Tributes to Baroness Thatcher

Bernard Jenkin Excerpts

Wednesday 10th April 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)]

The House has already heard much about Margaret Thatcher as a huge political figure—the iron lady who dominated British politics and world politics—but my wife and I grew to know her after she retired from the House of Commons. We came to know someone who was far from the arrogant or heartless figure portrayed by her adversaries. She was someone who must have forced herself to be strong, to hide any self-doubt, to deny herself any weakness, in order to live up to an ideal of herself. She was anything but arrogant.

I do not know how many times we saw her reject the adulation that was so often heaped upon her. She felt undeserving of such praise and standing ovations. She would say how she could never have achieved anything on her own, that her Governments were a team effort in which many played their part. This was genuine humility, not arrogance. And we have read and heard so much about her acts of personal kindness.

It was her passion for the truth that made her such a dangerous adversary in argument—a danger which she harboured long into old age—and she loved a good spat. She met some bright young candidates before the 1992 election—me included—[Interruption.] I beg your pardon. Two now serve as senior Ministers of state. As they tried to justify UK membership of the exchange rate mechanism, she scorned the one who had worked closely in her Government with heavy inflection. “Oh,” she said, “I am so disappointed with you.” She listened to the other, who argued that the exit from the exchange rate mechanism would involve too much loss of face for the Government. She retorted: “Loss of face? What is loss of face compared to the loss of 350,000 jobs? If you think that, you’re a fool. There’s the door!” Not an easy introduction for an aspiring candidate.

What we miss from politics today is her certainty, her seriousness, her clarity of principle, her fusion of the practical with her sense of moral purpose. Those who disagreed with her undoubtedly felt that to be arrogance on her part, but she felt she was a guardian of greater truths and principles, which were far more important than her mere self. This, with her formidable intellect, gave her an extraordinary prescience about the world. How right she was about the exchange rate mechanism, and about the Maastricht treaty and monetary union. I would caution those who try to use her name in support of the EU, as it has become, as though she would ever have put her name to the Lisbon treaty or anything like it.

Another myth that this debate helpfully dispels is that she had no sense of humour. When she arrived in Essex in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Maldon (Mr Whittingdale) for the 1992 election campaign, a junior reporter from the Essex County Standard breathlessly caught up with her hectic pace and asked, in front of 200 other journalists, “Do you agree that the Conservative campaign is lacking in oomph?” Mrs T retorted, with heavy irony, “That’s what I’m here for, dear.”

She will always be revered as a woman of principle with iron determination, even by those who disagree with her. Her premiership was about restoring national self-belief, something few can deny she achieved, and that is what we must now do for ourselves. It has become an axiom in the coverage of reaction to Margaret Thatcher’s death that she was divisive, which ignores the fact that the UK was already bitterly divided. We need to hear about the scars that industrial decline has left in many constituencies represented on the Opposition Benches, but that should not detract from her achievements; nor should she be blamed personally for what was, in many respects, an inevitable transition of economics.

We should regard some of the more unseemly reactions to her death as a backhanded tribute to her, a reminder of the attitudes she had to overcome in order to achieve what she did, but let the argument about her legacy be based on the facts and not the myths which her opponents would prefer to believe. Spending on health, education, pensions and welfare continually increased under her premiership. The number of people in work increased by 1.8 million. Manufacturing output was significantly higher when she left office than when she was first elected. Wider home ownership and share ownership spread wealth more widely than ever before; social mobility was greatly increased. The incomes of every section of society, including the poorest, increased in real terms. Income taxes paid by the richest 1% of the population increased from 11% to 15% of the total tax take.

As she grew older, we regarded Lady T less and less as a former Prime Minister, more and more as a favourite aunt or grandmother. Sometimes it was hard to believe that this small, frail lady had once held the world in the palm of her hand. The whole nation will be for ever in her debt.

Oral Answers to Questions

Bernard Jenkin Excerpts

Wednesday 20th March 2013 Commons Chamber

[Miss Smith]

As I noted in my previous answer, we believe in accountability and in being able to “shop” those examples where that occurs. We take action on every such example and I am confident that that will cover what the right hon. Gentleman seeks.

[Mr Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the sheer cost inflicted on smaller businesses trying to bid for public contracts is prohibitive? What are the Government doing to reduce the cost of bidding for public contracts? Unless we reduce the cost, they simply will not bid.

