Adviser on Ministerial Interests

Karin Smyth Excerpts

Tuesday 21st June 2022 Commons Chamber

[Angela Rayner]

This is part of the problem. We all need to have confidence that processes are being followed and that there is accountability. Nobody is above the law in this country, but the Prime Minister seems to think that he can be. It is astonishing that we are in those circumstances.

[Karin Smyth (Bristol South) (Lab)]

I thank my right hon. Friend for introducing this debate. I think the point she was making very well earlier in response to questions from Conservative Members who have been good lawyers in their previous life is that the thrust of what she is trying to do today is to suggest that we all in this place want to do better, and that we are willing to look at ways to do better. If the thrust of this motion does not meet that high standard, it is open to Conservative Members who have experience and expertise in this area to suggest other ways of doing this, perhaps by bringing forward amendments, and to work with the Opposition in that way. I think she is saying that that is something she welcomes.

[Angela Rayner]

The last time the Paymaster General was sent here to defend the indefensible, he claimed that the Prime Minister’s recent changes to the ministerial code represented

“the most substantial strengthening of the role, office and remit of independent adviser since the post was created in 2006.”—[Official Report, 16 June 2022; Vol. 716, c. 429.]

He must think I was born yesterday. Removing any reference to honesty, integrity, accountability and transparency is not strengthening standards; it is cherry-picking parts of the recommendation and watering it down before our very eyes. Within hours of the Paymaster General saying those words at the Dispatch Box, No. 10 was already refusing to repeat his commitment to that system—a system that the Prime Minister himself had put in place just weeks before.

Now the Government do not even deny the plans to abolish the role of the independent adviser entirely. Today, the Minister answered my written question about his plans to fill the post and said that the Government were “taking time” to consider the matter. Just how long does he expect us to give him? Should we expect half a year of sleaze and scandal without accountability? For more than a year, the Prime Minister used Lord Geidt as a human shield, citing his independence and integrity as the Government desperately staggered from one scandal to the next. Now the Culture Secretary takes to the airwaves to mock and belittle him. That is what they do to decent people. Conservative Members who continue to prop up this Prime Minister and keep his self-preservation society afloat would do well to note that. That is where this House must come in.

Labour’s proposal today would put this Prime Minister into special measures, where he needs to be. If he fails to appoint a new independent adviser, the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee will have the power to appoint one. We will give the Committee the proper powers to launch investigations, to send for papers, persons and records, to report on breaches and to make its judgments public. This Prime Minister has ridden roughshod over the rules. He will not show any regard to ethics, but this House can do that today. The motion before us is a limited, simple measure to address any refusal by the Prime Minister to enforce the ministerial code by allowing Parliament to step in.

Of course, we would like to go much further, which is why we backed the package of recommendations from the CSPL as the first step in our plan to clean up politics. We want to see full independence granted to the adviser to open his or her investigations—without that, it is left to the whim of the Prime Minister. As I said, the Prime Minister cherry-picked the CSPL recommendations and conveniently chose not to introduce this crucial one. While he maintains the power of veto over the independent adviser, there is an inherent risk that he will overrule his own adviser. Today, it is time to show the Prime Minister that he is not above the rules and for this House to draw a line in the sand. If the Prime Minister will not appoint an ethics adviser, we must do so. I commend this motion to the House.

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[Michael Ellis]

My friend intervenes from a sedentary position, but was she or was she not having an Indian meal in Durham? It is something of a korma, korma chameleon, one might say.

[Karin Smyth]

If we could return to the matter in hand, we are trying to establish whether the Government are swiftly moving to instigate a review, or swiftly moving to appoint. When Lord Geidt came before the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee in May 2021, he told us that his name had been “alighted on” by the Prime Minister. Can the Paymaster General tell us whether the Prime Minister will be alighting on a new name, reviewing the alighting on of a name, or reviewing an open application process? Can he give us a little bit more about that?

[Michael Ellis]

The Prime Minister intends to appoint a new ethics adviser. We will announce how that is to be done, who it is and how it works in due course, but it has to be done properly to ensure that Parliament and the public have confidence. This motion pre-empts that review process and unnecessarily seeks to hold the Government to an entirely arbitrary timetable. We firmly believe that it is better to undertake this work with proper diligence and attention than to conclude it in haste, without proper consideration of the issues raised by Lord Geidt and the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee. It is for those reasons that the Government would oppose the motion.

