Ministerial Code (Culture Secretary)

Greg Mulholland Excerpts

Wednesday 13th June 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Foster]

If the hon. Gentleman will allow me to elaborate, I shall answer that very question.

Nevertheless, as I said a few seconds ago, I believe, and the Deputy Prime Minister believes, that there are questions, in particular about the ministerial code, that deserve thorough, independent investigation. We believe, as does the Chairman of the Public Administration Committee, that there is an urgent need to review the current procedure. It is probably inappropriate for the Prime Minister alone to be the sole judge of whether an independent investigation should take place. We believe it ought to be possible either for the special adviser to make the decision himself, or for it to be made on the advice of a senior civil servant or the Public Administration Committee. However, this decision was taken under the current rules by the Prime Minister against the advice offered by the Deputy Prime Minister and without consultation with him. It is therefore one that neither the Deputy Prime Minister nor the Liberal Democrats can endorse.

[Greg Mulholland (Leeds North West) (LD)]

Considering that the so-called independent adviser on ministerial interests was actually a wheeze set up by a previous Prime Minister, Tony Blair, to get out of a pickle, will my right hon. Friend ask the Labour Front-Bench team whether they would reform the system, which clearly is not fit for purpose?

[Mr Foster]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his intervention, and I am sure that the Opposition will have an opportunity to respond to it. We are clear, however, that reforms are necessary.

--- Later in debate ---

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

The first thing I would say to the House about this debate is that it represents a failure of government and a failure of our politics. The exchanges that have just taken place between the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) and my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, who is showing extraordinary forbearance under immense pressure, demonstrate that this is not the forum, the place or the way to resolve these issues. It should never be necessary for such a motion to be tabled.

Earlier this year, the Public Administration Committee, which I chair, again made the recommendation that would render motions such as this redundant. Our report, entitled “The Prime Minister’s adviser on Ministers’ interests: independent or not?”, was published on 17 March, before the controversy about my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State arose.

Our principal recommendation, as has already been advertised by the hon. Member for Newport West (Paul Flynn), is that the independent adviser should be empowered to instigate his own investigations. There is nothing radical about that. Our predecessor Committee made the same recommendation in the last Parliament, and I would say to my Committee colleague, the hon. Member for Newport West, that although he might be tribal, and although he might be excoriating about this Government, he is completely consistent, because he was just as excoriating about the previous Government. Our predecessor Committee, on which he served, made the same recommendation.

That is exactly how other regulators work, and it is how our own Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards operates. He would command little public confidence if he could not instigate his own investigations. The Committee on Standards in Public Life has recommended the same thing for the Prime Minister’s adviser on ministerial interests, on more than one occasion. The mystery is why these recommendations have not been implemented, and why the previous Labour Government did not accept them. The Opposition are now proposing this motion precisely because their Government refused to implement them.

[Greg Mulholland]

I am pleased to serve under my hon. Friend’s chairmanship on the Public Administration Committee. Does he agree that this would be a great opportunity for all three party leaders to commit to fulfilling our Committee’s recommendations, and to agreeing that the independent adviser—who is not currently independent—should clearly be able to instigate his own investigations? Does my hon. Friend believe that we could get such a commitment from all three party leaders today?

[Mr Jenkin]

I would very much like that. This is not a difficult recommendation for the Government to accept. No legislation is required. The Prime Minister could simply accept it and implement it.

We are still waiting for the Government’s response to our report. The previous Government declined to take up the recommendation, explaining 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”.

So the Opposition have no one but themselves to blame for the fact that they have had to table this motion today.

Why would it be desirable for the independent adviser to decide what to investigate without waiting for a referral from the Prime Minister? The expectation that that should be the case is generated by the official job title. It is hard to see how any adviser on Ministers’ interests can be deemed to be independent if he is unable to investigate prima facie breaches of the ministerial code without the permission of the Prime Minister. It is only his independence from Government that can provide the necessary assurance that Ministers, including the Prime Minister, will be held objectively and impartially to the standards of the ministerial code. If we deprive him of his independence by depriving him of his initiative, we remove the assurance that we want the public to have.

Above all, it is surely beneficial for Prime Ministers to be absolved of the invidious duty of deciding whether or not to refer potential breaches to the independent adviser. With that responsibility comes a great deal of controversy and public opprobrium. A Prime Minister is damned if he does and damned if he does not. Either he condemns his colleague by referring him, placing him under immediate pressure to resign, or he condemns himself, because it looks as though he is protecting someone from proper scrutiny. I wonder whether, if the Prime Minister had referred this matter to the independent adviser immediately, the Secretary of State would already have been investigated for any breach of the ministerial code by now, and exonerated. This situation places the Secretary of State in an invidious position.