Asked by: Chris Bryant (Labour - Rhondda)
Question to the Leader of the House:
To ask the Leader of the House, with reference to her oral contributions of 12 December 2022, Official Report column 823, and 30 March 2023, Official Report column 1168, when she plans that the the ministerial registration of interests, hospitality, gifts and so forth will be put on the same footing as Parliament’s.
Answered by Penny Mordaunt - Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons
In July 2023, the Cabinet Office published its response to three reports on strengthening ethics and integrity in central government. This states: “The Government will be implementing comprehensive reforms to improve the quality and accessibility of departments' transparency returns, which cover meetings, gifts, hospitality and travel.”
“The Cabinet Office is developing a single platform to collate and publish departments' transparency returns. This will provide a single public source of transparency data, replacing the system of separate publications. Following the deployment and adoption of an integrated database, the Government will look to move departments' transparency publications from a quarterly to a monthly basis.” The full response is available here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/strengthening-ethics-and-integrity-in-central-government
My office is already collating monthly returns and we are working with the Cabinet Office in order to publish these ahead of the new system being rolled out across Government.
Separately, and in line with the Ministerial Code, the List of Ministers’ Interests is published twice yearly with updates issued at other times as needed.