The transparency issue which the leaders don't seem to want to deal with

By David Higgerson on Feb 6, 10 01:43 PM

To all those politicians flocking toward the bright lights of the rolling news cameras this weekend to condemn the three MPs charged with theft and who are now looking to hide behind parliamentary privilege, ask yourselves this:

Why are these three gents in a position to do this in the first place?

Amid all the talk of a 'new politics' (copyright Gordon Brown) and the need for a transparent system (c/o David Cameron) there appears to have been little interest in dealing with the whole issue of parliamentary privilege.

The fact that parliamentary privilege actually goes beyond making a politician immune to legal suits for slander for things said in Parliament - surely a defining feature of a country which believes in free speech - was a bit of a shock to me.

But then again, I've never read Erskine May Parliamentary Practice, on which the notion of parliamentary privilege is based. It's very vague. On one level, it talks of MPs having 'an exemption from general law' based on the theory that MPs should not be prohibited by the law when it comes to doing their jobs.

Then there's the 1689 Bill of Rights which states that "Proceedings in Parliament ought not to be impeached or questioned in any court."

The crux of the argument that the legal teams for Jim Devine, David Chaytor, Elliot Morley and Lord Hanningfield appear to be putting forward is that expenses are a 'proceeding' of parliament.

It isn't the first time an MP has tried to do this to stop a police investigation. Damian Green, the Tory MP accused of "aiding and abetting misconduct in public office" tried a similar defence to deny police access to his communications.

And while you can partly understand the feeling among MPs that they need to be able to keep their communications away from prying eyes at time, there's no excuse for not having tightened the rules around privilege up long before now.

Yes, there's a report from a special committee headed by Menzies Campbell due soon which will report on whether an MP's correspondence should be covered by parliamentary privilege.

But where's the wider call to bolt down once and for all what exactly parliamentary privilege is. If an MP was caught drinking and driving, could he or she argue they were doing so to better understand legislation surrounding it? Could an MP headbutt another MP in the Commons bar and then claim privilege on the grounds that it was a (rather heated) policy discussion.

Yes, both cases seem surreal, but the very fact we have three MPs claiming a defence of parliamentary privilege for what is basically a charge of theft tells us that, regardless of a new transparent expenses system, we still have a parliamentary system which considers itself above the law.

If Cameron, Clegg and Brown are serious about having a truly transparent parliament, the first thing they should do is determine exactly what parliamentary privilege means in the 21st century.

Here's a starter: Immunity from prosecution for anything you say in parliament. That's a given. And a public interest test on any calls on your correspondence from the police.

For everything else, you're just like the rest of us. Do wrong, be prosecuted.

That's what those MPs queuing up for a soundbite on Sky News should be calling for, not just heaping criticism on those who are seeking to use privilege to protect themselves. Lets face it, there could easily have been many more MPs up before the beak. And it's a safe bet most of them would be pleading the same defence too.