[Miss Smith]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. We have streamlined the procurement process by introducing faster and simpler procedures. We have removed bureaucracies such as pre-qualification questionnaires for contracts below the European Union threshold. We are also continually finding ways to help SMEs and others to navigate their way across Government. We look forward to continuing to work with my hon. Friend’s Committee to do more of that.

European Council

Bernard Jenkin Excerpts

Monday 11th February 2013 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

Although the Eastleigh by-election is now under way, to be fair to the Deputy Prime Minister there was agreement that we were going to take a very tough line, and if we could not get a good deal we were able to say no.

[Mr Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)]

May I join the many voices of congratulation for my right hon. Friend and say how much I am enjoying this statement? Not only has he brought back a good deal for the British taxpayer, but it was a good day for the British Parliament—this House voted for a cut, and he delivered it.

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. It is important that other European leaders recognise that when we sit round that table, we listen not to the European Parliament, which has its legitimate views, but to our own Parliaments. That goes for the British Parliament and also for the German, Swedish, Dutch and Danish Parliaments. All Parliaments of the net contributors must be listened to.

Algeria

Bernard Jenkin Excerpts

Friday 18th January 2013 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

The right hon. Gentleman makes a very important point. We have good relations with countries such as Tunisia and Morocco at a political and diplomatic level. There are obviously opportunities for intelligence sharing, and I would argue that we need to add to that a degree of military-to-military talks and co-operation, so that when these regrettable events take place there is a high level of trust and an ability to work together. Obviously, there are some countries in the region with which we have very long, historical relations—Nigeria, for instance, with which we have a very thick relationship politically, diplomatically and militarily, and with counter-terrorism and all the rest of it. I think we need to go through all our contacts and work out how best to strengthen them in each case.

[Mr Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)]

May I commend my right hon. Friend’s statement? Is this not a sharp reminder that we live in a world of ungoverned spaces and terrorist groups that can strike and create violence at any time? Is it not therefore very important that we maintain Whitehall and our agencies on a wartime footing, ready to respond, as my right hon. Friend is now?

[The Prime Minister]

I thank my hon. Friend for what he has said. I think this is a reminder of two very clear points. First, we face a large and existential terrorist threat from a group of extremists based in different parts of the world who want to do the biggest possible amount of damage to our interests and way of life. Secondly, those extremists thrive when they have ungoverned spaces in which they can exist, build and plan. I very much agree with what my hon. Friend has said. Under this Government—as under previous Governments—a lot of priority has been given to the funding of the security services, and there is now a good system for bringing together intelligence and military and political planning through the National Security Council, and in other ways including the emergency committee Cobra framework, which brings people together very rapidly to ensure that all parts of the British Government and state are able to bring their expertise to bear.

European Council

Bernard Jenkin Excerpts

Monday 17th December 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)]

May I commend my right hon. Friend on his determination not to wreck his Christmas by trying to write a speech on the European Union at the same time?

My right hon. Friend said that we had

“agreed a new voting system that means that the eurozone cannot impose rules on the countries outside the euro area, such as Britain, without our agreement.”

Will he confirm that, in saying that, he did not mean that the treaty had been rewritten, or that the single market article was now subject to a different voting system, so that anything agreed by the banking union could still be put forward by the Commission as a single market proposal to be forced through on a single qualified majority vote?

[The Prime Minister]

I greatly respect my hon. Friend’s views on and knowledge of this issue. I was not claiming that we had changed the treaty. The point that I was making was that a number of people in the European Union, including the Commission at one stage, had said that it was impossible to write new rules to deal with circumstances in which some were in the single currency and some were outside it, but we had persevered. We said “If you want to go ahead with banking union, this really is essential”, and that is why there is effectively a new system. If more than four countries are outside the banking union, there must be a double majority in favour of a proposal: a majority of those outside, and a majority of those inside.

I am not claiming that we have rewritten the treaties, or that this is a new treaty change; it is not. However, I think that it is a step forward to deal with a deep problem that Europe will have as the single currency integrates further and those outside it want to ensure that they are properly protected.

