but if someone attempted to bribe a Member of either House but was unsuccessful, would it not still be contempt and a very serious matter? The success of members of the committee in resisting the attempt to influence them is not crucial in this matter.”

So the Committee’s report was criticised from all sides of the House – Conservative, Labour and Liberal Democrat – and it sounds as if Trevor Phillips was lucky to get away with just having his knuckles rapped.  Goolies in the mincer next time?

Over the last thirty years or so there have been concerns that London MPs have never banded together to form a strong cross-Party lobby for London and Londoners – in the same way that MPs from other regions have done.

There is a very active group of London Labour MPs, which achieved much in the past.

And there is an All-Party London Group in the House of Lords, chaired by Lord Montgomery of Alamein (not that one, his son), but that is hardly the same thing and any way members of the House of Commons are not part of the Group.

So I was interested to see that in the All-Party Notices – an official document put together by the Parliamentary authorities that is circulated with the Party Whip documents for all Parties in both House – that an inaugural meeting of an All-Party Group on London was to take place last night at 6pm in Room W2 (off Westminster Hall).  Strangely, no contact was given in the Notice as to who was organising the meeting.  And unusually, there had been no e-mail or letter round to MPs and Peers who might be interested explaining the purpose of the meeting.

Intrigued, I turned up to room W2 at the appointed time.  It was empty.  A few moments later I was joined by Jim Fitzpatrick MP, former Minister for London and as intrigued as I was as to what this new Group was all about and who was organising it.

Ten minutes or so later, we were still the only people present and, as inaugural meetings normally only last two or three minutes, we left.  On our way out we checked who had booked the room.  It turned out that the meeting was in the name of Mike Freer MP, the former Leader of Barnet Council who introduced the Ryanair approach to public services to local government.

So why didn’t he turn up?

And why were no Coalition MPs or Peers present?

Clearly, the Coalition Government does not regard London as important.  No Minister has been designated as Minister for London -despite the practice of having a Minister for London pre-dating the last Labour Government.

Maybe Mike Freer thought this deficit might be – in part – rectified by setting up an All-Party Group, but his enthusiam didn’t seem to extend beyond booking a room.  Bit pathetic really.

Earlier tonight, I went to “An Audience with David Miliband” hosted and chaired by Simon Fanshawe in Wood Green.  The 150-strong audience listened first to David Miliband being probed by Simon Fanshawe on his beliefs and ideology and on his views on where the Labour Party is now and where it should be going.  This was followed by a lively Q&A session in which the audience elicited some genuinely inspirational responses from the former Foreign Secretary, particularly on education, the role of community activism, and the need to safeguard the recovery and build sustainable growth for the future.

Those there who were undecided before will have come away enthused.

Today the Coalition Government announced its plans for the future of policing.  Theresa May’s statement was repeated in the House of Lords by the Security Minister, Baroness Neville-Jones.  My intervention and the reply to it was as follows:

“Lord Harris of Haringey: I declare an interest as a member of the Metropolitan Police Authority, which I understand is to be abolished under these proposals. Could I ask about this brave new world of the police and crime commissioners? In parenthesis, calling somebody a crime commissioner implies that they commission crime, which seems a slightly strange thing for the Government to want to do. Given that the commissioners will apply to the forces that provide neighbourhood policing, which is essentially visible to local communities and for which there are already substantial arrangements for local dialogue with local communities, why are other areas of policing not to have the benefit—if benefit it be—of having their own police and crime commissioners? Why, for instance, is there no police and crime commissioner for the British Transport Police or the Civil Nuclear Constabulary or the Ministry of Defence Police—or, for that matter, the City of London Police? The Civil Nuclear Constabulary and the Ministry of Defence police are extremely heavily armed and the work they do raises important issues of public accountability. The City of London has its own slightly different means of democratic control from anywhere else. Why is there not that clarity? Could the Minister also tell the House about the accountability arrangements for the new national agency, given, again, that this will have very important but not essentially visible responsibilities for policing? These are precisely the areas in which strong, robust and transparent accountability mechanisms are necessary.

Baroness Neville-Jones: The noble Lord raised the question of other functions not covered by the police and crime commissioners and he is quite right to do so. The proposals make a distinction between those issues where we believe that local accountability is of the essence, in the area of neighbourhood and constabulary activity. Where we think that the functions have a much more national character—and certainly the police commissioners themselves must contribute to efficient national policing by collaboration—such as in counterterrorism, or in the powers that are going to be grouped under the National Crime Agency, different arrangements are needed. We will certainly have to put in place, subject to further consultation, the nature of the accountability arrangements that will be required. There will certainly be accountability arrangements but they have not yet been spelled out. Our purpose today is to make it clear that lying at the core of this is the need for accountability of local and neighbourhood policing.

On the British Transport Police, there is indeed a series of other protective policing powers and activities which are not covered by today’s proposal. We are looking at the rationality of present structures in that area with a view to seeing whether we cannot make them more efficient. Again, we will have to deal, in that instance also, with the question of accountability.”

