Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards

The Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards is an officer of the British House of Commons. The work of the officer is overseen by the Commons Select Committee on Standards.

The current commissioner is Kathryn Stone.

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 where the respondent is a Member of Parliament. If the Commissioner deems a sanction warranted, they refer cases to the Independent Expert Panel 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 as the first commissioner, serving the newly formed Committee for Standards and Privileges. He investigated the cash-for-questions affair.

The second commissioner was Elizabeth Filkin (1999–2002), whose first case involved Peter Mandelson 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. MPs he investigated include George Galloway and Derek Conway. 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.

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

Kathryn Hudson served as commissioner from 1 January 2013 until 31 December 2017.

The current commissioner, Kathryn Stone, 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
"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