European Council

Bernard Jenkin Excerpts

Monday 26th November 2012 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I can; the hon. Lady makes a very good point. If she looks at budget heading 1a, which includes all research, university and other spending—out of which Britain, with high-quality universities, does quite well—she will see that, in the last period, 2007 to 2013, the EU spent about €83.5 billion. The proposal on the table on 22 November was to spend €108 billion. That is quite a significant 20% increase. I would argue that we could take that increase back a little in order to help to get an overall deal without harming the fact that this is a growth budget that wants to support research and jobs.

[Mr Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)]

I join my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for North East Fife (Sir Menzies Campbell) in commending engagement rather than detachment, but does the Prime Minister agree that this is not about submitting to European demands, but about staking out our own national interest and building alliances around that? Is not that a lesson for the future?

[The Prime Minister]

I do not want to come between this great friendship that is opening up across our Benches. It is important to form alliances to try to get deals that are in our national interest, but as in all these things we have to have a bottom line, and sometimes that means that we will have to go it alone.

European Council

Bernard Jenkin Excerpts

Monday 22nd October 2012 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

This issue has been discussed at great length by the Home Secretary, who set out in great detail in the House of Commons recently that we are minded to exercise the opt-out that the previous Government put in place, but there are safeguards that we want to seek for the arrest warrant.

[Mr Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)]

Does my right hon. Friend share my concern that the development of a eurozone banking union demonstrates how the UK is increasingly finding itself in the worst of all possible worlds—bound and directed by a qualified majority that is solid in the eurozone? May I remind him that we already have a European Banking Authority which is based in London and operates by qualified majority vote?

[The Prime Minister]

I go a certain way with my hon. Friend, but the point is that the proposals for banking union have to be agreed by unanimity, so that is an important safeguard for Britain. But I do not think it would be in our interests to stop the eurozone putting in place something that a single currency needs in order to function. Our economy is suffering today because of uncertainty in the eurozone. Those high interest rates in Spain, Italy, Greece and Portugal affect us too, and they need action, including a banking union. We in the United Kingdom have a single currency—the pound sterling—and we are going to keep it. It works—and it works partly because we have a banking union. The countries of the eurozone need one too, so blocking it just for the sake of it does not make sense.

Oral Answers to Questions

Bernard Jenkin Excerpts

Tuesday 16th October 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Tim Loughton. Not here.

[Mr Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)]

May I ask the Deputy Prime Minister what he thinks politics in this country should be about? I remind him that he argued with some passion for more equal constituencies and fairer boundaries on their own merits. Is politics about arguing for what one believes in on a point of principle, or is it about getting what one can out of a particular situation for one’s own political advantage, in which case why should we ever believe anything he says?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

I am not sure that the hon. Gentleman has yet got his head around the politics of coalition. [Interruption.] He raises these questions month in, month out. His party did not win the general election; that is fact 1. Neither did my party; that is fact 2. Fact 3 is that we need to compromise for the benefit of the country as a whole; and when we compromise we enshrine that in a coalition agreement, which is like a deal. When one party does not abide by a certain part of that deal, it is perfectly legitimate for the other party to say that it will amend the terms of that deal. That is the meaning of coalition politics.

House of Lords Reform Bill

Bernard Jenkin Excerpts

Monday 3rd September 2012 Commons Chamber

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

Not only did I have the courage, but I had the courtesy to speak to the leader of the right hon. Gentleman’s party and ask a simple question: if there were objections from the official Opposition to a timetable motion, or even the concept of a timetable motion, how many days would they want? We were prepared to offer more days.

As the right hon. Member for Blackburn knows, under the Labour Government, time and again Bills of constitutional importance were timetabled, and for good reasons. Members in all parts of the House rightly said that at a time of severe economic distress they wanted us to get on with the House of Lords Bill, but for the Bill not to consume all available parliamentary time. What answer did I get, both publicly and privately? That the Labour party wanted individual closure motions.

I am not as much of an old hand in parliamentary procedure as is the right hon. Gentleman, but he knows just as well as I do that that would have led us into a morass and the thing would have been dragged out for months. That once again showed the skin-deep sincerity of the Labour party’s commitment to reform, and it is a great betrayal of his great work in the previous Administration that his party is becoming a regressive roadblock to political reform.

