The MPs behind the interrogation of the private equity industry on Wednesday have ruffled a few parliamentary feathers.
Gallery News, a Westminster email news service, has the heads-up that Alan Duncan, the shadow trade and industry secretary, will in a speech this evening accuse the politicians who sit on the Treasury select committee of demeaning parliament and of bringing the business of politics into disrepute.
He is planning to allege some members of bad manners; of being childish and undignified and of “cocky behaviour” that was “shameful and self indulgent.”
Now, we at FT Alphaville thought that the BVCA got a hard ride last week, as the politicians scrambled to score points; then Nils Pratley in the Guardian this morning questioned the financial fluency of the committee members, adding that when taking on, and attempting to grill heavyweights, in what is a dense and complex area, “you have to know your stuff, and most of the committee did not.”
So Duncan’s comments could add weight to the growing rumbles of discontent from those that feel that while the committee’s cross-examination of the private equity big-wigs was entertaining, it was ultimately somewhat frustratingly insubstantive.
Now none of us here are political hacks. So to us the scoring of sometimes cheap political points seems very much part of the business over in Westminster. And of course, Alan Duncan is seeking to boost his own political capital with such a speech.
But, as Pratley alludes to, when those in charge of dissecting the issues surrounding such a high-profile and economically weighty subject are tested and found, in the eyes of some, to be lacking, we have a problem.
Here, for what its worth, is what Gallery News reports Duncan will have to say:
Mr Duncan will say that “what we saw from MPs yesterday wasn’t the kind of constructive scrutiny we need from our Select Committees.”
He is expected to go on to say, “whatever the arguments for or against the current structure of taxation for private equity, successful risk-takers who have worked properly within the framework of our law should not ever be subjected to a sarcastic inquisition by MPs….
“By all means call them to the Select Committee for cross-examination, but publicity-seeking antics by MPs who use the power of the Select Committee to try to humiliate those before them says more about the MPs asking the questions than it does about the entrepreneurs who were answering them. Bad manners in a Select Committee are childish and undignified. They demean the House of Commons and bring politicians into disrepute.
“The cocky behaviour of some of the members of the Select Committee yesterday was shameful and self indulgent. It must not be confused with proper scrutiny or Parliament doing its job. By contrast a fortnight ago Kenneth Clarke published a report from our Democracy Task Force which set out our ideas for how we could enhance the quality of the scrutiny role of Select Committees.
“The taper relief that is under question was created by Gordon Brown ten years ago. Private Equity companies are doing no more than behaving rationally within the law and within the UK’s tax regime. It is a bit rich for MPs to agree a system and then to attack people for acting within it.”