Proposed Ethics Rules Draw Howls Of Protest From British Parliament Plan Would Forbid Members From Moonlighting As Lobbyists

After a string of financial scandals involving members of his Conservative Party, Prime Minister John Major appointed a blue-ribbon commission to examine ethical standards for lawmakers.

But its proposals - including forbidding members of Parliament from moonlighting as lobbyists and requiring them to disclose how much they make on the side - caused such an outcry in the House of Commons that Major referred the recommendations late Thursday to yet another committee.

The crux of the argument is whether lawmakers can accept outside income without compromising their integrity - or whether something is always demanded in return.

Major created an ethics commission, headed by Lord Nolan, last year in response to a series of embarrassments.

Two ministers resigned after a businessman disclosed that he had paid one to ask leading questions in Parliament, and had provided a free hotel stay in Paris for the other.

Two Conservative lawmakers were stung by The Sunday Times, whose reporters offered them cash to represent a fictional business deal through their offices in parliament. Both were suspended from the House in April.

Just last week a Conservative lawmaker, Sir Jerry Wiggin, was accused of putting a colleague’s name on an amendment to a bill to disguise his own financial interest.

Tom King, a member of the Nolan committee and a former Conservative Cabinet minister, noted a recent Gallup poll found two-thirds of the public believe lawmakers abuse their office to make large amounts of money.

“The public perception of this house has gone down and down and down,” King told the House on Thursday.

But the commission’s proposals, especially one calling for the appointment of an outsider to enforce the rules, made some lawmakers indignant.

“If the judgment of members of Parliament is so suspect that this place must be judged by somebody else, democracy will be irredeemably damaged,” protested Geoffrey Clifton-Brown, a Conservative.

Peter Shore, a Labor lawmaker, said the real problem was the growing number of lawmakers - 245 out of 651, at last count - who hired out as consultants. The opposition Labor Party supports the reforms.

“Those members are trading not their accumulated knowledge and wisdom … but the special privilege that they have precisely because they are members of Parliament,” such as access to government ministers, Shore said.

Sir Archie Hamilton, a former Conservative minister, argued that members needed the cash. Their annual salary is about $51,000.

“They do not consider that to be a fortune - although I have no doubt that their constituents might think that it is,” Hamilton said.