[Mr Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend should comfort himself: he gave it his best shot, with all his sincerity, and we respect him for that. May I draw his attention to the fact that the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Act 2011 remains in force? Therefore, the boundary commissions remain under a duty to make proposals on a House of 600 Members. Does he have the power to instruct them to stop? No, he does not. Is he therefore not simply going to obstruct a constitutional process for his own party political advantage, which is a disgrace?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

The hon. Gentleman seems to be delivering answers to his own questions, so I might be redundant in this, but he is correct that, unlike on House of Lords reform, where we had a commitment to deliver legislation, and indeed elections, come 2015, in the coalition agreement we are sticking to retaining legislation on boundaries, for which, by the way, as I know he is meticulous about such things, there was no timetable stipulated in the agreement. On boundaries, we are, I suppose, strictly speaking, adhering to the coalition agreement, unlike on Lords reform—[Interruption.] The hon. Gentleman wants a detailed answer and I am giving it to him. There is little else going on this first afternoon back at Parliament.

The hon. Gentleman is right to say that, because the primary legislation is still on the statute book, there is nothing in my power to stop the work of the boundary commissions, but I have made it clear that, since I think I reasonably believe that the constitutional reform package was exactly that—a package—and since this is the first time that either of the coalition parties has been unable to deliver on a major coalition agreement commitment, it is therefore right to rebalance things and not to proceed with an unbalanced package.

Prime Minister’s Adviser on Ministers’ Interests

Bernard Jenkin Excerpts

Tuesday 17th July 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House calls on the Government to implement the recommendation made by the Public Administration Select Committee in paragraph 44 of its Twenty-second Report of Session 2010-12, The Prime Minister’s Adviser on Ministers’ Interests: independent or not?, that the Independent Adviser on Ministers’ Interests ‘should be empowered to instigate his own investigations’; and notes that this motion has been agreed by the Public Administration Select Committee.

I am extremely grateful to the Backbench Business Committee for giving the House this brief opportunity to express an opinion on this question today. The Public Administration Select Committee motion is supported by no less than 18 Select Committee Chairmen. The issue turns on a simple question of principle, which is whether or not the Prime Minister’s adviser on Ministers’ interests should be able to decide for him or herself to investigate a potential breach of the ministerial code. All the credible advice that we have received suggests that such a decision should be a matter for the adviser and not for the Prime Minister.

The Public Administration Select Committee—PASC—has advocated that course of action since the first adviser, Sir John Bourn, was appointed by Tony Blair in March 2006. The ministerial code sets out the circumstances in which the adviser—always referred to as the “independent adviser”—is requested to investigate alleged breaches of the code. Under the present arrangements, the question of whether or not to investigate is therefore in the hands of the Prime Minister of the day, on the advice of the Cabinet Secretary.

In 2006, in paragraph 17 of PASC’s report entitled “The Ministerial Code: the case for independent investigation”, the Committee warned:

“It is hard to see how the Independent Adviser can command public confidence if the Prime Minister can decide that prima facie breaches of the Code will not be investigated. Put simply, there is no point in having an investigator in post if he is not given discretion to investigate very public allegations that the Code has been breached.”

Paragraph 20 of the report points out:

“The decision to instigate an investigation still lies with the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister is clearly not an impartial figure when it comes to deciding whether or not to instigate an investigation. If the regulatory system is to have credibility, that decision must be taken out of political hands.”

In paragraph 34 of the report, the Committee therefore concluded:

“Until the changes we outline have taken place, it is inappropriate to refer to the new investigator as an Independent Adviser.”

The previous Government refused to accept PASC’s recommendation because they believed that

“it must ultimately be for the Prime Minister to account to Parliament for his decisions and actions in relation to the appointment of his Ministers”.

I have to say that that rather missed the point. The Committee was not suggesting that the Prime Minister should cease to make decisions about who to appoint or to dismiss as Ministers, or that he should cease to account to Parliament for those decisions. It merely suggested that he should be supported by truly independent advice.

PASC’s most recent report on the subject, entitled “The Prime Minister’s adviser on Ministers’ interests: independent or not?” was published this year. In it, we concluded that, because our previous recommendations had not been implemented,

“the title of ‘independent adviser’ is a misnomer.”

Paragraph 44 of that report also reiterated PASC’s central recommendation

“that the independent adviser should be empowered to instigate his own investigations. The Prime Minister could do this on his own initiative, without any need for legislation, but placing the post on a statutory footing would be preferable.”