There is a real concern here about the accountability of the specialist forces and the proposed new National Crime Agency – often they operate outside the public gaze and, given the nature of what they do, it is rather depressing that the accountability and governance arrangements are clearly an afterthought.

Other exchanges demonstrated that the costs of electing the new Commissioners of Crime will have to come from existing policing budgets (which, of course, are scheduled to be cut by 25%) and the Minister was blissfully vague about whether the Commissioners would really have a free hand to set policing budgets or whether they will be subjected to a capping regime by the Home Office (or the Department of Communities and Local Government).

Meanwhile, on another planet, Deputy Mayor Kit Malthouse AM, Chair of the Metropolian Police Authority, reacted to the news of the abolition of the Authority he chairs by saying:

“This is brilliant news for crime fighting in London and indeed the UK. Over the last two years Boris has brought clarity and focus to our mission in the capital, and we have made progress.”

So the changes in governance will make up for the local police lost as a result of the planned 25% cut in police grant. But we really shouldn’t worry about this because as he goes on:

“Democratic control of policing has to be at the heart of our society. Without an electoral mandate for policing, there can be no real consent or legitimacy.”

And then in a bid to keep in with Mayor Boris Johnson he added:

” Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?”

I have already explained that I really don’t mind.

However, just in case you really really want to cast your vote for this blog in the Total Politics annual beauty parade, this is what you have to do:

The rules are:
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So I’m not asking you to do it, but I really won’t mind if you do……

The Metropolitan Police Authority is in session and and Deputy Mayor Kit Malthouse AM, DCiC* and SDEI**, is NOT in the Chair.  (This was not a deliberate snub to the petitioner but a pre-planned holiday enabling him to devote August to cuttingreviewing the Metropolitan Police budget.)

So it was left to the MPA’s Vice Chair, Reshard Auladin, to welcome former Mayor, Ken Livingstone, into the Chamber at City Hall to present his petition to the Authority.  His petition was an initial shot across the bows of the Mayor’s budget process for the Metropolitan Police (hand on tiller: Kit Malthouse) and said:

‘We call on the Tory led Metropolitan Police Authority and the Tory Mayor Boris Johnson to reverse the decision to cut 455 police officers and guarantee the future of London’s dedicated 630 safer neighbourhood police teams.’

The discussion was predictable, but the body language of Conservative Assembly Members was more interesting.  They displayed all the signs of having been through a trade union negotiating skills course as taught during the 1970s.  This would have educated them in the value of distraction activity while an opponent (ie management) is talking.

In this case, as Ken Livingstone started his presentation (5 minutes as permitted by Standing Orders), Steve O’Connell‘s distress at having the former Mayor in the same room became apparent.  He pulled faces, chewed his glasses, tapped his pen frenetically on the desk, leant back in his chair studying the roof of City Hall eight floors above, and finally got up from his seat, so that he could walk to the edge of the Chamber with his back to the former Mayor and gaze at the river and the Tower of London.  Meanwhile, James Cleverly wandered in late, realised with a look of shock that he would be sitting adjacent to Ken Livingstone, and then spent a happy few minutes shuffling his papers without looking to his side.

And what was the substance of the Conservative response?  It seemed to rest on the fact that the police officers being lost from the budget were displaced by a policy decision taken during Ken Livingstone’s Mayoralty.  That decision related to police officers being released from administrative duties and replaced by specialist staff – a more sensible use of resources.  Ken’s point was that he would have reallocated those officers to front-line duties rather than seeing a net drop in police numbers.

This then degenerated into  “We’re all in this together/Mismanagement of the economy by the previous Government” rant from Steve O’Connell – despite the fact that the cut in numbers relates to a Mayoral budget agreed last year in advance of the current financial problems.

And James Cleverly, who had promised in his blog that he would “tear into Livingstone” at the meeting confined himself to suggesting that the Police Authority should stop receiving petitions as they might be used for political purposes (actually, as an old-style Stalinist, I rather agree with that point, but his intervention was hardly the “going for the jugular” moment we had been led to expect).

*DCiC = Dog Catcher in Chief

**SDEI = Shadow Directly Elected Individual

I was one of the few non-Kurds present at a meeting tonight organised by Kurds for Labour in support of David Miliband’s campaign to be Leader of the Labour Party.

About two hundred (or at least that’s what it felt like) supporters packed into the tiny but excellent Troia restaurant (just opposite the old County Hall) to hear David Miliband outline his vision for the future of the Labour Party, deliver a ringing endorsement of the diversity of London and praise the success of the London Labour Party’s community campaigning in winning so many Councils in May.

He rightly received a warm and enthusiastic reception and this was echoed by those diners in other nearby cafes and restaurants when the event spilled out into Belvedere Road after David’s speech was over.

An excellent sign of the depth of David Miliband’s support.

In Prime Minister’s Questions in the House of Commons, David Cameron repeatedly dodged Harriet Harman’s question on the maximum 14-day wait for patients with suspected cancer.

