(1 day, 13 hours ago)
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Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)
I call Susan Murray, who will speak for up to 15 minutes.
Susan Murray (Mid Dunbartonshire) (LD)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered the Nolan principles.
I thank the Backbench Business Committee and the co-sponsors for bringing this important debate to the House. It is a pleasure to follow the debate on the battle of the Somme led by the hon. Member for South West Devon (Rebecca Smith). It reminds us of the sacrifices made by so many so that we can enjoy our way of life today, which we cannot take for granted, and which the Nolan principles help us to protect.
Recent polling has shown that just 9% of people trust politicians to put the interests of the nation above the interests of their own party, and recent British Election Study research found that around three quarters of people had low or no trust in MPs. Frankly, I am horrified that people might look at me in that way. For years, I operated in the community as a volunteer and activist, and later as a local councillor, and I was viewed in my community as a trustworthy source of support. Now I am proud to serve that community as the Member of Parliament. I know that most of my colleagues in this place and across public service are in it for the right reasons—to serve their constituents and communities.
More than 30 years ago, Lord Nolan set out seven simple principles that must be followed by people in public life: selflessness, integrity, objectivity, accountability, openness, honesty and leadership. The principles represent not just rules for us to follow, but an agreement and understanding between the public and those they trust to serve, represent and protect them.
We have all read about the headline-grabbing failures—partygate, when the rules our constituents followed were broken in Downing Street, or the questions over Peter Mandelson’s appointment as ambassador in Washington—but sometimes we do not know about the devastating consequences for our constituents when these principles are not followed. We do not always know how the pernicious creep of the ignoring and bending of the rules has reached into public bodies that people deal with every day: councils, the police and our schools.
In my Mid Dunbartonshire constituency and across Scotland, schools operate a software system called SEEMiS. Most hon. Members will not have heard of SEEMiS, but it is the system used by Scottish schools to keep pupil records—the formal records of a child’s education journey. Importantly, the records include notes on bullying incidents. Following a bullying incident in a school, a constituent told me about the difficulties they faced in trying to gain access to the data in their child’s record on SEEMiS. This resulted in a devastating breach of trust. After the incident badly affected the education journey of their child, they asked to access their child’s records. East Dunbartonshire council told them that the incident involving their child that they wished to view had been properly logged at the time, and that records could not be changed afterwards, but that was not the truth. My constituent was forced to go to court to access their child’s records, and only after a court ruling did the council hand them over.
This lack of transparency is deeply worrying, and the willingness of the council to spend taxpayers’ money on a court case, which it lost, shows little objectivity and poor accountability. To add to my constituent’s ordeal, they found not only that the notes were inaccurate, but that they had been altered. They did not find that out because they were told or because it was recorded in the notes; they had to access stored metadata—information that is not readily available and that requires a high level of technical expertise to access. When my constituent complained to the Information Commissioner’s Office, now the Information Commission, they were told that the actions of the school and the council did
“not meet with the obligation to be transparent”.
The ICO told the council that it should change the system so that notes cannot be backdated. The council has said that it has taken action, which I welcome, but the fact is that this happened and has had serious negative consequences for the child involved.
In focusing on the Nolan principles, I have necessarily concentrated on the accountability failures, rather than the full extent of what happened, as well as on how the case was handled by the council and the damage that that handling caused the young person. In another case, a child was the victim of a serious and very distressing incident caused by a fellow pupil. My constituent requested that safeguarding arrangements be put in place to protect their child, only for those arrangements to be removed without either my constituent or their child being consulted or informed. My constituent has spent years trying to establish who made those decisions, what assessments were carried out and what evidence justified them, but to no avail. She has often been told that past unanswered issues cannot be dealt with or has been given no answer at all. The impact on my constituent’s child and family has been enormous. This is not happening in isolation. This local authority, like others, has been subject to multiple findings that have identified failures and recurring concerns.