The disadvantages of the present arrangements have been manifest in recent months. Sir Philip Mawer, the previous incumbent, expressed his frustration to the Committee that he was given no role in the investigation of the conduct of my right hon. Friend the Member for North Somerset (Dr Fox) in respect of Adam Werritty, and suggested that there needed to be a willingness to engage the adviser earlier in the process of investigating potential breaches of the ministerial code. In that case, the Cabinet Secretary conducted the investigation instead of the adviser. Why? We were told that the adviser would have taken too long. However, PASC has established that Sir Philip’s successor, Sir Alex Allan, will conduct swift preliminary inquiries if asked to do so, so that he can play his proper role. The problem of public perception was all the more acute in the case of the Secretary of State for Culture, Olympics, Media and Sport and the conduct of his special adviser, Adam Smith.

The problem with the present system is that as soon as the question of a serious potential breach of the code and a possible referral to the Prime Minister’s adviser arises, the Prime Minister is damned if he does, and damned if he does not. Referral is seen either as condemnation of the Minister’s conduct or as an attempt to protect the Minister from a full investigation. The same damage is done to the reputation of the Minister in question who, if innocent, would doubtless prefer the clean bill of health given by an independent investigation. In the more recent case, we finished up with one of the most unpleasant and acrimonious debates in the House of Commons that I have ever witnessed. The office of the independent adviser was set up to improve public confidence in the conduct of Government, but that episode does not vindicate it as a success.

Changing the procedure would avoid all that. It would make the adviser more genuinely independent, and it would help to remove the public suspicion that ministerial conduct can be protected from proper investigation. Short preliminary investigations, unimpeded by political considerations, would speed up the whole process.

[Alun Cairns (Vale of Glamorgan) (Con)]

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for his chairing of the Committee and for the contribution that he is making today. I strongly support what he is saying. Can he offer the House any guidance on how we can best protect against potential witch hunts by those in the media who simply want to make life difficult for a Minister and get an investigation under way?

[Mr Jenkin]

I submit that that would be a question of the robustness of the adviser. The process would operate in a similar way to that of the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards, in that if the adviser felt that there was a serious case to answer, he would pursue it. If he thought that it was based on hearsay or tittle-tattle, he would dismiss it. Obviously, the moment at which he announced an investigation would be a threshold moment, but we have experience of that with the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards, who operates in that manner.

[Kelvin Hopkins (Luton North) (Lab)]

I support what the hon. Gentleman is saying. In response to the hon. Member for Vale of Glamorgan (Alun Cairns), I think that media witch hunts would be less likely if the new arrangements were to be adopted, because the media would be less suspicious that anything untoward was happening.

[Mr Jenkin]

The hon. Gentleman also serves on the Committee, and I am grateful to him for his participation. He makes his point extremely well. Witch hunts start when there is a suspicion that the Prime Minister is seeking to protect a Minister from an investigation. That is when the media—and, indeed, Her Majesty’s official Opposition—tend to jump on the bandwagon.

[Andrew Miller (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab)]

I want to express my full support for the motion and for the Committee’s report. There are certain questions that many people will ask, and they need to be put on public record. To whom should the independent adviser be directly accountable, and who should appoint him if we are to ensure the maximum degree of genuine independence?

[Mr Jenkin]

The hon. Gentleman raises a salient point. The manner of the adviser’s appointment was mentioned in the report, although I am not going to address it directly today. In 2003, before the post was established, the Committee on Standards in Public Life originally recommended that the appointment should be made through the public appointments process and overseen by the Commissioner for Public Appointments. That has not happened. It did not happen with the appointment of Sir Alex Allan, and we have been highly critical of that fact. We believe that there should be an open public appointments process for this role, as there is for any other significant public appointment.

[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

My hon. Friend seems to be making an unanswerable case. Will he explain to the House the present position if a Minister chooses to refer him or herself to the independent adviser? Would that position change if his proposals were adopted?

[Mr Jenkin]

I imagine that any Minister who pressed the Prime Minister for referral should be granted one; however, it might be granted or it might not be—it is a matter for the Prime Minister. That is that. I do not know what a Minister who wanted to be referred would do if the Prime Minister refused that; I think he would just have to lump it.

[Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)]

It is a privilege to serve under my hon. Friend’s chairmanship on the Public Administration Select Committee. Will he confirm that, although the report recommends that the Prime Minister’s adviser should be independent in making the decision, he will nevertheless operate under a clear set of guidelines to help him make that decision?

[Mr Jenkin]

I think the guidelines are the ministerial code, and it should be for the adviser to determine his own process, but it is perfectly reasonable for the Government and the Prime Minister to insist that the adviser has a quick process to establish prima facie cases and decide whether they are worthy of further investigation rather than go into the full process straight away. I can understand the Prime Minister being reluctant to refer cases to Sir Philip Mawer, who had established a very long, tortuous and indisputably fair process, but not one that could be quick under the pressure of political events as required.

[Mr William Cash (Stone) (Con)]

Has my hon. Friend given any thought to his own Committee’s involvement in pre-appointment scrutiny in the light of the comments and thoughts of the Liaison Committee on such questions?

[Mr Jenkin]

We held a hearing with the new adviser on Minister’s interests, but we were anxious—at least, I was anxious—to make it clear that it was not a pre-appointment hearing. Personally, I have absolutely no doubt of Sir Alex Allan’s bona fides and integrity. Unfortunately, we expressed the view that the manner of his appointment undermined the idea that he is actually an independent adviser, although he is certainly an adviser. He has a day job, too, in that he advises Ministers on their respective private interests and potential conflicts of interests, and ensures that there is a register of Ministers’ interests. That is his main job, and I have no doubt that he does it extremely efficiently. As I say, however, the manner of his appointment does not lead the public to believe that he is truly independent.

[Mr Gareth Thomas (Harrow West) (Lab/Co-op)]

Does the hon. Gentleman have any plans to persuade his Committee to do further work in this area, perhaps in line with Sir Philip Mawer’s suggestions for trying to establish ground rules for assessing whether Ministers should be suspended as and when an investigation is taking place—a suggestion made in answer to an earlier question from the hon. Member for Vale of Glamorgan (Alun Cairns)?

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Jenkin]

We are certainly minded to conduct a further inquiry into the ministerial code at some stage. At the moment, we are waiting for the Government to respond to our latest report on the Prime Minister’s adviser.

To reiterate, the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards has the power to instigate his own investigations. Who would suggest now that he should not? His office would command little public support and therefore provide little protection for the reputation of this House and its Members. Other systems in countries such as Canada allow political ethics regulators to instigate their own inquiries into ministerial conduct. How can the Prime Minister—any Prime Minister—be objective or, perhaps more importantly, be seen to be objective when he has to make judgments about close colleagues that could have far-reaching political consequences? I appreciate the fact that Government insiders, including my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister, see this as a potentially huge change, but those who are outside government and not imbued by being in government see this as a very obvious change to make.

Today, on the last day of term, not many colleagues are here, but I nevertheless intend to press this matter to a vote. I challenge Ministers not to resist, and I challenge Labour Members, too, to show how they now embrace what they resisted when they were in office. I have no doubt where public sentiment lies, so let us not delay any longer to bring about what should have been implemented years ago, for this issue will return again and again. PASC will return to it, too, until this recommendation is accepted.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Gareth Thomas (Harrow West) (Lab/Co-op)]

This has been a brief but interesting debate. I commend the work of the Public Administration Committee, chaired by the hon. Member for Harwich and North Essex (Mr Jenkin). He has rightly received praise for the tenacious way in which he and his Committee have pursued these issues. I hope he will forgive me if I praise my hon. Friend the Member for Newport West (Paul Flynn), too, for he has also pursued these issues with considerable vigour and tenacity.

I studied the contributions of all Select Committee members. I carefully read the questions they put to Sir Philip Mawer and Sir Alex Allan, and noted in particular the contributions of my hon. Friend the Member for Luton North (Kelvin Hopkins), who is also a consistent campaigner on these issues, my hon. Friend the Member for Glenrothes (Lindsay Roy), and the hon. Member for Leeds North West (Greg Mulholland). They all made good contributions to this debate, too.

This debate would not have the resonance it currently has outside the House if it were not for the Prime Minister’s mishandling of key questions about possible violations of the ministerial code—a point that was implicit in the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Glenrothes.

