Salter Lecture by Ruth Cadbury MP (video link)
Salter Lecture by Ruth Cadbury MP (the text)
“TRUTH AND INTEGRITY IN POLITICS“
I am delighted as both a Quaker and an elected Labour MP to be presenting the Salter lecture 2022.
In this lecture today I want to address the Quaker perspective on Truth & Integrity, to briefly describe my journey, to give a perspective on Truth & Integrity in British politics over time and now (both the blatant lying and the grey area), and to end with some suggestions about what we can do about this.
I would like to thank several people who have helped me with ideas and editing this lecture. Two of my constituents: the journalist Peter Oborne, and my good friend and fellow member of Brentford and Isleworth Quaker meeting, Bernadette O’Shea. Also Thangam Debonaire MP, and my husband Nick.
QUAKER PERSPECTIVE
For Quakers, Truth and Integrity are absolutely core to how we live our lives, and Friends have long been recognised for these strengths by others.
In Faith & Practice I found this quote
“From the earliest days Quakers were known for speaking truth as they experienced it inwardly in their meetings for worship. They didn’t make a distinction between belief and action. “Truth was almost more of a verb than a noun; it was something which you ‘did’ as you experienced it.”
Our core values are set out in Advices and Queries;
Number 37: “Are you honest and truthful in all you say and do? Do you maintain strict integrity in business transactions and in your dealings with individuals and organisations? Do you use money and information entrusted to you with discretion and responsibility? Taking oaths implies a double standard of truth; in choosing to affirm instead, be aware of the claim to integrity that you are making.”
And in respect of politics, Number 34: “Remember your responsibilities as a citizen for the conduct of local, national, and international affairs. Do not shrink from the time and effort your involvement may demand.”
For generations Quakers have been involved in public life: as campaigners, agents for social change, and as exemplars of best practice in business. Some have been and are elected politicians. Currently there are two of us in the House of Commons. I thought this was an underrepresentation, but then I did the maths. Catherine West and I represent 0.3% of the Commons membership, but ten times more than the proportion of Quaker members and attenders in Britain’s population (however I’m happy for my maths to be corrected in the Q&A if I’ve got that wrong.)
I first started really considering this topic when in 2021 the Meeting of Friends in Wales met me and others with political roles, as part of the work they were doing on their concern about Truth and Integrity. This has since developed across BYM, and the Quaker Truth and Integrity Group is now an accredited Quaker Recognised Body. They held a conference in the last week of April whose very powerful concluding statement is ‘LivingTruth– A Rallying Call for Quakers – Final Conference Statement.’
I realise that many here tonight will have been active with the Truth and Integrity Group, so my apologies if I cover the same ground, no doubt in a lot less depth than in the recent conference.
MY JOURNEY – A LABOUR MP
There are many Quakers elected to public office in Britain, probably disproportionate to our numbers in the UK. The Quaker Socialist Society asked me to speak today I think because I am one of only 2 MPs in the Commons, so I’ll start with my route there.
When I meet groups of school and college students, they always ask “How do you become an MP”? I tell them there is no one way to get selected and then elected as an MP. Like many careers, some people achieve the dream they’ve had from a young age, and for others like me, it’s more an unplanned journey. I was 53 before I even considered that I might want to sit on the green benches.
As you’ll guess from my name, I was born into a family that had used the wealth my forebears created in business to not only provide for decent working and living conditions for its employees, but also to address social change by funding campaigns, legal challenges, and even political parties. I went to Meeting most weeks and as a teenager to Junior Yearly Meeting and later Young Friends’ weekends. Part of my schooling was at a Quaker School, the Mount in York.
I had a privileged childhood in all ways, but also grew up steeped in the values of social justice, peace and reconciliation, an understanding of the destructive impacts of poverty and inequality, and also that challenge of the status quo is normal and change is possible. I’m still, and will always be, a Member of the Society of Friends, although I would be the first to admit I‘m hardly a regular at Meeting for Worship.
