Alan Watkins: I would not survive Mrs Filkin's scrutiny

When the judges of the Spectator Parliamentarian of the Year awards decided to give a gong to the embattled Ms Elizabeth Filkin I, as one of them, felt slightly uneasy. I did not make a great fuss. But I tried to explain why I thought the award misconceived. The reasons will appear later. To begin with, let us have a look at the origins of the business.

It started with the "sleaze" allegations against assorted Conservatives in the 1990s. The Prime Minister, Mr John Major, set up a committee to investigate the matter under a Lord of Appeal, Lord Nolan. This body, which was appointed for a specific purpose, turned itself – or was turned by Mr Major – into a permanent part of the constitution. It was called the Committee on Standards in Public Life.

Its first chairman was Lord Nolan. He was succeeded by Lord Neill, another lawyer, who was succeeded by the present chairman, Sir Nigel Wicks, a former civil servant. Its other nine members include Lord Goodhart QC, a Liberal Democrat; Lord MacGregor, a former Tory minister; Rabbi Julia Neuberger, who is on everything; and Mr Chris Smith, to prove that there is life after death.

What these people do all day long I have no idea. Their function seems to be to act as a force for good in the polity. If there is evil afoot (the theory goes) Sir Nigel and his cohorts will descend from the skies to put matters to rights. They can dilate generally on what MPs may properly get up to but can neither discipline nor investigate them. That is left to the old Committee of Privileges, got up in fancy clothes as the Committee on Standards and Privileges.

Clearly this new committee could not investigate erring members on its own. Somebody else would have to carry out the detective work: the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards. The mid-1990s saw the creation of two bodies – outside Parliament, the Committee on Standards in Public Life and, within it, the Committee on Standards and Privileges.

The reason for creating this inherently unstable structure was that the Commons wanted to retain control of what they thought of as their own business. Thus the final authority (other than the House itself) was to be the Committee on Standards and Privileges, which could overturn or refuse to accept the recommendations of the commissioner, whom it regarded as one of the servants of the House.

It was more a quarter than a halfway house towards external regulation. It need not have been like this. There was no constitutional reason why the House should have refrained from handing improper conduct by a member to an outside body or even a single judge. After all, disputed elections had long been the province of the High Court. In the 19th century, petitions against them had invariably been decided on party lines. Likewise, in the Marconi case Lloyd George and Rufus Isaacs were found to have bought shares improperly but were let off. It was tacitly agreed that a House committee was not an ideal body to hear cases of this nature.

These and other lessons went unlearnt. The first Commissioner for Standards was Sir Gordon Downey, a former civil servant. He served from 1995 to 1998. He nailed Mr Neil Hamilton and Mr Tim Smith but was not given the opportunity to nail Mr Jonathan Aitken. Instead, Mr Aitken was exonerated by the Cabinet Secretary, Sir Robin Butler, who should not have been doing the job in the first place.

In 1999 the cautious Sir Gordon was succeeded by Ms Filkin, who had been a distinguished social worker – she had written several books on the subject – before joining the Inland Revenue. She was a favourite with the press, partly because of her likeable qualities, mainly because she told them what was going on, often before it went on. She regarded herself less as a servant of the House than as the chief executive of a new company, Sleazebusters plc, which, however, more often resembled Nitpickers inc. The fusses about Mr Major's expensive speeches and Mr William Hague's free gym derived from the celebrity of the subjects. But they were absurd fusses all the same.

It was not all Ms Filkin's fault. Cases were referred to her much as rugby players are now "cited" by opposing clubs. Thus an accusation of elbowing by one club will be followed by three accusations (of stamping, high tackling and eye gouging) by the other. Politicians are just the same. Under the existing rules, she could not have prevented this tit-for-tattery. What she could have done would have been to institute a rule of secrecy – in which she would have had to include herself.

Partly, no doubt, Ms Filkin's enthusiasm was that of the newly appointed captain of the lacrosse team. But her zeal also had something of the 17th-century witchfinder about it. After her investigation into Mr Peter Mandelson's loan from Mr Geoffrey Robinson, I wrote here: "It is an invaluable source about what happened. But as a guide to the conduct of MPs and of ministers it is so intrusive, so puritanical, so prim as to be valueless. Our legislators are to be treated like the unhappy citizens of Calvin's Geneva, no action unsupervised, no thought, it seems, uncensured. For instance, Ms Filkin concludes that, owing to errors and omissions – over which, incidentally, the Britannia Building Society raised no objections at all – Mr Mandelson 'received his mortgage on a different basis from that which would have properly applied to other members of the public.' This falsely implies that Mr Mandelson was able to enter into the agreement because he was who he was."

It may be that Ms Filkin became as exercised as she did about Mr Mandelson's relations with his building society – none of her business, I should have thought – because she herself had been a non-executive director of the Britannia. No matter. In 1984 I wanted to take out a mortgage with the Abbey National and was sent a form asking whether I was employed or self-employed. Then as now, I was paid an annual retainer to write a certain number of columns a year. But I knew from unhappy experience that the words "freelance" and "self-employed" brought about apprehension and hostility in any respectable financial institution.

I asked my then editor, Mr Donald Trelford, whether he would mind if I replied that I was employed by The Observer. Not at all, he said in his usual accommodating fashion. He so testified to the society and my mortgage was secured. With Ms Filkin in charge I should have been denied a mortgage and been out of a job as well. Though I wish her no ill, I am not at all surprised about her departure.