Reporting Ministerial Gifts and Hospitality

Debate between Ellie Reeves and Sarah Olney

Monday 14th October 2024 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson, Sarah Olney.

[Sarah Olney (Richmond Park) (LD)]

I must say that I am startled to see Conservative MPs acting as though they were defenders of standards in public life. Under the last Government, Ministers were subject to less transparency than Back-Bench MPs. We will never know the interests of some of the Ministers who served under Liz Truss, because their ministerial interests were never published. However, I say to the new Government that if Ministers do not treat the need to restore standards with the urgency that it deserves, there will be no sympathy for them from the public, either. The independent adviser on ministerial interests has made it clear that the current system produces a list of interests, not a full register. Will the Minister guarantee that we will now see a full register published, just as there is for MPs, and set out the timescale? Will the Government rectify the fact that we went months under the previous Government without a list of interests being published by retrospectively publishing those interests? Will the Government enshrine the ministerial code in law, and include in that law timescales for regularly publishing a register of interests, so that we can have confidence that it will be published? Finally, will the Government make the role of the ethics adviser truly independent by empowering the adviser to begin their investigations and publish their own reports?

[Ellie Reeves]

The hon. Member makes a number of important points. In relation to value, yes, this is about a closer alignment of the two schemes. MPs need to declare value at the moment, but value does not need to be declared under the ministerial scheme. That is the loophole that we are looking to close, and we will do so as soon as possible.