Independent Adviser on Ministers’ Interests

Debate between Philip Hollobone and Paul Flynn

Tuesday 8th November 2016 Westminster Hall

[Mr Philip Hollobone (in the Chair)]

We now come to an important half-hour debate on the independent adviser on Ministers’ interests. I call Mr Paul Flynn.

[Paul Flynn (Newport West) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the Independent Adviser on Ministers’ Interests.

It is a pleasure to speak under your chairmanship for, I believe, the first time, Mr Hollobone. The office of independent adviser is now 10 years old. The story is one either of Ministers all behaving as saintly paragons of perfection or of the system not working, and I fear it is the latter. Since the office was set up, it has achieved virtually nothing and I would like to point out the way things have gone.

When the office was set up, the case of Shahid Malik was referred to it. He resigned from ministerial office when there were complaints about his behaviour. He was then found to be free of blame and restored to ministerial office. Since then we have had only one case, involving Baroness Warsi. She had already confessed to a venial sin: she had gone on an official trip to India and had taken with her a relative and a work partner. She agreed that there was a perception of impropriety in that, as did the adviser on Ministers’ interests. There was a mild reprimand but no action was taken. However, that was a tiny offence compared with other cases that have passed by without being referred to the adviser.

Possibly the least defensible one was in 2011 involving the then Secretary of State for Defence, who was accused of misconduct. There were well-publicised accusations of relationships with a Mr Werritty, and an extraordinary thing happened: in this case the then chief civil servant, on the advice of the then Prime Minister, decided to investigate the matter himself. That was against the ministerial code and the civil service code—the investigation was expressly forbidden by them—but it was the Prime Minister’s decision. The then holder of the office of independent adviser, Sir Philip Mawer, gave evidence to a Select Committee and said he should have been investigating the Member concerned, who promptly resigned from his post.

This was an extraordinary situation. We know that whatever that Member did was serious, because that is what the head of the civil service said. They said that it was so serious that he should resign. However, no information was given to the public about what he had done, how serious the offence was and whether he was fit for future office. He gained absolution by resignation and the public are in the dark. That is more serious now, given that that Member has been returned to office as one of three Brexiteers. We have no idea whether he is fit for office or if his past conduct suggests he is not fit for office. The first thing one would ask anybody seeking a new job is, “Why did you leave your last job?” We do not know. This case involves the sin of omission. The then Prime Minister should certainly have referred that matter to the adviser and he did not.

There have been further cases since. One involved the right hon. Member for South West Surrey (Mr Hunt), who was accused of not being impartial in a BSkyB takeover. That case had a great deal of attention and certainly caused a considerable amount of public concern, yet it was not referred by the Prime Minister to the adviser.

The right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May)—the present Prime Minister—was alleged to have leaked ministerial correspondence on Islamic extremism in Birmingham schools. Again, that is a matter of great concern, yet the case was not referred to the adviser.

There were minor cases, too. A Minister had a meal—not a cheap one—at the Savoy, allegedly provided partly by a group that was seeking favours from his Department. Again, that is a matter of some seriousness and if it was true, it would have been a breach of the ministerial code. That Minister explained that he was there eating as a private person, not as a Minister—so his private stomach, not his ministerial stomach was digesting that day. That was accepted by the then Prime Minister and there was no investigation.

The most recent case is possibly the most telling. Two Ministers in the Cabinet Office—the right hon. Members for West Dorset (Sir Oliver Letwin) and for West Suffolk (Matt Hancock)—decided to give £3 million to Kids Company, which was run by Ms Batmanghelidjh. The brave civil servants in the Department put out a letter saying that that was a mistake and that it should not have been done. That was a courageous thing for the civil servants to do. Civil servants give their advice, and that is it, but they went public and said, “This is the wrong thing to do,” putting in peril their future careers, because they would be regarded as troublemakers. They did the right thing but the Government did not. What happened to the £3 million? It was given to Ms Batmanghelidjh at Kids Company and the company collapsed four days later.

