Seven Principles of Public Life

Ruth Cadbury Excerpts

Wednesday 7th September 2022 Westminster Hall

[Ruth Cadbury (Brentford and Isleworth) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Twigg. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Paula Barker) for securing the debate, and I thank my other colleagues for all the excellent speeches from them so far.

The seven principles of public life—selflessness, integrity, objectivity, accountability, openness, honesty and leadership—were brought in after the Nolan inquiry, following scandals in public life. They have been embedded in my brain since they were adopted. They permeated our understanding as councillors; they were the principles by which we worked and made decisions. We sign up to them when we are elected as MPs or councillors, or assume a variety of roles, but so do a large number of public servants when they are appointed or employed. They are integral to our public life. However, what happens in Parliament, and by Government, matters throughout our public life. That spreads beyond this place.

I said that it was embedded in my brain but, as a Quaker, truth and integrity is also embedded in my core. For those colleagues who go into Prayers, every day they pray that Members may never

“lead the nation wrongly through love of power, desire to please, or unworthy ideals but laying aside all private interests and prejudices keep in mind their responsibility to seek to improve the condition of”

—apologies for the language—

“all mankind”.

I believe, as others have said, that the vast majority of MPs do comply with the seven principles in all they do, and actively and willingly sign them and follow them. However, sadly, we have seen too many examples of where that has not been the case. Too often, in the last few years, that has come from the very top of Government, and from, as of yesterday, the previous Prime Minister—the right hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Boris Johnson). My constituent, Peter Oborne, identified 50 lies made by that Prime Minister in this House between the general election in 2019 and January of this year—when he stopped counting, but there have been many examples since. Honesty is one of the seven principles.

Peter Oborne said, I thought quite helpfully, that

“we…had an area of public discourse which belonged to everybody, a common ground where rival parties could coexist”.

He goes on to say:

“Political lying is a form of theft. It takes away people’s democratic rights. Voters cannot make fair judgements on the basis of falsehoods.”

That is just addressing just one of the seven principles.

Over the past three years, we have seen a bonfire of ethics and integrity. We have seen the Government try to overrule the Standards Committee; we have seen stories about Conservative MPs being threatened by Government Whips; and we have seen the very basic standards around public life degraded in front of us. The new Prime Minister stood by and supported the previous Government, who took a blowtorch to the basic ethics of public life.

I was particularly concerned to see, last week, that the Government have spent £130,000 commissioning a legal opinion on the Privileges Committee investigation into the right hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip. I am not sure why the Cabinet Office felt it was a good use of public money to get an opinion on a matter that was for this House, and this House alone.

Under that Prime Minister, we saw the Government—I would say, disgracefully—undermine the basic structures that uphold standards and integrity in politics. Not only did they try to overrule the Standards Committee, but the Prime Minister refused to sack his own Ministers when they were found to have breached the ministerial code. What is the point of having a ministerial code if it is not enforced? Conservative Ministers have even gone as far as giving the finger to those protesting outside Downing Street.

Surely the fundamental problem we have is that, over the past three years, Ministers have felt able to act with impunity. A Minister unlawfully overruled a planning decision to help a Conservative property developer and party donor he had met at a dinner. We have seen a Cabinet Minister rebuked for bullying civil servants but not sacked. We have seen crony contracts worth millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money awarded to friends and allies of Ministers without due diligence. If that had happened in local government when I was a councillor, we would have been sacked, and probably the Government inspectors would have been in and taken over from the powers of the councillors. Yet, when they were asked to provide evidence in court, they magically claimed their phones had been wiped.

We have seen more. We have seen a Government who suspend Parliament when they fear they will not succeed in what they want to do; who expel Conservative Members from the party, breaking the rules that they had passed; and who refuse to adopt their own code of conduct. Those are all symptoms of a failure to live the values of the seven principles. As my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport (Luke Pollard) said, they should not just be on a dusty shelf; all of us should live and breathe them every day. Perhaps they should be up in gold leaf around the walls of Westminster Hall, the Chamber or Members’ Lobby, so that they are always there in front of us.

This matters to people’s faith in democracy. It matters if we want people to vote and have faith that their vote matters, and have faith in what it is they are voting for this time and next time—in all elections, not just to Parliament. They must have faith in their other elected representatives. It matters to the reputation of this country. We could have a debate on every single one of the Nolan principles—but that would take up the 90 minutes that we have been allowed for this debate today.

If we are not to undermine Parliament, our democracy and the reputation of this country, we must take action. My hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) has made three serious, genuine proposals. Given his deep experience of the history of Parliament and his role in our Parliament now, we should listen and take action. As my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Wavertree said, we have to do better by being better.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mrs Wheeler]

Thank you for that insightful comment. As the hon. Member for Brentford and Isleworth mentioned councils and corruption, I suggest that she look at Sandwell Council and the process of awarding contracts as an example of a lack of transparency and process.

[Ruth Cadbury]

I am not saying that every council is perfect; I am saying that a process is used in local government. I do not know the details of the Sandwell example, but such things are the exception to the vast majority of local governments and councillors in the UK. I know how the mechanisms work from my 25 years of experience as a councillor, although some of that was before the Nolan principles came in, and I know that there is little leeway for elected councillors.

[Mrs Wheeler]

I suggest that the hon. Lady look at the Sandwell case.

As for gatherings and investigations, the Government asked the country to make extraordinary sacrifices, and as the former Prime Minister, my right hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Boris Johnson) said, he has taken personal responsibility, acknowledging people’s anger and hurt and offering a full and unreserved apology for the mistakes made, and he has left office. Any investigations that were not completed by Lord Geidt prior to his resignation will remain outstanding. Members will appreciate that the Prime Minister has just been appointed, so decisions on matters relating to the independent adviser will be taken in due course.

I will finish in order to leave time for the hon. Member for Liverpool, Wavertree. The Government continue to hold public standards in the highest importance, and places the seven principles of public life at the foundation of ethical conduct and integrity. The Prime Minister is fully committed to ensuring all Ministers are held to account to maintain high standards of behaviour, and to behaving in a way that upholds the highest standards of propriety, as the public rightly expect. As part of this commitment, we continue to carefully consider the recommendations of the Committee on Standards in Public Life and others, and we will be updating the House on this work in due course.