Nolan Principles

Amanda Martin Excerpts

Thursday 12th November 2026 Commons Chamber

[Joe Powell]

I agree that culture is a huge part of this. The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea is belatedly undergoing what it calls a culture review, but I fear that it may fall into the category of reviews that may not necessarily lead to the change we want, as the hon. Gentleman mentioned earlier. Let us see what happens; I want to keep an open mind.

I also support the idea of a national oversight mechanism —I know the Cabinet Office is doing work on this. If we are going to spend time, energy and resources on inquests and inquiries, it is important that the recommendations are tracked and monitored; otherwise, it feels to me that we may defeat the point. Of course, the Hillsborough law—the Public Office (Accountability) Bill, which I hope will become an Act very soon—may be a big step forward on the duty of candour.

I want to cover two areas. First, there is a huge amount to welcome in the Representation of the People Bill, particularly on foreign money in politics and the Rycroft recommendations, and we will shortly get that Bill back from the other place. There were so many good suggestions that could not find their way into the Bill, which is why the Government were right to set up a task and finish group. I hope the ideas that come through that group will see the light of day, potentially in future legislation. I really welcome the Bill, but I do not want to lose the ideas that we could not get through this time. I really hope that when the Electoral Commission looks at spending caps during the regulated period, it will take an expansive view and think about whether we need to have wider ones, given the nature of modern campaigning, which is essentially permanent.

The second main area that I want to cover is lobbying reform. The July report from the Ethics and Integrity Commission was a really thorough and good piece of work that contained lots of recommendations about lobbying. At the moment, the public record captures only 4% of lobbyists, because it is restricted to consultant lobbyists, and information is captured in disparate databases across Government, making it hard to track and make useful. We know from Greensill and the covid contracts that modern lobbying happens in lots of different ways, not just through formal meetings.

This is not about policing who the Government meet, because they should be meeting businesses, stakeholders and so on. It is about having the right to know what voices are informing major decisions, so that the public can make a judgment on whether the requirement to consult widely has been met. An initial step would be to clean up the number of different lobbying databases that we have, and to make them easier to understand and view. The report calls for legislation, and I asked at Cabinet Office orals a few weeks ago whether the Government were open to legislation. The Minister confirmed that they were, so I hope that is something we will see.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Bishop Auckland said, it has too often taken a crisis to create the urgency to act on matters of ethics and integrity in politics. We can all name them: Greensill, the previous ambassador to the United States, the covid contracts, Owen Paterson and, of course, the multiple ongoing investigations by different bodies into Reform UK’s funding and the hon. Member for Clacton (Nigel Farage)—I have informed him that I would say this. We now have an opportunity to create a reset moment for standards in public life, and the rewiring the state White Paper is a great opportunity to do so.

[Amanda Martin (Portsmouth North) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend refers to the wider rewiring of the state. As we move towards further devolution, does he agree that our local councillors need to be much more accountable? At the moment, even when they are sanctioned, all they are asked to do is apologise. That gets nowhere, because they do not bother to do so.

[Joe Powell]

I completely agree. I am a huge supporter of devolution, but it is important that the Government’s anti-corruption plan calls for a local audit office to look at finance and at codes of conduct for local councillors and senior officers. Of course, local government is required to follow the Nolan principles, but I am not sure that we have all the systems in place to track and monitor that, so I agree with my hon. Friend.

The first opportunity is to finish the job on the Representation of the People Bill and the Public Office (Accountability) Bill, and the second is the White Paper on rewiring the state. My third and final suggestion is to have a “clean up Westminster” Bill in the next Session. It would bring together all the different elements on which we know action is needed, such as lobbying and second jobs, finishing the job on money in politics and sending a clear message to the public that open and accountable politics is central to this Government’s mission of rewiring the state in a way that delivers growth, opportunity and hope across the country.