My political life started at Salford University where I joined the Labour Party, and was elected Vice President of the Student Union for the year after my graduation in 1981. That coincided with Salford being placed at the top of Margaret Thatcher’s list of university cuts. So I was then at the forefront of our campaign against the cuts, which brought me onto the national stage (in student politics terms). That then led to a year on the National Union of Students national executive and finding myself in 1984 moving to Brentford in West London where I’ve lived ever since, the constituency which I now represent in parliament.
People’s route into elected politics, becoming MPs (as with many people’s life journeys), is often a result of a series of coincidences and certainly mine was – happening to be in the right (or wrong) place at the right time. For me, six years in Salford with a bit of studying and quite a lot of student politics meant I had some political experience and was interested in community activity. I pursued these in my professional life working first for a community association and latterly qualifying as a planner.
In the political world, my skills were recognised by other party members who encouraged me to be the local Labour Party branch secretary, and not long after, to stand as a candidate for the 1986 Council elections for our safe Labour ward.
I hadn’t started out with a great ambition to be a Councillor but once elected I served on Hounslow Council for 25 years, with senior roles at various times including Deputy Leader, Chair of Planning, and as Cabinet Member for variously Housing, Regeneration and Education, as well as being active in the local Party. I can point to Council decisions that I’m particularly proud of persuading colleagues to support: signing the Council up to be an accredited Living Wage employer, investing tax-payers’ money in opposing Heathrow expansion, and keeping Brentford Football Club in Brentford.
Our constituency, Brentford and Isleworth, was lost to the Conservatives in the 2010 General Election and needed a Labour candidate for the 2015 election. I had always been happy as a councillor and felt able to make a difference and also enjoyed my work as a town planner. So I needed some persuasion to put my hat in the ring for selection. But then I felt that I now had a breadth of experience that I could bring to the role and I sought selection, and was then elected – just over 7 years ago now.
During my time as an Opposition MP I’ve served both on cross-party Select Committees and on three front bench teams as a junior shadow Minister (ie not the Shadow Cabinet). It’s less easy to point to achievements when in parliamentary opposition, although Ministers have acknowledged that issues I’ve raised have been helpful.
TRUTH & INTEGRITY IN BRITISH POLITICS – A HISTORY
Before the emergence of political parties as we know them – as Peter Oborne says – it was normal for ministers to lie, cheat and bribe, and pay famous writers to undermine opponents. Until around the start of the 19th century Ministers made huge personal fortunes from corruption, something we see in failing democracies around the world today. There was then limited accountability on how money was spent. There is the famous Ambrose Bierce description of politics of the period as being “the conduct of public affairs for private advantage.”
Morality in public life in Britain changed with our Victorian ancestors, many of whom were deeply religious Christians with a strong moral code. They introduced accountability and integrity and a series of protections against deceit and corruption. Their system was based on the rule of law with the pillars of parliament, the judiciary, an impartial civil services and a free press. And it’s fair to say that for almost 200 years these pillars were doing a pretty good job of preventing liars, cheats and fascists from stealing power.
This is not to say there weren’t significant examples of MPs who lied or lacked integrity, and it could be said they got away with more than they would now due to a greater level of deference and far less ability for deep, and in-real-time, public scrutiny.
David Lloyd George established the modern welfare state by introducing National Insurance, welfare benefits, the first mass Council house building programme and extending the franchise to all men and some women But he was also embroiled in a cash for peerages scandal to raise party funds, and of course he was by no means the last Prime Minister to be accused doing so. In 1963 John Profumo lied to parliament about his affair with Christine Keeler, although he at least admitted he had deceived the House and resigned “with deep remorse”.
The Nolan Principles
In John Major‘s government there was the cash for questions affair, and that led to a key addition to the governance of public life. In 1995 John Major set up a Committee chaired by Lord Nolan, now named the Committee on Standards in Public Life. The CSPL is an advisory non-departmental public body of the UK Government that developed and promotes the seven Principles of Public Life which have become known as the Nolan principles.
