Ministerial Code

Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts

Tuesday 27th April 2021 Lords Chamber

[The Minister of State, Cabinet Office (Lord True) (Con)]

My Lords, I assert again the importance of the Ministerial Code, which, as the noble Baroness said, is the responsibility of the Prime Minister of the day. The fact is that Ministers remain in office only for as long as they retain the confidence of the Prime Minister, whose constitutional role means that the management of ministerial appointments is his and is separate from the legislature. On the general running interest that there appears to be in the refurbishment of the Prime Minister’s flat, the costs of the wider refurbishment have been personally met by the Prime Minister. As has been said, the Government have been considering the merits of whether works on parts, or all, of the Downing Street estate could be funded by a trust, and this work is ongoing.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, the Statement refers to Britain as a “robust democracy”. We have done without a written constitution because we have rested on the honour and good conduct of our Ministers and, above all, our Prime Ministers. Can the Minister name any other constitutional democracy, or any other democracy in the world, in which the Prime Minister decides on the rules of ministerial conduct and appoints his own independent adviser without checks and balances from the justiciary or his legislature? Should we not now have to move towards an explicitly constitutional democracy, or risk drifting towards a people’s democracy?

[Lord True (Con)]

My Lords, I am rather old and to me “people’s democracy” conjures up the old eastern bloc. I am interested in high-quality, high-integrity government. The Ministerial Code is the foundation of that. But I must repeat to noble Lords, as I did to the noble Baroness opposite: the constitutional reality is that the appointment of Ministers is in the hands of the Prime Minister of the day. The Government are not considering a change to that position.