There is a possible explanation. The charge against the Government is that Ms Batmanghelidjh was the poster girl of the big society. She attended a meeting in the Cabinet Office to launch the big society. A huge amount of political credibility was given to her company when the Prime Minister was promoting the big society—he was the first and probably the last fan, now he has left office, of that concept. Why were those two Ministers not reported to the adviser for losing £3 million of public money? The temptation is to believe that the Prime Minister was acting for party-political advantage to protect the reputation of the big society. However, the public lost £3 million.

There is no redress in this situation. Nobody holds the Prime Minister to account on this. I have raised these matters many times in the past few years, and it is said that we have a chance to raise these matters at Prime Minister’s questions, but we do not have a hope of raising them in any detail there. The Liaison Committee could raise them but they never have, because whether they do so depends on the disposition of the members of that Committee.

This reform was intended to restore confidence in public life, because we went through the great screaming nightmare of the expenses scandal and our reputation was at rock bottom. I believe that now it is even worse than that—it is subterranean. We have not improved our standing with the public. It has probably gone down and we know what happens: if politics falls into disrepute, we end up with an obscenity like Trump, or something even worse; people look for alternatives.

Let me turn to another matter of considerable interest. An application was made to serve on the Committee for Standards in Public Life by Tony Wright. One could hardly imagine a better candidate for that than the man who gave his name to the Wright reforms. He was interviewed by the Chair of the Committee and found to be a splendid candidate. A decision then had to be taken about whether Tony Wright should be on that Committee, but he was turned down by the right hon. Member for West Suffolk. Why on earth should a matter like that be a ministerial decision? That was very interesting. The decision should certainly be taken by people who are independent and outside this place. It just so happens, of course, that that Member might be seen to have had a vested interest as someone likely to be accused by the person responsible—the adviser himself. It is rather like a defendant in a court case being able to choose his own judge. The last person who should have been allowed to blackball Tony Wright was the right hon. Member for West Suffolk. That is the highly unsatisfactory situation we have now.

For all these years, the adviser has been there doing his job, getting paid a considerable salary, but with virtually nothing to do. On any basis, it is a waste of public money to continue to keep him in office. When the Select Committee on Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs had a pre-appointment hearing, we were unanimous in saying that the present holder of the office was not the right one to take on the job because he has had a lifetime of public service, saying, “Yes sir, no sir, three bags full sir” as a civil servant. Was he the right man to provide that independence of thought and decision making? As a cross-party Committee with a Conservative majority, we decided that he was not, but that recommendation was ignored and overruled by the then Prime Minister. The whole idea of reform, which was a good one—that there must be some kind of surveillance of ministerial behaviour—was a waste and a failure. We are in a position to drive the public’s knowledge of politics, but their appreciation, and their trust in this place and in politics generally is gravely damaged.

There are problems in other areas, too, including with the completely futile group, the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments, which has absolutely no power. Abuses take place through the revolving door, whereby people who leave Parliament are prepared to hawk around, and to prostitute their insider knowledge and contacts to the highest bidder. There is no way that can be stopped, as we have no mechanism for interfering with it. When people breach the few rules that do exist, there is no way of bringing them to book. We are in a position, in public life, that is extremely dangerous, and I would like the Minister to explain why the cases I have mentioned were not referred to the independent adviser. What plans do the Government have to ensure that the neglect of the office by a Prime Minister over the past five years is not allowed to continue?

In March 2010, David Cameron made a rousing speech about how he was going to clean up politics and get rid of lobbying, but he came into office and things now are worse than they were then. The Transparency of Lobbying, Non-party Campaigning and Trade Union Administration Act 2014 ignored the corporate lobbyists but made life a bit uncomfortable for charities and trade unions. He was dabbling with the minnows in the shallows while the great fat salmon swam by unhindered.

We look with some trepidation to our future and the future of politics. The great debate going on at the moment is very much along the lines of the political class having been brought into disrepute. The Government should look seriously at our own reputations, and ensure that we have mechanisms here that work and are not subject to the bias and political interests of Prime Ministers.