The seven Nolan principles are: Selflessness, Integrity, Objectivity, Accountability, Openness, Honesty and Leadership. They are enshrined in codes of conduct used across the UK public sector that every elected councillor and MP is required to sign up to at the start of their period of office and against which their actions, behaviour and decisions are judged. Having them makes it easy for an organisation to judge a breach using their own code of conduct and processes.
As a core statement of integrity they have served our public sector well over the last 30 years. Because most public servants want to serve the public, they have no problem complying with the seven principles, probably because they are integral to their own values and priorities. In my local government and parliamentary experience, I would say that almost everyone who goes into politics in the UK does so to make their community, this country, the world a better place. Furthermore, most politicians are not liars.
Nearly everyone I have got to know in Parliament and before that in Local Government, has similar core values, although of course we differ on the outcomes, the solutions – this is what leads us to be in different political parties (or, in the case of parish and some boroughs, councillors who choose to have no party allegiance).
I also suspect that elected politicians have a higher than average level of religious observance, but this is based on anecdotal experience. When I worked on the Local Government Association’s Leadership Academy and we chatted in the breaks about our personal lives, I was surprised how many busy Councillors on those courses were also religious and active worshippers – in all the world faiths.
IS TRUTH AND INTEGRITY NO LONGER RELEVANT?
The question is, has the core structure of our democracy been weakened irreparably, in the UK in the last two and a half years? Certainly, the final conference statement from April’s Quaker Truth and Integrity Group conference feels quite pessimistic saying, “Standards of truthfulness and integrity in public and commercial life are being undermined to the extent that democracy itself is under threat.”
I would say the foundations of our democracy are still there, and at many levels still operating and largely effective, however they are being seriously undermined by the current Prime Minister.
Boris Johnson’s behaviour as Prime Minister is well described in Peter Oborne’s book published in February 2021 – The Assault on Truth – Boris Johnson Donald Trump and the Emergence of a New Moral Barbarism.
Boris Johnson’s lies on public record are catalogued on Peter’s web-site: boris-johnson-lies.com site. Peter identified 50 lies by the Prime Minister in Parliament alone, between the 2019 election and January this year, and many more in statements, speeches and interviews. And the behaviour has continued since January. On 28 April he said that at the start of the pandemic “we did not know …. that Covid could be transmitted asymptomatically”, when it wasn’t difficult to remember that at the time the NHS, the Chief Medical Officer and others had been telling the Government and the public that it was likely that asymptomatic spread was happening.
He has also struggled with most, if not all, of the rest of the Nolan principles at various times and has consistently shown contempt towards any check or balance on his own power; suspending Parliament, expelling MPs in his own party, weakening the power of the judiciary, breaking the lockdown laws he approved and refusing to follow his own ministerial code of conduct.
We shouldn’t perhaps be surprised that our PM struggles with truth and integrity – when at Eton his housemaster famously wrote to his parents:
“Boris really has adopted a disgracefully cavalier attitude to his classical studies . . . Boris sometimes seems affronted when criticised for what amounts to a gross failure of responsibility (and surprised at the same time that he was not appointed Captain of the School for next half). I think he honestly believes that it is churlish of us not to regard him as an exception, one who should be free of the network of obligation which binds everyone else.”
And of course it’s not just about one man. He is the leader of his party, and the example he sets filters through – and too many times senior MPs have been allowed by him to continue in office or been defended by him: Priti Patel over bullying, Owen Patterson over lobbying for personal gain, etc…
This behaviour in politics coming from the Head of Government, and we saw it in the US with Donald Trump, has meant lies and lying becomes the norm. Voters assume all politicians are liars, which is a gift to those who are, and very difficult for those of us who aren’t.
However, examples of politicians doing the right thing help to counter that attitude. Two thirds of those polled in last week’s Opinium poll said Keir Starmer was right to say he would resign if he received a fixed penalty notice, and almost a quarter said it has given them a more favourable view of the Labour leader. And as I said, most MPs on all sides of the house are honest.
