House of Commons Public Administration Select Committee The Honours System Second Report of Session 2012–13 Volume I: Report, together with formal minutes, oral and written evidence Additional written evidence is contained in Volume II, available on the Committee website at www.parliament.uk/pasc Ordered by the House of Commons to be printed 17 July 2012 HC 19 [incorporating HC 1921-i, Session 2010-12] Published on 31 August 2012 by authority of the House of Commons London: The Stationery Office Limited £15.50 The Public Administration Select Committee (PASC) The Public Administration Select Committee is appointed by the House of Commons to examine the reports of the Parliamentary Commissioner for Administration and the Health Service Commissioner for England, which are laid before this House, and matters in connection therewith, and to consider matters relating to the quality and standards of administration provided by civil service departments, and other matters relating to the civil service. Current membership Mr Bernard Jenkin MP (Conservative, Harwich and North Essex) (Chair) Alun Cairns MP (Conservative, Vale of Glamorgan) Michael Dugher MP (Labour, Barnsley East) Charlie Elphicke MP (Conservative, Dover) Paul Flynn MP (Labour, Newport West) Robert Halfon MP (Conservative, Harlow) David Heyes MP (Labour, Ashton under Lyne) Kelvin Hopkins MP (Labour, Luton North) Greg Mulholland MP (Liberal Democrat, Leeds North West) Priti Patel MP (Conservative, Witham) Lindsay Roy MP (Labour, Glenrothes) Powers The powers of the Committee are set out in House of Commons Standing Orders, principally in SO No 146. These are available on the Internet via www.parliament.uk Publications The Reports and evidence of the Committee are published by The Stationery Office by Order of the House. All publications of the Committee (including press notices) are on the Internet at http://www.parliament.uk/pasc Committee staff The current staff of the Committee are Emily Commander (Clerk), Charlotte Pochin (Second Clerk), Alexandra Meakin (Committee Specialist), Paul Simpkin (Senior Committee Assistant) and Su Panchanathan (Committee Assistant). Contacts All correspondence should be addressed to the Clerk of the Public Administration Select Committee, Committee Office, First Floor, 7 Millbank, House of Commons, London SW1P 3JA. The telephone number for general enquiries is 020 7219 5730; the Committee’s email address is [email protected]. The Honours System 1 Contents Report Page Summary 3 1 Introduction 5 2 The purpose and working of the honours system 7 The history of the honours system 7 How the honours system works 7 What are honours for? 8 3 Increasing public trust in the honours system 10 Understanding of different honours 10 How honours are awarded 12 Honours for “doing the day job” 13 An honours system open to all? 15 Honours and political donations 16 Rewarding philanthropy through the honours system 17 The Lords Lieutenant and the honours system 18 Removing the political direction of the honours system 20 4 The reintroduction of the British Empire Medal, and the term “Empire” 22 5 Membership of the Honours Committees 25 6 The Parliamentary and Political Service Honours Committee 26 Membership 26 Purpose of the committee 27 7 The Honours Forfeiture Committee 29 The case of Fred Goodwin 29 The wider impact on the honours system 32 An independent Honours Forfeiture Committee? 33 8 Conclusion 35 Conclusions and recommendations 36 Formal Minutes 41 Witnesses 46 List of printed written evidence 46 List of additional written evidence 47 2 List of Reports from the Committee during the current Parliament 48 The Honours System 3 Summary The award of honours is intended to recognise exceptional achievement and service. While this recognition is greatly valued by the people who receive honours, concerns about the number of people who are honoured for simply “doing the day job”, and the perception that honours are linked to political donations, have threatened the credibility of the system as a whole. We believe reform is needed in order to increase transparency and public confidence in the honours system. We believe that no-one should be honoured for simply “doing the day job”, no matter what that job is. Honours should be awarded only for exceptional service above and beyond the call of duty. This would result in a far higher proportion of honours being awarded to people who devote their time to the local community, instead of to politicians, civil servants, and celebrities. There should be no special privileges or quotas for groups of society or certain professions: instead the honours system should be fair and open to all. We are concerned at the perception that political considerations influence who receives an honour. We recommend that, to ensure public trust, there should be no political direction over and involvement in the award of honours. Instead an independent Honours Commission should