News Corporation: Conduct of Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport

Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean Excerpts

Monday 30th April 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Strathclyde]

My Lords, my noble friend makes a very helpful intervention. Of course, we can all use the benefit of hindsight and see that things were not done in an appropriate way. That is why the Prime Minister, as early as last week, asked the Cabinet Secretary, Sir Jeremy Heywood, and the Head of the Civil Service, Sir Bob Kerslake, to write to all departments and Ministers,

“clarifying the rigorous procedures that departments should have in place for handling cases of this nature”,

so that suspicion does not fall on departments, Ministers and their special advisers.

[Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean]

My Lords, when the Leader of the House was replying to my noble friend Lady Royall, he kept asking—I have to say, in a slightly excitable way—“What is going on? What is going on?”. It is very simple. It is the enforcement of the Ministerial Code. That is what we on this side of the House—and, I think, many Cross-Benchers—are very concerned about. The fact is that the Prime Minister tried to refer this to Lord Leveson. Does the Leader of the House agree with Lord Leveson that it was inappropriate for the Prime Minister to try to refer this matter of ministerial discipline and the Ministerial Code to Lord Leveson, which is not within his remit, as the original Statement clearly showed? That is the first point.

The second point is that the special adviser says that the Secretary of State knew nothing about his contacts. That may be so and no doubt an investigation will show whether or not that is correct. Notwithstanding that, paragraph 3.3 of the Ministerial Code—which is what we are talking about—is clear. It states:

“The responsibility for the management and conduct of special advisers, including discipline, rests with the Minister who made the appointment”.

Mr Hunt made the appointment. The special adviser’s contraventions were so serious that he has had to resign. Should the Secretary of State not have had mechanisms in place for discharging his very specific responsibility for the “management and conduct” of his special adviser and, if he did, what were they?