The other challenge is our media, in all its forms. With marketing being all around us every day, politics has been stripped down to simple and oft-repeated 3 word phrases that speak to people’s emotional side. They are simple, so there is no room for nuance or complexity. It becomes more difficult for us to engage in political dialogue as feelings seem more important than facts. An example is the one I often experienced during the EU Referendum campaign when I was discussing with people who were planning to vote Leave. We weren’t meeting anywhere because my position was fact-based and the other person was expressing feelings – which often involved that memorable, mantra – “Take Back Control” – meaningless and factually incorrect, but incredibly powerful.
Of course this failure in competent leadership matters; not only because of the damage it does to the reputation of Government and politicians among voters, or how the rest of the world views Britain. But because it fundamentally undermines our democracy. Peter Oborne again: “we had an area of public discourse which belonged to everybody, a common ground where rival parties could coexist. ….. Political lying is a form of theft. It takes away people’s democratic rights. Voters cannot make fair judgements on the basis of falsehoods”.
How has this happened? Partly we have a largely complicit media with inadequate challenge, perhaps sometimes because of the threats some face, for example the funding of the BBC, and the future of Chanel 4. Then there has been the rise of social media where lies are repeated in ever-growing echo chambers and over which there is little adequate oversight. These together allow politicians like Boris Johnson and Donald Trump to fight their battle against liberal democracy using lies. They can conjure up the “will of the people” to give them the legitimacy to take on those that challenge them: elected MPs, the rule of law, the civil service and even their own political parties. And of course not forgetting “experts”.
We have a constitutional arrangement in Parliament that never envisaged that Members of Parliament could, or would, be dishonourable. Nevertheless, there is a matrix of parliamentary structures whose purpose is to hold us to account, along with the disciplinary processes in our political parties. The Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards oversees the maintenance and monitors the operation of the Register of Members’ Interests. However in the Chamber it is the Speaker who ensures Parliamentary rules are followed, and can suspend a member or even the sitting of the house in the case of serious disorder. In theory, if an MP (an “honourable” member as we all are) is found to have lied to the House, this requires a vote on whether that was considered to be contempt of the House. That requires the governing party to agree, which effectively means that the only arbiter of whether a Minister of ordinary Member of the House has lied is the Prime Minister.
The Ministers Code of Conduct requires a Minister who “inadvertently misleads the House” to return at the earliest opportunity to set the record straight. But if they don’t, there is nothing the Speaker of the House can do. Ministers’ behaviour is regulated by the Ministerial Code, which is issued by and regulated by – the Prime Minister
The problem in monitoring and implementing a Code of Conduct in politics is that it can’t compare with a blunt regulatory instrument, with a set of rules which can be kept or be broken. The challenge as Dr Claire Foster-Gilbert of the Westminster Abbey Institute pointed out in her submission to the Review of the parliamentary Code of Conduct is that: “For MPs, faced with difficult choices on a daily basis, the task is to learn how to retain their integrity and behave selflessly, even while making …. choices”
Prayers are said at the start of each Parliamentary day. Those who go in for prayers then pray that Members may “never lead the nation wrongly through love of power, desire to please, or unworthy ideals but laying aside all private interests and prejudices keep in mind their responsibility to seek to improve the condition of all mankind.”
Whilst the Codes of Conduct and their infrastructure in Parliament are complex and when it comes to Ministers in particular, inherently weak, I think they work better in other spheres. In local Councils the standards regime is clearer and has more effective sanctions, as do those that apply to employees in the public sector.
And as I have said earlier – I believe that the vast majority of people in public life, MPs included, carry out their duties honestly and with integrity. It also seems that the UK public want politicians who are honest, have integrity, and operate within the rules, over and above delivering outcomes, according to a large survey of voters by the Constitution Unit University College London
RECOMMENDATIONS FOR CHANGE
Parliament’s Committee on Standards has carried out a fundamental review of the Rules for MPs and made several recommendations to update the rules on MPs’ behaviour around outside interests, lobbying, and the declaration of gifts and hospitality by Ministers, as well as strengthening the process for enforcing and adjudicating the rules.
