Ministerial Code: Investigation of Potential Breach

Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts

Thursday 25th May 2023 Lords Chamber

[The Minister of State, Cabinet Office (Baroness Neville-Rolfe) (Con)]

My Lords, the Ministerial Code sets out the standards of conduct expected of Ministers and how they discharge their duties. As the noble Baroness said, the Prime Minister is the ultimate judge of the standards of behaviour expected of a Minister and the appropriate consequences of a breach of those standards. That is indeed why he decides, as she has explained, but in light of advice from the independent adviser. The Prime Minister moved quickly to appoint an independent adviser, Sir Laurence Magnus, on whose advice he relies.

The noble Baroness asked why this system is not set up independently. This subject has been looked at by committees. Indeed, last year, as we discussed before, we did make some changes to the independent adviser’s powers and gave him more support. We believe that having an independent system would be a problem. An independent commission or system would amass considerable unelected power over the workings of government in somebody who does not have an elected mandate, without the checks and balances and accountabilities of elected politicians. We are here to debate, in a democratic way, circumstances that have gone on including, of course, the Home Secretary and the issue of the speed awareness course, which was the subject of this Question earlier in the week.

The criteria for investigating a breach, of course, depend on the circumstances. As the noble Baroness will know, the Ministerial Code is very wide ranging. It is the Prime Minister’s code, so he is rightly the decision-maker. The criteria for a particular investigation will depend on the issue being investigated.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, this is a small issue concerning a larger problem, which is the unconstrained and unaccountable prerogative powers of the Prime Minister and the deterioration of relations between the Civil Service and Ministers, which has come up again and again in recent years. I am puzzled and disappointed by the Minister’s reply to the Leader of the Opposition. The Answer in the Commons made a very strong point of saying, “This is the Prime Minister’s code and the Prime Minister is, in effect, the judge and jury of everything that happens”.

Toward the end of the last Labour Government, there were some rather good committee reports in the Commons on whether we now needed to limit the Prime Minister’s prerogative powers. I wonder whether, if the Conservatives found themselves in opposition again, they would not perhaps wish to revive that debate. I would hope that a Labour Government—or another Government of some sort—would begin to address that problem. If the independent adviser is really independent, why does he not have the ability to start his own investigations and then present them to the Prime Minister?

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

I will not speculate on what might happen under a different Government. I remind the noble Lord that there have been a number of reports on ethics and integrity, including from Nigel Boardman and the Committee on Standards in Public Life, and, as I said recently, we will lay our responses in Parliament in due course. However, I draw the House’s attention again to Sir Laurence Magnus, who has been appointed and has set off in a robust way. His report, which I promised would come out in May, is due to be published today—it may already have been or will be any minute.

I also draw attention to the fact that we strengthened the remit of the independent adviser in 2022. Slightly contrary to what the noble Lord was saying, the adviser now has the ability to initiate an investigation under the Ministerial Code after consulting with the Prime Minister, and the normal expectation is that the Prime Minister would agree to such an investigation. We have also updated the code to include more specific references to the duty on Ministers to provide the independent adviser with information reasonably necessary for carrying out the role. As I said before, we have also strengthened the arrangements for the office of the independent adviser, providing him with a dedicated secretariat of civil servants. However, I come back to the point I made before to the noble Baroness: this must be elective—it has to be democratic. That is why the Prime Minister decides on these matters.