The question she asked was quite simple:

“This week the Government published their White Paper on the national health service. They say that they will get rid of targets. Can the Prime Minister tell us whether patients will keep their guaranteed right to see a cancer specialist within two weeks of seeing their GP?”

His answer was less than clear:

“As for the NHS, what we have decided is that we will keep targets only when they actually contribute to clinical outcomes. We all want to see a higher cancer survival rate. I am afraid that, after 13 years of Labour government, we have not the best cancer outcomes in Europe, and we want the best cancer outcomes. That means rapid treatment, yes, but it also means rapid follow-up, and it means people getting the radiotherapy, chemotherapy and drugs that they need. Those are all essential. The one thing that we on this side of the House will do is continue to put real-terms increases into the NHS, whereas I understand that it is now Labour policy to cut the NHS.”

Harriet Harman tried again:

“Quite apart from the anxiety of having to wait, results are best if treatment starts as soon as possible. That is why it is important to be diagnosed and to see a specialist quickly.

The Prime Minister has not answered the question. The whole House will have seen that. He has dodged the question, just as his Health Secretary did. This is what the Health Secretary said in the House when he, too, was dodging the question:

“I have not said that we are abandoning any of the cancer waiting-time targets at the moment”.

I ask the Prime Minister to give us a straight answer. Will cancer patients keep their guarantee to see a specialist within two weeks—yes or no?”

David Cameron fudged again:

“For some people, two weeks is too long. That is the whole point. If a target contributes to good clinical outcomes, it stays; if it does not, it goes.”

As Harriet Harman pointed out:

“…. the Prime Minister has still not answered. He is obviously ditching the guarantee for cancer patients, but he has not the guts to admit it to the House.”

However, a different response was given in the Lords, when Labour’s Lord Alf Dubs pressed the Parliamentary Under Secretary for Health, Earl Howe, on the same point.  This was the exchange:

“Lord Dubs: My Lords, I wonder whether the Minister can do better than the Prime Minister did in Prime Minister’s Questions earlier today, when he declined to give a guarantee that the 14-day period, within which cancer patients should receive hospital treatment, would be upheld. Can he confirm that the Government will stick to the 14-day period?

Earl Howe: My Lords, that target of a 14-day referral period has a definite clinical underpinning. There are certainly no plans to abolish it.”

That was as clear an answer as you could get.

However, the bad news for cancer patients (and also probably for the good Earl Howe’s job security), when the Lords’ answer was put to the Prime Minister’s Official Spokesperson later in the day, he stuck with the Prime Minister’s fudge and refused to give a clear answer.

I very rarely try to catch TV or radio programmes in which I have been interviewed, but after a couple of people mentioned how good the programme was, I did make an exception and tracked down the broadcast from last Monday afternoon.

So I have only just listened to the Radio 4 feature programme “The Summer That Changed London“.  As an evocation of London and, in particular, the impact of July 2005 (the month of Live8, the declaration of London as the venue for the 2012 Olympics, the 7/7 bombings, the 21/7 failed bombings, and the shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes) on London and Londoners, it is brilliant.

But don’t take my word for it, listen – you can disregard the clips from my interview.   But hurry, you only have two days before it comes off the web-site.

Val Shawcross AM, the Labour Group’s transport spokesperson on the London Assembly, has put forward an eminently sensible response to the Mayor of London’s interminable consultation on his favoured pet scheme of the abolition of the Western half of the Congestion Charge Zone.  She has proposed that the current Zone be split into two separate Zones – each with their own charge.

Her proposal would turn the western extension into a separate zone with its own rules, operating times and charging structure.  West London residents would not have to pay to drive in the new zone but would lose the discount they currently enjoy for driving into central London.

She quotes Transport for London figures that show that the Mayor’s proposals would produce a 15 per cent increase in traffic levels as a direct consequence of removing the western extension zone and up to £70m of revenue lost every year.

When Mayor Ken Livingstone first proposed extending the Congestion Charge Zone to the West, I tried to persuade him to create two separate Zones then, so it is good to see Val Shawcross reviving the idea now.

It always seemed barmy to me to allow the residents of Kensington and Chelsea – some of whom are extremely wealthy – to drive in the original Congestion Charge Zone with a residents’ discount when they had previously had to pay the full Congestion Charge.  It was in effect a subsidy to the already well-off.  And, as I suggested to the then Mayor, hardly an egalitarian thing to do.

The present Mayor now wants to stop the residents of the Western Zone getting this subsidy.  I would support that if it were not for the loss of revenue that will make TfL’s budget problems even more difficult.

Val Shawcross is now offering the sensible way forward: the well-off residents in K&C etc will only get a resident’s discount when they drive in their own part of the Zone, but would have to  pay the normal Congestion Charge when they drive in the other part of the Zone.

So her proposal is fairer, generates a lot more revenue for TfL to invest in the capital’s transport system, and would also further reduce congestion and improve air quality.

It is such a good idea, maybe the current Mayor will pinch it.