The Opposition remain determined to take the steps necessary to continue the process of restoring trust in the political process. When we were in government, we took steps to reform Parliament, passing new laws to protect our democracy. We acted to increase transparency and strengthen public accountability for Members of the House of Commons. On ministerial accountability, we also introduced further reforms. The then Prime Minister, my right hon. Friend the Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown), introduced the publication of an annual report and a list of Ministers’ interests, again to increase transparency and Ministers’ accountability to this House. He also appointed Sir Philip Mawer as the independent adviser on Ministers’ interests, calling on him, as a number of Members have mentioned, to investigate the then Member for Dewsbury in May 2009, against whom a particular allegation—it was unfounded, as it turned out—had been made. Sir Philip investigated and the Minister was cleared and returned to his ministerial duties.

I have a number of questions for the Minister and, if I may, the Chairman of the Public Administration Committee, but the context of our debate is worth touching on. It is the Prime Minister’s refusal, using the Leveson inquiry as his reason, to ask Sir Philip’s successor, Sir Alex Allan, to investigate the conduct of the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, and the Prime Minister’s failure to call in the independent adviser in the case of the right hon. Member for North Somerset (Dr Fox), that form the backdrop to our debate. The fact that so many Members wanted this debate is in no small part due to the Prime Minister’s refusal to use consistently a system which the last Prime Minister established and used, but which the current Prime Minister now appears unwilling to use—except when he is sure of the outcome.

In short, the motion before the House today is the direct result of the belief of too many Members, on both sides of the House, that the Prime Minister has mishandled his responsibility for the ministerial code.

[Mr Jenkin]

I resent the hon. Gentleman making that implication, because I do not think that it does reflect why all the signatures are on the motion. What it does reflect, however, is the fact that the previous Labour Government did not accept this recommendation from the predecessor Committee. It is incumbent on him to explain whether the Labour party has now changed its mind and will support this motion, or whether he is just going to use this opportunity to make political points in this debate.

[Mr Thomas]

I will come to the position that Opposition Front Benchers are taking, but the Chairman of the Public Administration Committee is wrong not to recognise the considerable concern on the Opposition Benches—and the Government Benches—at the Prime Minister’s decision not to refer the case of the right hon. Member for North Somerset to the independent adviser, which I understand prompted the Committee’s original inquiry into this issue in this Parliament. The Prime Minister’s more recent decision to refer the case of the noble Baroness Warsi and not that of the Culture Secretary has galvanised interest in the Committee’s work in this area.

The shadow Leader of the House, my hon. Friend the Member for Wallasey (Ms Eagle), set out in her speech on 13 June some detailed concerns, which I do not intend to dwell on now, about the Prime Minister’s failure to uphold the code and to ensure that an appropriate investigation took place.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Jenkin]

I am extremely grateful for the opportunity to reply to this debate, Mr Deputy Speaker. It is custom and practice in this place to say what an interesting debate we have had, but we really have had an interesting exchange on this occasion. I am very grateful for, and indeed touched by, the warm remarks of members of the Public Administration Committee who have made comments about how much they enjoy working on that Committee—that goes for me, too. I very much appreciate their participation and support for our activity.

Many of those hon. Members spoke in this debate, but by far the most interesting contribution was made by my hon. Friend the Member for Rochester and Strood (Mark Reckless), who raised a number of interesting things about the ministerial code. We are not debating its content; we are debating how the code should be enforced. He should somehow take part in our inquiry into the ministerial code, when we get to it, because he has a lot of important and interesting contributions to make, but I submit to him that the code should be owned by Parliament and controlled by Parliament in order that it can become a mechanism that can be used by Parliament to hold Ministers to account.

Let us remember that the code was secret until quite recently. It was published only recently and it was only very recently that it started being referred to in statute. The point has been made that a change has been smuggled in whereby Ministers have to obey international law even if there is no statute that requires them to obey that law. That is an extraordinary constitutional innovation and it is one of the things that we would want to look at.

I want to complete my remarks by referring to the two Front Benchers. They are both erudite and intelligent people who have done their best to avoid addressing the crunch issue. I understand why the Government are reluctant to make the change, but I am prepared to press this to a vote because otherwise we will be back again having exactly the same debate as we always do. I put it to the Opposition spokesman: if we finish up with another debate moved by the Opposition on why somebody has not been referred—