Public Office (Accountability) Bill (Third sitting)

Debate between Maria Eagle and Tessa Munt

Committee stage
Tuesday 2nd December 2025 Public Bill Committees

[Maria Eagle]

Indeed.

[Tessa Munt]

I rise to support amendment 3, proposed by the hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle. I am also a co-signatory of amendment 1, and I thank the right hon. Member for Liverpool Garston for her reference to it. I echo the comments that have been made about Primodos and many other things. We have investigations, inquiries, inquests, and independent panels—and no doubt something else will come up at some point. Will the Minister clarify that point and agree that we should have some common language to cover all those things? As has been mentioned, independent panels do come up quite often.

I seek clarity on investigations and inquiries that might be taking place already. My understanding is that the Bill will not affect them, so if someone has something that they want to raise, they will probably need to wait until the Bill has become law. That seems slightly perverse, in that there may be people who want something done within the next six months who are going to have to sit and wait. I would like some clarity on that.

Public Office (Accountability) Bill (Fourth sitting)

Debate between Maria Eagle and Tessa Munt

Committee stage
Tuesday 2nd December 2025 Public Bill Committees

[Tessa Munt]

The amendment seeks to ensure that all public authorities and organisations adopt a consistent and high-quality approach to their codes of ethical conduct by requiring the Secretary of State to introduce a standard template. This should not be prescriptive, but it should at least form a basis for every organisation and a minimum standard, in order to promote clarity, uniformity and accessibility, making absolutely sure that staff can understand it.

[Maria Eagle]

I was looking at the amendment paper this morning. It was probably mistyped, but my copy says that the Secretary of State must introduce a standard template for “ethical conduct of conduct”. Should that be “codes of conduct” or “ethical conduct”?

[Tessa Munt]

I thank the right hon. Lady for her intervention. She is absolutely right: the amendment should not say “conduct of conduct”, it should indeed say “codes of conduct”. I hope the Chair can note that, and forgive me for any confusion.

I am hoping—by misspelling everything—to promote clarity, uniformity and accessibility, making it easy for staff to understand their obligations and the processes for reporting wrongdoing. By standardising the minimum content in ethical codes, the amendment would strengthen accountability, support a culture of integrity and help to ensure that protections, such as those for whistleblowers, are applied effectively across all public authorities and organisations. I recognise that the Minister has spoken pretty strongly against doing this; none the less, I am seeking clarity. Having a minimum standard set by the Secretary of State might be helpful, but I recognise that the Minister has already had a good old go at saying no.

Public Office (Accountability) Bill (First sitting)

Debate between Maria Eagle and Tessa Munt

Committee stage
Thursday 27th November 2025 Public Bill Committees

[Tessa Munt]

Q The Bill clearly has its duty of candour and assistance. You have already made comments about focusing on the chief executive or the senior leader in any organisation. Can I check with you whether you feel that that would be sufficient to enable cultural change within organisations?

Pete Weatherby: No. The reason I have majored on command responsibilities is because that is a weakness in the Bill, but the Bill applies across the piece and to all public servants at all times, with the general duty as well as the duty of candour and assistance, which is the ancillary duty, if you like. So that is really important.

We are very keen to underline that this is an empowering Bill. In many of the cases—Hillsborough is a particularly good example—ordinary, decent police officers tried to tell the truth and were not allowed to tell the truth. This is a Bill that imposes a duty of candour across the piece. Everybody knows about it. Senior officers required junior officers to tell lies—this is the evidence they themselves gave on oath. That has to be stopped, and this Bill does that. We have tried to build in it those empowerment things, including whistleblowing—enhanced whistleblowing provisions and the like.

[Maria Eagle (Liverpool Garston) (Lab)]

Q Welcome, Mr Weatherby. I would like to ask about two things, one of which is command responsibility. With Hillsborough, within four and half months, Lord Justice Taylor’s report quite rightly pinned the main blame on South Yorkshire police’s lack of proper behaviour on the day. If you had had command responsibility, that would have included the South Yorkshire chief constable and perhaps the match commander, who we know lied live on TV about what had happened. Do you think that the Bill, without command responsibility, would have managed to deal with that big problem at Hillsborough—the cover-up and the lies that were told to defend the match commander, presumably authorised and okayed by the chief constable? Do you think that the provisions, as they are, would have prevented that cover-up?

Pete Weatherby: I do not think there is a clear yes or no answer to that, but it is not strong enough. The purpose of what we want to do with command responsibility is to stop the chief constable thinking that it is okay to put the false narrative forward. If there is a legal responsibility on the chief constable to discharge the corporate duty, he is not going to do that. I think that if the amendment is made, the answer is yes; if the Bill is left as it is, it is more complicated. If it is left, I think it will make a big difference, but it will not stop as many of the problems.

There are other examples. Going back to Manchester Arena, the chief constable of Manchester put forward false evidence to the Kerslake inquiry. Those are not my words; he subsequently described it as “a very grave error”. He did that because he did not have command responsibility, and he thought he could get away with it. The command responsibility needs to be made clear, and the provision in clause 2(5) does not go far enough—it is ineffective.

Public Office (Accountability) Bill

Debate between Maria Eagle and Tessa Munt

2nd reading
Monday 3rd November 2025 Commons Chamber

[Tessa Munt (Wells and Mendip Hills) (LD)]

rose—

[Maria Eagle (Liverpool Garston) (Lab)]

rose—