Adviser on Ministerial Interests

Debate between Pete Wishart and James Wild

Tuesday 21st June 2022 Commons Chamber

[Pete Wishart (Perth and North Perthshire) (SNP)]

Well, there we have it, in the Minister’s own words, as clear as he could possibly be: it is abundantly clear that the Government have absolutely no intention whatsoever of moving speedily to replace their ethics adviser. If all the crowd on the Conservative Back Benches are prepared to be taken in by that rubbish, God help them when they have to try to consider some of the important issues of today.

We have heard from the Minister that there will be a review into the arrangements about the appointment of an ethics adviser. Why could he not have come to the Dispatch Box to state exactly and clearly what he intends to do, instead of mucking around with all of that rubbish and nonsense, skipping through God knows how many hoops and dancing on the head of so many pins? That would have been more useful to the House. We have had to listen to something like half an hour of unmitigated rubbish, and now we know that they will do nothing other than create some sort of review about how they will take the matter forward.

I do not know where to start when it comes to considering the ethics of this Prime Minister and Government. This is a Prime Minister with the ethics of Caligula and a Government with the morals of the last days of the Borgias. How the Prime Minister is still in place after all of this must go down in the history books as one of the great mysteries of early 21st-century politics. When the book is written and that feature film is eventually released, people will ask, “Did all of that seriously happen? Surely this must be a fictional account of this particular Conservative Government?”

There has never been a Prime Minister quite like it. He is a weird combination of privilege, narcissism, nastiness and naivety all wrapped up under the bumbling facade that he has carefully concocted to make his multitude of sins evaporate in front of our faces. He is about the worst Prime Minister to be in place at the worst possible time. No one has been more ill-equipped to run a community council, far less the Government of an advanced developed nation and democracy in western Europe. If there is one Prime Minister who is in need of ethical advice and the assistance of a moral compass, it is surely this Prime Minister. Far from doing away with the post—that plan is abundantly clear—the Government should be spending half of the UK’s GDP on creating an army of ethical advisers just to get on top of what is going on in the Government.

I have to say that, like the Culture Secretary, I was a little bit surprised to find out that we actually had an ethics adviser. I would not be surprised at all if the Prime Minister had an adviser for hedonism and partying hard, but ethics? He must be keeping his several successes in the course of the past few years hidden beneath a particularly big bushel. I do not know if he was a bit distracted when the Government were breaking the laws that they themselves created, distracted when they were threatening to break international law, distracted when they oversaw a culture at No. 10 that partied so hard that people were physically sick, got into fights and then abused the staff who were there to clean up, or distracted when the Government attempted to prorogue Parliament unlawfully and who continue to put their own cronies and donors in the House of Lords. But I suppose it gets to the stage where enough is enough even for the most patient, distracted and forgiving adviser, and the recognition finally dawns that this is an impossible task beyond the realms of human wit.

It comes as absolutely no surprise that the Government feel they can function quite adequately without an ethics adviser in place. They have been through two in the course of the past few years. Neither felt that they could make any real difference to the ethics and behaviour of this Prime Minister. That leads me to ask: what would an effective ethics adviser to this Prime Minister actually look like? They would need the ability to turn a blind eye and stomach some of the worst possible behaviour at the worst possible time. They must be able to take the abuse and disparaging comments from some of the Prime Minister’s friends, such as the Culture Secretary who, in her usual measured and respectful way, calls the current Lord Geidt “Lord Geddit” and says that voters do not care what he was or what he did. As part of the recruitment drive for the next ethics adviser, the Culture Secretary encouraged potential applicants for the post by saying that the public “don’t give a fig” about the job. Now, watch the great and good run forward to try to claim that particular prize.

[James Wild (North West Norfolk) (Con)]

The hon. Gentleman is making a typically measured speech himself. In talking about ethics and standards, can he confirm whether the SNP Westminster group still has a zero-tolerance approach to sexual harassment and inappropriate behaviour? A leaked recording this weekend would indicate that that is no longer the case.