House of Commons Public Administration Select Committee The Ministerial Code: the case for independent investigation Seventh Report of Session 2005–06 HC 1457 House of Commons Public Administration Select Committee The Ministerial Code: the case for independent investigation Seventh Report of Session 2005–06 Report, together with formal minutes Ordered by The House of Commons to be printed 20 July 2006 HC 1457 Published on 6 September 2006 by authority of the House of Commons London: The Stationery Office Limited £0.00 The Public Administration Select Committee The Public Administration Select Committee is appointed by the House of Commons to examine the reports of the Parliamentary Commissioner for Administration, of the Health Service Commissioners for England, Scotland and Wales and of the Parliamentary Ombudsman for Northern Ireland, which are laid before this House, and matters in connection therewith and to consider matters relating to the quality and standards of administration provided by civil service departments, and other matters relating to the civil service. Current membership Dr Tony Wright MP (Labour, Cannock Chase) (Chairman) Mr David Burrowes MP (Conservative, Enfield Southgate) Paul Flynn MP (Labour, Newport West) David Heyes MP (Labour, Ashton under Lyne) Kelvin Hopkins MP (Labour, Luton North) Mr Ian Liddell-Grainger MP (Conservative, Bridgewater) Julie Morgan MP (Labour, Cardiff North) Mr Gordon Prentice MP (Labour, Pendle) Paul Rowen MP (Liberal Democrats, Rochdale) Grant Shapps MP (Conservative, Welwyn Hatfield) Jenny Willott MP (Liberal Democrats, Cardiff Central) The following Member was also a member of the Committee for part of this inquiry: Julia Goldsworthy MP (Liberal Democrats, Falmouth and Cambourne). Powers The Committee is one of the select committees, the powers of which are set out in House of Commons Standing Orders, principally in SO No 146. These are available on the Internet via www.parliament.uk. Publications The Reports and evidence of the Committee are published by The Stationery Office by Order of the House. All publications of the Committee (including press notices) are on the Internet at http://www.parliament.uk/pasc. Committee staff The current staff of the Committee are Eve Samson (Clerk), Clive Porro (Second Clerk), Lucinda Maer (Committee Specialist), Phil Jones (Committee Assistant), Sue Holt (Secretary) and Louise Glen (Senior Office Clerk). Contacts All correspondence should be addressed to the Clerk of the Public Administration Select Committee, Committee Office, First Floor, 7 Millbank, House of Commons, London SW1P 3JA. The telephone number for general enquiries is 020 7219 3284; the Committee’s email address is [email protected]. The Ministerial Code: the case for independent investigation 1 Contents Report Page 1 Introduction 3 2 More than a question of procedure 3 3 Previous reports 4 4 The use of inquiries 5 5 The role of the Cabinet Secretary 6 6 Creating an investigatory capacity 7 7 Fairness and proportionality 9 8 Advice on ministerial interests 11 Permanent secretaries and advice to ministers 11 The appointment of a ministerial adviser 12 Conclusions and recommendations 14 Formal Minutes 16 Reports from the Public Administration Select Committee 17 The Ministerial Code: the case for independent investigation 3 1 Introduction 1. Our predecessor Committee first considered the Ministerial Code in its report of February 2001, towards the end of the new Labour administration’s first term in Government.1 The Report made a number of recommendations which sought to improve the status and use of the Ministerial Code and give it greater coherence. The Committee on Standards in Public Life has also examined the Ministerial Code in a number of its reports. 2. The Ministerial Code is now established as the rule book on ministerial conduct. Our original report considered its main aspects in a comprehensive fashion. However, one issue still remains to be adequately addressed: investigation of alleged breaches of the Ministerial Code. The need for an adequate investigatory element to discover the facts about allegations of ministerial impropriety or misconduct was first raised in the Committee’s report of 2001. Although a series of revisions and improvements have been incorporated into the Ministerial Code over the years, often as a result of recommendations by this Committee, the means by which it is enforced has yet to be satisfactorily resolved. 