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[Karin Smyth (Bristol South) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Hazel Grove (Mr Wragg), the Chair of the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee, of which I am one of the so-called illustrious members and very pleased to be a part.

Only two weeks ago, I spoke in another debate about the importance of standards in political life and how important they are to my constituents. At that time, the Government were trying to move us on, and that has not worked terribly well, but the issues that we are talking about today are important and do matter to our constituents. I said then, as a member of the Committee, that not many members of the public knew about our work—the long hours of deliberation, reports and inquiries, and how we had a certain Lord Geidt coming before us shortly. I ended up by saying that because of how our constitution now works and how the Government have behaved, all roads lead back to the chap at the top of the structure. The culture emanates from there, including the non-attendance before Select Committees, the late publication of documents, and the many other examples that were outlined in that debate—so here we are again.

As well as reviewing the evidence that Lord Geidt gave to the Committee last week, it is worth reviewing his post-appointment hearing evidence taken on Thursday 13 May 2021, his name at that point having been alighted on by the Prime Minister following the resignation of his predecessor. In that session, we explored the lessons from Sir Alex Allan’s resignation and the issue of independence and advice. In response to questioning led by my colleague and friend, in this regard, the hon. Member for Thurrock (Jackie Doyle-Price)—she is in her place—who asked about recognising that we all have a view on and understand what is good and bad behaviour and what is constitutionally appropriate, Lord Geidt said:

“As I have heard other people say recently, good behaviour is a very difficult thing to legislate for. I join those who suggest that it really needs leaders—of course, the Prime Minister, Parliament and civil servants—to set the necessary example. I hope very much that the work that I do in this role, which is described as “adviser”, will be in the service of advising the office of Prime Minister in the furtherance of that behaviour, taking the Ministerial Code as its point of reference. I agree with you that rules are absolutely not sufficient to stimulate good behaviour.”

We fast-forward to earlier this year and the warnings that Lord Geidt was then moved to give, in the strongest terms he possibly could, in the introduction to his annual report. Before our session last week, on 14 June, I was not sure which Lord Geidt would be before us. Were we to get the one who appeared before us in May 2021, believing, as a chap of the system, I think it would be fair to say, that the system had worked, that his predecessor’s resignation showed that it worked, that updates to his terms of reference gave the independence that was necessary, and that leaders, crucially from the top, set the necessary example; or were we to get the one who was the author of the annual report? Following a fairly intense session of questioning on a number of different issues in the inquiry, we clearly found out just the very next day which Lord Geidt we now had.

Our post-appointment session in May 2021 focused on the issue of wallpaper. Our last session was about a number of things, including the legal advice on the breaking of international agreements. That really is quite a leap, isn’t it, in only a year? I asked particularly about the leaking of legal advice on the breaking of the Northern Ireland protocol. We know that that advice has been leaked. We know that it is a serious breach of the code. We know that this has a profound impact on the UK’s constitution and domestic politics as well as on our international standing. We know that the legal advice is disputed. We know that the doctrine of necessity is extreme. We heard again this morning from experts on international law quite how unusual the new doctrine of necessity that we now have in the protocol is.

In a series of questions, which I am going to refer to, I asked Lord Geidt about where this advice had been leaked from—essentially, whether it was from the Prime Minister or from the Attorney General. I asked him whether he had been asked to investigate that situation. I said that

“we do have a recent leak with regard to the legal advice on the Northern Ireland protocol”,

and asked him whether that constituted “a relevant example” for him to investigate. Lord Geidt said:

“It may well do. You will recall that my new powers are squeaky new and I have not either been asked to or, indeed, pressed my own interest in giving advice in that example.”

I asked Lord Geidt if the Prime Minister

“has not asked you to investigate why that legal advice was leaked”.

Lord Geidt said, “No, he had not.” I asked if the Attorney General was asked how the advice had been leaked? He asked me, “Have I asked?” I said yes, and he said, “No, I have not.” I said:

“But your new powers do allow you to ask”

the Attorney General. Lord Geidt responded:

“I think that my new powers would allow me, unrestricted, to ask questions of the entirety of Government and others.”

I said:

“You raised the issue of the leak”—

he had done that earlier—

“The leak is clearly very serious… I would suggest it breaches the ministerial code, point 2.13. Would you agree?”

