Sponsorships and other benefits: discussion

Document handed out:

Draft report of Joint Sub-committee on Ethics to Joint Rules Committee.

The sub-committee on Ethics met to discuss the draft report pertaining to the question of the sponsorship of parliamentary committees. An accompanying report, dated 9 March 1998, contained a collection of responses from the chairpersons of the various parliamentary committees setting out the financial assistance they had received from outside sources up until the end of 1997. The draft report made recommendations as to how to deal with it, in terms of transparency and accountability. It identified a lacuna in the current regime of disclosure. The committee accepted the two reports and resolved to: (a) recommend to its parent committee, The Joint Rules Committee, that it ask the Registrar of Members' Interests to take responsibility for disclosure of outside financial support for parliamentary committees; and (b) that the sub-committee prepare a draft set of rules to govern the procedure by the start of the new parliamentary year in February 1999.