The Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards is an officer of the

British House of Commons The House of Commons is the lower house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Like the upper house, the House of Lords, it meets in the Palace of Westminster in London, England. The House of Commons is an elected body consisting of 650 mem ...

. The work of the officer is overseen by the

Commons Select Committee on Standards The Commons Select Committee on Standards is appointed by the House of Commons to oversee the work of the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards. History The committee was created on 13 December 2012 as one half of the replacements for the Commi ...

. The current commissioner is

Kathryn Stone Kathryn Elizabeth Stone (born 8 August 1963) was the independent Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards of the British House of Commons from January 2018 until December 2022. Early life Kathryn Stone was born in Derby and grew up in Belper. S ...

Duties

The commissioner is in charge of regulating MPs' conduct and propriety. One of the commissioner's main tasks is overseeing the ''Register of Members' Financial Interests'', which is intended to ensure disclosure of financial interests that may be of relevance to MPs' work. The Commissioner is the decision-maker in cases from the

Independent Complaints and Grievance Scheme The Independent Complaints and Grievance Scheme (ICGS) is a scheme set up by the British Houses of Parliament which investigates complaints about inappropriate behaviour, such as bullying, harassment or sexual misconduct, and provides advice to c ...

where the respondent is a Member of Parliament. If the Commissioner deems a sanction warranted, they refer cases to the

Independent Expert Panel The Independent Expert Panel (IEP) is a body of the British Houses of Parliament which determines the appropriate sanction for Members of Parliament in cases involving bullying, harassment or sexual misconduct referred to it by the Parliamentary C ...

so the appropriate sanction can be determined. The Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards is appointed by a resolution of the House of Commons for a fixed term of five years and is an independent officer of the House, working a four-day week. The remit of the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards does not extend to the House of Lords: the post of Lords Commissioner for Standards was created in 2010.

History

The post was established in 1995 with Sir

Gordon Downey Sir Gordon Stanley Downey (26 April 1928 – 12 April 2022) was Britain's first Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards. The Office of the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards was set up by the House of Commons of the United Kingdom in ...

as the first commissioner, serving the newly formed Committee for Standards and Privileges. He investigated the

cash-for-questions affair The "cash-for-questions affair" was a political scandal of the 1990s in the United Kingdom. It began in October 1994 when ''The Guardian'' newspaper alleged that London's most successful parliamentary lobbyist, Ian Greer of Ian Greer Associates ...

. The second commissioner was

Elizabeth Filkin Elizabeth Jill Filkin CBE (born 24 November 1940) is a British public functionary and former civil servant. She was the United Kingdom's Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards between February 1999 and 2002. Born in Keynsham, Somerset, Filk ...

(1999–2002), whose first case involved

Peter Mandelson Peter Benjamin Mandelson, Baron Mandelson (born 21 October 1953) is a British Labour Party politician who served as First Secretary of State from 2009 to 2010. He was President of the Board of Trade in 1998 and from 2008 to 2010. He is the ...

and a large loan which he had failed to declare in the Register of Members' Interests. Her departure was controversial. The next commissioner was Sir

Philip Mawer Sir Philip John Courtney Mawer (born 30 July 1947) is a former Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards who was in the post from 2002 until 2008 when he became an independent advisor on Ministerial standards to Gordon Brown. He was previously Se ...

. MPs he investigated include

George Galloway George Galloway (born 16 August 1954) is a British politician, broadcaster, and writer who is currently leader of the Workers Party of Britain, serving since 2019. Between 1987 and 2010, and then between 2012 and 2015, Galloway was a Member o ...

and

Derek Conway Derek Leslie Conway TD (born 15 February 1953) is an English politician and television presenter. A member of the Conservative Party, Conway served as a Member of Parliament (MP) for the constituency of Shrewsbury and Atcham from 1983 to 1997, ...

. He avoided investigating high-level MPs such as cabinet ministers. Unlike his predecessor he was appointed to a second term, but he did not complete it; he took up a new post at the beginning of 2008 as an independent adviser on ministerial standards to the then prime minister

Gordon Brown James Gordon Brown (born 20 February 1951) is a British former politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Labour Party (UK), Leader of the Labour Party from 2007 to 2010. He previously served as Chance ...

. John Lyon was commissioner from 1 January 2008 to 31 December 2012. In an article about Lyon's questioning by the parliamentary enquiry into MPs' expenses, ''

Private Eye ''Private Eye'' is a British fortnightly satire, satirical and current affairs (news format), current affairs news magazine, founded in 1961. It is published in London and has been edited by Ian Hislop since 1986. The publication is widely r ...

'' described him as "feeble" and an "establishment stooge".

Kathryn Hudson Kathryn Margaret Hudson (born 28 March 1949) was the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards for the United Kingdom House of Commons. Appointed in September 2012, she served until 31 December 2017. She was previously (from 2008) Deputy Parliame ...

served as commissioner from 1 January 2013 until 31 December 2017. The current commissioner,

, began her tenure on 1 January 2018. Daniel Greenberg has been nominated to replace her in January 2023.

References

External links

The records of the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards
{{Webarchive, url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201011052129/https://archives.parliament.uk/collections/getrecord/GB61_HC_CS , date=2020-10-11 are held by the Parliamentary Archives
Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards
official website
Register of Members' Interests
*

Josh Chafetz Joshua A. Chafetz (born 1979) is a law professor at Georgetown University. Before arriving at Georgetown in 2020, he was a professor of law at Cornell University for twelve years. His mother was noted sociologist Janet Saltzman Chafetz Janet may r ...

"Cleaning House: Congressional Commissioners for Standards,"
Yale Law Journal, vol. 117, no. 1, pp. 165–73 House of Commons of the United Kingdom Ombudsmen in the United Kingdom 1995 establishments in the United Kingdom Political funding in the United Kingdom