Lord Geidt said:

“I have not formed any advice and I have not brought an inquiry to bear on the situation.”

I then asked if he thought it breached the ministerial code. He said:

“Again, I would want to ensure that I could consider that fully before reaching a determination. By the way, as you know, the determination is then only advice to the Prime Minister.”

I asked:

“Have you looked at reaching a determination before?”

and he said, “In this case, no.” We would seem to have been going round in circles.

Part of that emanated from some correspondence from the shadow Attorney General, my right hon. Friend the Member for Islington South and Finsbury (Emily Thornberry). She had written to Lord Geidt to ask for advice, and he said he had responded to her, but that had not been received at the time. She has now received an answer, and again we are somewhat going round in circles. Lord Geidt responded to her finally, saying: “In the event of an allegation of unauthorised disclosure of information by persons unknown, it is open to the Government to commission an internal leak investigation where the Government in the circumstances considers it is appropriate, but that would be a matter for the Government to take forward and would not, at least in the first instance, be a matter for the independent adviser.”

We are left on a circuitous route of trying to understand where a very serious leak has occurred. It is a clear breach of the ministerial code that seems to be no one’s job to investigate or move forward. That is simply one example of the very many outstanding breaches of the code now lurking behind the doors of Downing Street. Where do we now go? Ideally, we would like to return to decency in politics. This motion provides an interim solution. As I said when I intervened earlier, it is up to other hon. Members in this place to come forward with other solutions if they do not think this solution is suitable. The Government are being given a window, should they wish to take it, to do something decent.

Our Committee, as the Chair has outlined, has a long list of current inquiries and a future work programme. We are not particularly looking for extra work, and this is clearly a matter for the Government under our constitution. However, I know that Parliament takes this seriously, and Parliament can and will step up. We will find a way through this to bring decency back into our politics. Again, at the end of these very long days, our commitment is essentially to our constituents. This is being taken seriously by a number of Members of the once great Conservative party. Our commitment remains on the Opposition Benches, and we will continue to pursue bringing back good standards of government, despite what the Prime Minister wishes to happen.

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[Michael Ellis]

The answer is a very simple one: the process will be done properly. It will be done in a way that will give confidence to the system; it will be done in a way that the House, Ministers and everyone concerned will be confident in. So it is not possible to give a particular date for it. After all, it is only a matter of days since this situation came about. What is meant is clear: we are still considering this carefully, and we remain fully committed to making sure that all Ministers, including the Prime Minister, whose code it is, are held to account for maintaining high standards of behaviour and behaving in a way that upholds the highest standards of propriety, as the public rightly expect.

[Karin Smyth]

I think that what the Minister is trying to say is that what has gone wrong is either the process of appointing the last two advisers, or indeed the last two advisers—both of which seem to me to be dishonourable things to say, if I may say so—rather than the fact that both have resigned because of the behaviour, as they have admitted, of a Minister and the Prime Minister.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

Order. I do not think the hon. Lady was implying that something dishonourable had been said. If she was, I would want her to withdraw that.

[Karin Smyth]

I withdraw it.

[Michael Ellis]

I think the hon. Lady misunderstands the position, which I have made perfectly clear and will repeat. This is about getting the process henceforth right—a process that will have the confidence of this House, the Prime Minister, Ministers and everyone else. It is right to consider these things carefully and take time to reflect on them before taking a decision on how best to fulfil the Prime Minister’s commitment. It is the Prime Minister who has made a commitment to ensuring rigorous oversight and close scrutiny of ministerial interests. As I have said, we are looking at the best way to carry out this function, given some of the issues raised recently and set out in our plans. But I could not be clearer when I have given the single-word answer “yes” on the Prime Minister’s intention to appoint a new ethics adviser. We will announce how that will be done and who is to do it in due course. We will make sure it is done properly to ensure that Parliament and the public have confidence.

In the meantime, the Labour party, when its rail strike is in progress, has chosen today of all days to discuss this matter. I suppose half its Members are on the picket lines at the moment, blocking hard-working people from going about their daily business. They debate this matter for the umpteenth time and the umpteenth hour—so much so that my right hon. Friend the Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Angela Rayner) says that she sees more of me than of her friends. The feeling is mutual, although I think she has far more friends than me, except on the Government Benches, where I have a lot more friends, of course, because the Prime Minister wins elections. He does not talk about personalities; he talks about policies. On policies, this party and this Government win.