be established to select recipients using clear criteria which set out the circumstances in which honours should be awarded. The system should be quicker and more transparent, with set timescales for considering nominations and feedback on unsuccessful nominations. We also considered the recommendation of the Honours Forfeiture Committee to strip Fred Goodwin, the former Chief Executive of Royal Bank of Scotland, of the knighthood he had been awarded in 2004 for services to banking. We also recommend that the criteria for forfeiture should be much clearer. The current charge of “bringing the honours system into disrepute” is subjective and should be clarified by a list of actions or behaviour which meet this test. In the same way that politicians should not be able to influence the award of honours, they should not have any say in decisions to strip people of honours they have already received. The honours forfeiture committee should be replaced by an Independent Forfeiture Committee, chaired by a figure of independent standing, such as a retired high court judge, to consider proposals for forfeiture, acting on evidence and according to clear and expanded criteria including damage to the industry or sector the individual was deemed to have exceptionally served. These changes would help restore the credibility of the honours system. They would 4 The Honours System make it easier to understand why honours are awarded and remove political influence over the process. In this way, we would have an open and independent system which honours those who truly deserve recognition. The Honours System 5 1 Introduction 1. The award of an honour is intended to recognise exceptional service to the nation and/or exceptional achievement. In our inquiry we considered why honours are awarded, and the purpose of the system. We took evidence on the levels of public support for, and trust in, the honours system, and considered proposals for reform to increase public understanding and trust. 2. Our inquiry took place in the light of a number of developments in the honours system in recent months. a) In October 2011 the Prime Minister announced the reintroduction of the British Empire Medal (BEM), to reward “local volunteers who make a real difference to their communities”.1 The award of the BEM had been discontinued by the then Prime Minister, Sir John Major, in 1993. Sir John said that the distinction between the award of the next higher honour, the Member of the British Empire (MBE) and a BEM had become “increasingly tenuous [and could] no longer be sustained”.2 b) The 2012 New Year Honours List was accompanied by adverse publicity surrounding the award of honours to people who had also made donations to political parties.3 c) In March 2012 the Prime Minister announced the establishment of a new Honours Committee to consider candidates for honours among MPs, representatives of the devolved Governments, and Parliamentary staff.4 d) The most recent prominent development was the recommendation, in January 2012, of the Honours Forfeiture Committee to “cancel and annul” the knighthood awarded in 2004 to Fred Goodwin, the former Chief Executive of the Royal Bank of Scotland.5 3. This Report builds on the work of our predecessor committee, the Public Administration Select Committee in the 2001-2005 Parliament, which recommended radical reform of the honours system in its Fifth Report of the 2003-04 Session, A Matter Of Honour: Reforming the Honours System.6 In its response, the Government at the time rejected the majority of the Committee’s recommendations, but did commit to some more moderate changes to open up the way that the honours committees operate.7 4. After a review of the honours system by Sir Hayden Phillips in 2004, the Government subsequently agreed to report tri-annually to Parliament on the working of the system. We received the most recent tri-annual report in December 2011. 1 Cabinet Office, Government re-introduces the British Empire Medal, 29 October 2011, www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk 2 HC Deb, 4 March 1993, col 454 3 “Four Tory donors in honours row”, The Sunday Times, 1 January 2012, p 1 4 Ev 59 5 The then Prime Minister, Sir John Major, set out the provision for the Queen to “cancel and annul” appointment and awards in “most orders of knighthood” in a written answer (HC Deb, 2 December 1994 , col 923W) 6 Public Administration Select Committee, Fifth Report of Session 2003-04, A Matter Of Honour: Reforming the Honours System, HC 212-I 7 Cabinet Office, Reform of the Honours System, Cm 6479, February 2005 6 5. This inquiry did not consider the honours which are in the personal gift of the Sovereign, the award of military medals or gallantry awards or the award of peerages. 6. Over the course of this inquiry we received forty one memoranda; the vast majority of which was received from Lords Lieutenant, the Queen’s representatives in the counties.