Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee

Chloe Smith Excerpts

Thursday 25th January 2018 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Chloe Smith)]

I join others in welcoming you back to your place, Mr Deputy Speaker, and I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Harwich and North Essex (Mr Jenkin) for his work in bringing these affairs to the House’s attention today. If Members present have not already taken a look at the Government response to the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee report, I encourage them to do so. We clearly state that the Government are committed to maintaining the highest standards of conduct for Ministers and civil servants, including special advisers, and we believe that the rules and procedures in place are proportionate and adequate. We look forward to working with the Committee to do more, however, and I put on the record my willingness to work with its Chair to do so.

[Mr Jenkin]

I welcome my hon. Friend back to the Front Bench in her new position at the Cabinet Office, to which she brings considerable experience, including of this issue. However, I have to express my disappointment at the Government’s response. Some minor amendments were accepted, but it regards the system as the highest example of regulation and openness when it simply does not deliver the public confidence that we want. I appreciate that this is a vexed issue and that we do not want to deter people from coming into the public service for fear of being treated unfairly on the way out, but the present arrangements are inadequate. The response even refused to put more explicitly into the ministerial code words such as

“You must… take decisions in the public interest alone”

and

“You must… never allow yourself to be influenced in contracting, procurement, regulation or the provision of policy advice, by your career expectations or prospects if you leave the public service”

and

“You must not… take up any post outside the public service in businesses or [commercial] organisations operating in areas where you have been directly responsible”.

I do not understand why those things cannot be put explicitly in the ministerial code so that they are talked about and understood, which would begin to change the attitudes that unfortunately pervade many of the Ministers, special advisers and civil servants in Whitehall.