3. We announced in November 2005 that we would undertake a review of ethics and standards in public life some ten years after the setting up of the Committee on Standards in Public Life (CSPL). Consideration of the Ministerial Code was to be part of this review. While we prepared to announce our inquiry, one Cabinet Minister, David Blunkett, was forced to resign over his failure to heed the Ministerial Code’s requirement that he should take advice on his business interests after leaving office. At the beginning of 2006 a second, Tessa Jowell, was also at the centre of intense media pressure about the declaration of her spouse’s interests. Even more recently the Deputy Prime Minister, John Prescott, has been the focus of attention about possible breaches of the Ministerial Code. In all these cases, as in others previously, there has been a lack of clarity about the means for establishing the facts, and who should do so. 4. On 23 March 2006 the Prime Minister announced the appointment of Sir John Bourn, the Comptroller and Auditor General, as the independent adviser on ministerial interests. However, it is not clear that this will serve to allay the continuing concerns over how the facts about serious allegations of breaches of the Ministerial Code can be established. 2 More than a question of procedure 5. During the course of World War II, cabinet ministers were given ad hoc guidance on procedures it was desirable they should follow. This was subsequently collected into one document and first issued to new ministers by the then Prime Minister, Clement Attlee, in 1945. Since then, the document has grown both in size and status. The original version of Questions of Procedure for Ministers (QPM) was 65 paragraphs long. In 1997 it had doubled in size to 135 paragraphs and in the latest edition, published on 21 July 2005, it has grown by over a quarter again, to 173 paragraphs. 1 Public Administration Select Committee, Third Report of Session 2000-01, The Ministerial Code: Improving the Rule Book, HC 235 4 The Ministerial Code: the case for independent investigation 6. The document has become equally weighty in status. When Attlee circulated his guidance he observed only that it might be “convenient” for colleagues. In 1992 the then Prime Minister, John Major, published the document for the first time, thus giving it unprecedented public profile. In 1997 QPM shed its narrowly procedural image and became a fully fledged Ministerial Code, taking its place alongside those for civil servants and special advisers. 7. This change in title underlined how the nature of regulation of ethical standards in public life had changed and developed, even since the CSPL published its first report in 1996. As Peter Riddell of The Times pointed out to us: We are now in a much more code-based system. Governments could still get round codes, like the Ministerial Code, but the fact these things are published and are public documents, your committee and the predecessor committee […], getting the code more accepted - all of these things are gains.2 3 Previous reports 8. This Committee’s predecessor and the Committee on Standards in Public (CSPL) have both, in the past, considered the functioning of the Ministerial Code and, in particular, whether it was desirable or necessary to appoint an independent figure to investigate allegations of breaches of the Ministerial Code. CSPL’s position has changed. When the Committee, then chaired by Lord Neill, first considered the matter in its sixth report in 2000, it concluded firmly that “no new office for the investigation of ministerial conduct should be established”.3 However, in a subsequent report in 2003, the Committee, by then chaired by Sir Nigel Wicks, recommended that the Cabinet Secretary and permanent secretaries should have no responsibility for giving advice to Ministers on conflicts of interest arising from the Ministerial Code. Instead, an independent office holder, the Adviser on Ministerial Interests, should advise ministers on appropriate compliance with the Ministerial Code.4 9. It also recommended that, at the beginning of each Parliament, the Prime Minister should nominate “two or three individuals of senior standing” who could be asked by him to investigate any alleged breaches of the Ministerial Code.5 The Government accepted the case for a ministerial adviser but had no wish to be constrained by the appointment of a panel of investigators.6 10. This Committee has consistently voiced its concern that Parliament lacks an effective investigatory capacity to act on its behalf where there are allegations of ministerial failure 2 Oral evidence taken before the Public Administration Select Committee on 2 February 2006, HC (2005-06) 884-i, Q 8 [Mr Peter Riddell] 3 Sixth Report of the Committee on Standards in Public Life, Reinforcing Standards: Review of the First Report of the Committee on Standards in Public Life, Cm 4557, January 2000, recommendation 12, p. 53 4 Ninth Report of the Committee on Standards in Public Life, Defining the Boundaries within the Executive: Ministers, Special Advisers