Standards in Public Life

Danny Kruger Excerpts

Tuesday 7th June 2022 Commons Chamber

[Danny Kruger (Devizes) (Con)]

The right hon. Lady has just suggested—and the hon. Member for Lewisham East (Janet Daby) made the same point—that the Prime Minister has weakened the ministerial code. Is she aware of last week’s report from the Institute for Government, which said that the code had not been weakened, that “confected” accusations had been made to that effect, and that Opposition Members should therefore correct the record? Will she do that?

[Angela Rayner]

I am glad that the hon. Member has mentioned this. I shall say more about it later. What the Prime Minister chose to do—as the Institute for Government has recognised—was cherry-pick parts of the recommendations rather than taking them in their entirety. The chair of the committee said that it was important for the recommendations to be taken as a whole and not cherry-picked, so I respectfully disagree with the hon. Member. I do not think that this strengthened the ministerial code, and I think that what the Prime Minister did constitutes a missed opportunity. What he has tried to do is get away with weakening the ministerial code so that he can say, “I have given an apology, and I think that that is the right way to go about it.”

--- Later in debate ---

[Danny Kruger (Devizes) (Con)]

I am honoured to be called so early in this debate—among my many colleagues keen to get in. [Laughter.] No, it is a great honour.

I want to start by echoing the remarks made by my hon. Friend the Member for Weston-super-Mare (John Penrose) on the importance of the motion and of the report by the committee. It is also an honour to follow the right hon. Member for Derby South (Margaret Beckett), and I pay tribute to her work, her personal integrity and her commitment to the principles of standards in public life.

Of course, I disagree with the right hon. Lady on her judgment of the changes that the Government are making to the code. They are very important changes, but I do not think they are as exciting as she suggests. Of course, the Government are not going as far as Labour would like, but the fact is, as the Minister made clear, the code is now stronger than it was before—it is stronger than ever—and the Government are following the requests of the committee.

On the crucial point about whether the ministerial adviser is able to initiate investigations, the ministerial adviser is able to initiate investigations independently of the Government in a way that he was not able to do before. It is right and appropriate that the Prime Minister gives the green light for an investigation to proceed—there may be issues, particularly around national security, where the Prime Minister has to step in—but it would be absolutely outrageous, and it would bring down the wrath of this House and of the country, if the Prime Minister abused that power. It is right that he or she has it, and independent scrutiny, which the right hon. Lady mentioned, remains at the core of the code.

I am afraid that the criticisms that are made miss the mark. The fact is that, for all the Prime Minister’s difficulties in recent weeks, the changes that are being proposed in the code would not have helped him in this episode at all. He is just as accountable as he ever was —in fact, more so.

I want to repeat the point I made to the deputy leader of the Labour party, the right hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Angela Rayner), in my intervention. The Institute for Government has made a very important intervention. It has said that the charges that are being made against these changes to the code by Opposition Members are “confected.” The Institute for Government has called on Opposition Members to correct the record when they say that the ministerial code is being weakened by these changes. I invite them to do so in the interests of honesty and of the standards in public life that they claim to uphold.



The Institute for Government has praised the changes that are being made, particularly the introduction of a range of sanctions. Indeed, the Committee on Standards in Public Life has said that the changes represent a “step forward” and an “improvement in the process”. The right hon. Member for Derby South talked about grandmother’s footsteps, but the committee she sits on has talked about a step forward, and that is perhaps what she meant. We are taking steps towards a better system. It is not a perfect system—we will never have a system so perfect that nobody needs to be good—but this is getting better.

I want to finish by talking about Labour’s suggestion or its idea of a perfect system, which is a call for a single ethics commissioner. I think this is a very dangerous proposal. There is much talk of democracy, including from the hon. Member for Argyll and Bute (Brendan O’Hara) on the SNP Front Bench, but the proposal here is to set up an unelected individual charged with this god-like power to judge the morals of Ministers. The right hon. Member for Derby South talked about Russia, and this is an echo of the political commissars who sit alongside politicians judging them on their conformity to moral standards or to ideology. This is not the British way.

Ultimately, this House is self-regulating. We are accountable to the law, we are accountable to our consciences and, ultimately, we are accountable to the people. I appreciate that Labour Members do not like the fact that they are in a minority in this House. They do not like not getting their way, particularly on a question of public morals, and I sympathise with them. They do not like the Prime Minister, and I sympathise—[Interruption]—while I disagree. The fact is that the Government this Prime Minister leads retain the support of the majority of Members of this House. [Hon. Members: “No, he doesn’t!”] The Government have the confidence of this House—that is the ultimate accountability that any Minister needs—and I am sorry that Labour Members do not like the democracy they are part of.