Leighton Andrews, Professor of Public Leadership at Cardiff Business School and a former Welsh Government Minister, proposed in 2021 that there be a properly resourced and staffed Office of Government Ethics set up on a statutory basis, reporting to Parliament rather than the Prime Minister.
The Labour Party leadership has also committed to change. Deputy Leader, Angela Rayner in November 2021, called for a revision to the lobbying and ethics rules in Parliament to include a ban on MPs having consultancy jobs, a proper sanctions regime and the creation of an Integrity and Ethics commission to replace several elements of the existing system, with more powers.
On Media: The current Online Safety Bill is the opportunity for better regulation of the on-line world, but the draft introduced by the Government needs more work to ensure that people have security and respect on-line.
Beyond Government and Parliament some suggest Citizens Assemblies are a useful tool, commissioned by Parliament or Government and bringing together a representative group of voters to work together on solutions. The Citizen’s Assembly model worked well in Ireland where one was commissioned by the Irish Parliament on Abortion law reform. The Assembly recommended, somewhat to many people’s surprise, large-scale reform, which was then implemented after a clear majority in the subsequent referendum of 2018. Because Parliament had commissioned the Assembly, it could not ignore its recommendations.
THE GREY AREA
So far, I’ve covered truth and integrity in the context of the serious failures of our current Prime Minister and Ministers, but I know many voters are concerned about the more universal grey area – not so much politicians’ outright lying, but what appears to be not speaking the whole truth, not answering a straight question with a straight answer on Question Time or to Sophie Ridge on Sky. Why is that?
I go back to why we are in politics: to be able to make our country a better place. For me, I believe that is always one led by a Labour Government: less poverty and inequality, an effective public sector, support for all in need, facing up to addressing the climate crisis, and supporting an economy that can achieve those objectives. Clause 1 of our Rules says words to the effect of: “We seek the Trust of the People to Govern”. To win that trust from people who haven’t voted Labour we need to have clear consistent messages. Being part of a team means having collective discipline – it does in any team. Being involved in the internal development of the policies, understanding them and expressing them clearly when, and only when, they’ve been agreed.
The other challenge is we live in a world of intense, 24.7 scrutiny. A poorly thought through phrase or comment can be blown up to imply something else – remember Emily Thornberry’s “white van man” tweet. In politics there’s no space for nuance, no space to recognise that there are not easy solutions to every problem. The honest answer to questions about many policies is: “This is an interesting well-evidenced initiative which I am putting in place in good faith to address problem X. I can’t be certain it will work, but is worth a try…..”. Say that, and one would be accused of being weak, by voters or by the press or by the opposition. The expectation is that you must have the answers.
To do good in an imperfect world means you have to be in power, which means winning elections, which means building trust with voters, which means making a convincing and consistent case.
The whip system is integral to that collective discipline in party-based politics. I’ve not yet had my core values truly tested in a vote on an issue of conscience. My only rebellion in Parliament was after the Brexit referendum: I supported an amendment to keep the UK in the Single Market and Customs Union. However, it was an easy decision for me to break the whip, and all I lost was my front bench role as shadow housing minister.
WHAT WE CAN DO? I WELCOME YOUR THOUGHTS IN THE DISCUSSION IMMEDIATELY AFTER THIS.
So I start with only a few. Personally:
- Engage with your elected politicians; consider whether they are upholding the 7 Nolan principles, and challenging others to do so.
- Get involved in politics; if supportive of a political party join, and consider putting yourself forward for future elections.
- Join the Quaker Truth and Integrity Group.
- As Quakers: Join with others in your community. Can your local Interfaith or Churches Together group work together to address the tricky issues?
IN CONCLUSION
I’ve tried to draw together our Quaker values, my experience as an elected Labour politician, and some thoughts about the current challenging situation we have at the heart of Government in the UK right now. I’ve started to suggest some actions that Quakers could consider doing, as individuals, and as local and a faith group that is well respected for Truth and Integrity with many members actively involved in public life. There are almost certainly many ideas and experiences here tonight, so I’d like to conclude my remarks and hear your thoughts and answer your questions.
Quaker Socialist Society 