Public Office (Accountability) Bill (Third sitting)

Debate between Tom Morrison and Seamus Logan

Committee stage
Tuesday 2nd December 2025 Public Bill Committees

[Seamus Logan]

I welcome the Minister’s response. Having heard what she said about working with me about how we might operationalise the issue, I am prepared to withdraw the amendments. However, it is important to remember, in that conversation, that justice delayed is justice denied.

We have seen so many examples of inquiries and investigations that take years, when months would be much more appropriate. In the circumstances we are speaking about—in this case and the many others that this law will apply to—we must give chairs and leaders of inquiries and investigations some sense of what is reasonable when it comes to public authority responses.

We heard from the hon. Member for Morecambe and Lunesdale about the health service; I worked in it for 33 years. There is no good reason why it should not be able to respond in if not 30 then 90 days. Some backstop needs to be applied in relation to these responsibilities. I am happy to continue the conversation with the Minister and beg to ask leave withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 2 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Schedule 1

Application of duty of candour and assistance

[Mr Tom Morrison (Cheadle) (LD)]

I beg to move amendment 35, in schedule 1, page 25, line 23, leave out from “direction” to the end of the sub-paragraph and insert

“should be given to a public official working for an intelligence service or the head of such a service pursuant to section 2(4) and section 2(5) of the Public Office (Accountability) Act 2025 as applicable to any other public authority, but may not be given to any other public official if it would require the official to provide information relating to security or intelligence, within the meaning of section 1(9) of the Official Secrets Act 1989, and any such public official is not required to provide any such information in response to a direction given in breach of this sub-paragraph.”

See Amendment 38.

Public Office (Accountability) Bill (Fourth sitting)

Debate between Tom Morrison and Seamus Logan

Committee stage
Tuesday 2nd December 2025 Public Bill Committees

[Mr Morrison]

I thank the Minister for her comments. In the spirit of cross-party working, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

[Seamus Logan]

I beg to move amendment 24, in clause 9, page 8, line 12, leave out “may” insert “must”.

I am aware that we have debated amendment 48, although perhaps not as fully as I would have liked. In the interests of getting our business done within the time available, I decided not to intervene in that debate. However, I believe that the particular change in amendment 24 is necessary. Where amendment 48 spoke to the duty of candour, amendment 24 speaks to the code of ethics.

There are legal minds in the room that are much better informed and trained on legal definitions than my own, but amendment 24 addresses the need to replace “may” with “must” in the code of ethics, as opposed to the duty of candour. I believe this is important given my experience in the health service, where there is a responsibility on individuals to report child abuse, or where a colleague might clearly be able to see that a surgeon carrying out procedures is repeatedly doing something injurious or harmful. By replacing the word “may” with “must”, we place a responsibility on anyone to blow the whistle on those particular issues.

In my working life I have experience, as might others present, of consultants who suppressed information relating to child abuse. We certainly heard similar evidence about surgeons during our evidence session. Colleagues will be able to think of many such examples, which is why it is important that the amendment replaces “may” with “must”.

Public Office (Accountability) Bill (Second sitting)

Debate between Tom Morrison and Seamus Logan

Thursday 27th November 2025 Public Bill Committees

[Mr Morrison]

Great—thank you.

[Seamus Logan]

Q Chief Constable, I want to follow up on some of the points you made about training. First, this is groundbreaking legislation; we are seeking to achieve a massive culture change, and there will be a code of ethics and a code of conduct. Do you foresee the possibility of additional training requirements for senior and middle managers in the police?

Chief Constable Guildford: I honestly think that what is proposed here complements what we have been doing over a period of years. This is not unexpected for the police service and it is not new for senior officers, but I think your point is a fair one in so far as these are new offences, and a particular number of people will be charged with investigating them. Those people will sit within the IOPC, the Independent Office for Police Conduct, and they will also sit mainly within each of the professional standards departments of each of the 43 police forces. Some additional training will be required, but I think it will be very marginal in initial recruit training, because it very much complements what we already teach with that package.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Morrison]

Q I have a follow-up to Ian’s question. The new offence of misleading of the public would not apply

“for the purposes of journalism.”

That is the wording in the Bill. As has been so rightly pointed out, we know there has been a history of public officials who have been using the media in lead-ups to inquiries and so on. Critics, to a point of view that I might have, would say that any kind of stamping down or work on that would be an attack on freedom of speech. What would you say to that?

Nathan Sparkes: In a lot of legislation there are special exemptions for journalism, and often that is justified, but I think it is for the Government to justify that exemption when they bring forward legislation. I do not think it can be justified in this case.

Looking at that offence, there is a six-part test for it to apply. The person must have departed significantly from the expectations of their role, they must have caused harm to someone, they must have been responsible for significant or reputed dishonesty, it must be about a matter of significant concern to the public, it must be seriously improper, and they ought to know that it was seriously improper. That is an incredibly high threshold, and rightly so, but it is inconceivable that there is any legitimate journalistic activity that would satisfy the remarkably high threshold of all six tests that we would want to protect. On that basis, we do not think it is appropriate. The challenge for the Government is whether they could identify a circumstance in which any journalistic activity that would be in breach of those would be legitimate. I do not think they can; I think that is inconceivable.

[Seamus Logan]

Q Ron, it says in our brief that in 2006, you predicted the impending sub-prime/collateralised debt obligation crisis. Should I sell everything? I am only kidding.

Ron Warmington: I do think that everything is hyped, but luckily, I was in Burbank looking at a business that did that, and it was the worst business—at that point— that I had ever looked at, so it was easy to predict what would happen.