The 'Elected Representatives (Prevention of Deception) Bill' should become law to make it illegal for elected representatives to publish false or misleading statements.

The Companies Act 2006 requires all company directors 'to exercise reasonable care, skill and diligence in the performance of their duties'.  The UK Listing Rules for public companies require that directors ensure that any information they give to the stock market and other stakeholders 'is complete and not misleading, false or deceptive'.  Similarly the Charity Commission requires that Trustees 'exercise reasonable care and skill' and provide an accurate report of their charity's activities.  

However there is no similar legal requirement either for MPs to exercise reasonable care or to provide information which is not misleading, false or deceptive.  There is no law that makes it an offence for MPs to deceive the electorate.  Rather as with expenses, it seems to have been assumed that 'Honourable Members' will act honourably but regrettably there are many examples where this is not the case.  For instance the current Iraq enquiry appears to be concluding that Tony Blair was not fully open about the situation in Iraq immediately before the start of the 2003 invasion.   

This deception issue was explored by the 'Ministry of Truth', a film-making company with a mission to improve political governance.  Their film, with Dom Joly as presenter, was shown on BBC2 and is now available as a DVD.  During the making of the film over 50 MPs and Ministers were asked if they believed in honesty, transparency and accountability and were then asked to support a law enforcing these.  This led to the drafting of the Elected Representatives (Prohibition of Deception) Bill which was introduced into the House of Commons in 2007 but ran out of time on second hearing as it did not get any support from the Labour or Conservative leadership.  The Bill was sponsored in the Commons by Adam Price MP and supported by the MPs Lynne Jones, Dai Davies, Peter Kilfoyle, David Taylor, Dr Richard Taylor, Angus MacNeil, Elfyn Llwyd, Hywel Williams and Andrew George.  Other supporters include Sir Alastair Graham (Chairman, Committee on Standards in Public Life 2003-7), journalist turned politician Martin Bell, political writer Peter Oborne and Baroness Helena Kennedy.

The purpose of the Bill is that MPs caught deliberately deceiving the public will be fined and banned from standing for election for up to 10 years.  Paragraph 1 sets out the 'Offence of deception' with four subsections:

(1)    It shall be an offence for an elected representative acting in this capacity, or an agent acting on his behalf, to make or publish a statement which he knows to be misleading, false or deceptive in a material particular.

(2)  In this Act, 'elected representative' includes (a) a Member of Parliament, (b) a Member of the Scottish Parliament, (c) a Member of the National Assembly for Wales, (d) a Member of the Northern Ireland Assembly, (e) a Member of the European Parliament, and (f) an elected mayor.

(3)     A person guilty of an offence under subsection (1) shall be liable, on summary conviction, to a fine not exceeding level 5 on the standard scale [currently £5,000] and disqualification from standing for election to the organisations and positions listed in subsection (2) for a period of up to 10 years.

(4)     It shall be a defence for any person charged with an offence under subsection (1) to show that at the time of the offence he (a) did not know, or could not reasonably have been expected to know that the statement was misleading, false or deceptive in a material particular; (b) had no part in causing or permitting the statement to be published; (c) took all reasonable care to ensure that the statement was accurate; or (d) acted in the interests of national security.

In order to help to prevent any frivolous prosecutions, Paragraph 2 of the Bill states under the title 'Offence of making a false allegation':

(1) It shall be an offence for a person knowingly to make a false, trivial or frivolous complaint or allegation that an offence under section 1 has been committed.

(2) A person guilty of an offence under subsection (1) shall be liable, on summary conviction, to a fine not exceeding level 3 [currently £1,000] on the standard scale.

The Ministry of Truth website shows 94% of those responding in favour of the Bill.

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