Commission meeting with Professor Robert Barrington 19 December 2023

The Commission met with Professor Robert Barrington as part of its inquiry into financial corruption in politics. Robert Barrington is Professor of Anti-Corruption Practice at the University of Sussex's Centre for the Study of Corruption.

He started his evidence to the Commission by saying that corruption is like water, flowing through the cracks wherever people try to influence the democratic process.  It is therefore important to consider collectively political party funding, lobbying, the revolving door and conflicts of interest, otherwise closing the loopholes in one area will just see activity flow into another area.  He posited a definition that corruption is 'the abuse of entrusted power for private gain that harms the public interest.' He said that people with high degrees of entrusted power, but little accountability, tend to move over time into corruption to a greater or lesser extent.

There exists a significant academic literature on political corruption, particularly emanating from the USA, which the Commission is considering. It is worth noting that not all corruption is criminal as it can also be a matter of inappropriate influence.  This academic literature distinguishes between individuals acting corruptly - for example individual politicians - and institutional corruption, in which the body has deviated from its original purpose. 

Professor Barrington pointed out that in his view the UK parliament is complacent and reluctant to think that corruption happens in the UK but is not in itself institutionally corrupt, because it still broadly operates in the public interest. This complacency is illustrated by the feeling that what happened under Prime Minister Boris Johnson was an anomaly and that 'good chaps' have restored the situation.  However, Professor Barrington feels that there has been more corruption and corruption risk in and around the governments of the past five years than at any time since the second world war.

The problem is that the UK's institutional apparatus to prevent, identify and deal with corruption is weak.  For example, the post of 'Anti-Corruption Champion' has been vacant since the resignation in June 2022 of the Conservative MP appointed to that role. Corruption is very hard to reverse so it is important to halt it a long way before the cliff edge.

Professor Barrington said that the appointment to the Lords of people who donate huge sums to a political party or politicians is unambiguously corrupt. This has become established practice, despite public concern. However, the people who need to change things are the very people who are profiting from this corruption, and they have no incentive to do so.

He suggested solutions:

1. Establish an independent anti-corruption commission. It could be valuable to look at the experience of anti-corruption agencies in Singapore, Australia, Italy and France which have all set up such bodies - in the case of Australia, within the past twelve months. The UK need not set up a large and costly agency - we could set up something small and nimble, similar to the modern slavery commission. 

2. Need to work to protect key institutions that are protections against state capture by vested interests - notably the civil service, civil society, the independent judiciary, an independent media, the electoral commission and the national audit office.

3. There should be a cap on political donations, not simply single donations but over a rolling period.

4. We need to avoid foreign money influencing our politics, especially when malign foreign states set out to corrupt another country - an approach known as 'strategic corruption.'.

5. We should consider banning party donors from getting peerages. People already in the Lords should not make political donations.

6. There should be significant sanctions for companies and individuals who break the rules or significantly breach standards.

7. There should be greater sanctions available to the Electoral Commission including greater fines and the power to order the re-run of elections deemed to have been materially influenced by illegal funding.

8. We must have continual monitoring as there will always be loopholes. The Committee on Standards in Public Life has identified loopholes and proposed 34 recommendations in its 2021 report, all of which should be adopted.

He welcomed the ideas of an ethics and integrity commission and Covid corruption commissioner being proposed by the Labour Party, noting that these should be considered alongside his proposal for creating an independent anti-corruption commission.