The Nolan principles speak of accountability, openness, honesty and leadership. That should mean answering reasonable questions honestly, explaining decisions and accepting responsibility when things go wrong. No parent should have to go to court to find out what has been written about their child. More than that, no parent should have to question whether the information they have been given is truthful. Openness, accountability and honesty should not be things that people have to fight for; they should be the foundations of our institutions. They need to be strengthened in our public bodies, and those in leadership roles should understand their responsibility. That is what it means for the Nolan principles to be at the core of public life. In these cases, they were not.
The SEEMiS case is of particular importance. It relates to the Nolan principles at every level. The council is responsible for SEEMiS software and decides how schools use it. The Scottish Government are responsible for the system that Scottish children are educated in, and Westminster is responsible for the data protection laws that govern the records. The Nolan principles can sound abstract, but these cases show why they matter, just as the lives of young people matter. When the principles were not followed, young people were let down and the community’s trust in our institutions was damaged.
Rarely do I speak about trust in politicians without mentioning the failures of the Scottish National party. As we all know, its record is far from clean. In June, the former chief executive of the SNP was jailed for embezzling more than £400,000 from his own party. A party let down on that scale should have welcomed scrutiny and made sure it could never happen again. That would help to rebuild trust and faith in politics. Instead, when MPs proposed that the Scottish Affairs Committee, on which I sit, look at the matter, the SNP’s Westminster leader, the hon. Member for Angus and Perthshire Glens (Dave Doogan), called it
“an unprecedented abuse of the House of Commons Committee system”.
What does that tell the people of Scotland about the openness, honesty and leadership of those who govern them?
I have three asks of the Government. First, every public body that holds records on people should be expected to keep a full and transparent trail of what is recorded and what was changed in those records, and when. There must be meaningful accountability when they fail to do so. Secondly, political parties should be held to the standard we expect of public bodies. Peter Murrell took more than £400,000 from his own party over 12 years, using his position to get around the party’s checks. If that can happen, the checks on how parties handle their money are not strong enough. Will the Government give the Electoral Commission stronger powers and, more importantly, the ability to issue higher fines to ensure that when questions arise, parties investigate themselves properly?
Finally, the standards system here at Westminster should set an example for every other institution to follow. The Government have strengthened the powers of the independent adviser, which is a good first step, but I would like to see the role put on a statutory basis with the power to open investigations, decide whether the ministerial code has been broken and publish what it finds. If we want to restore faith not just in politics, but in wider public life, the public need to be able to see that public bodies, MPs and political parties are held to account when they break the public’s trust.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)
With a five-minute time limit, I call Sam Rushworth.
Dr Sam Rushworth (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)
It is poignant that this debate follows a debate on the battle of the Somme. I was reflecting yesterday on remembrance and thinking about the sacrifice of my grandfather in the second world war and our great-grandfathers in the first world war, and I reflected on what they might think about politics today. I think they may be quite disappointed in the democracy that we have built, particularly in the coarsening of public discourse, the amount of times that people engage with others as their enemies, rather than their opponents, and some of the falling standards in public life.
Chris Vince
I was going to make this point to the hon. Member for Mid Dunbartonshire (Susan Murray), but she had finished her speech. My hon. Friend the Member for Bishop Auckland (Dr Rushworth) talks about the behaviour of Members of Parliament, which is really important. I visit schools quite regularly in my constituency and talk about the debates that we have in this place, and it is really important that when the debates end, we treat each other with respect and courtesy; I think the majority of Members do that in this place. Does he agree that it is disappointing when some Members of this House do not treat other Members with the same respect?
Dr Rushworth
I agree 100%.
There is a responsibility on all of us, frankly, to do better. Why? The point has already been made very well, but there is a decline in trust in politicians. I naively thought when I was elected to this place that if I just told the truth all the time, worked incredibly hard and acted with integrity, it would shine through, but it does not. I have many constituents who do not trust me and think that I am a liar, not because of anything tangible that I have done, but because they think the whole political class is not to be trusted and that the moment somebody becomes a politician, they fall into that class. That is why it is so important that we do more to uphold and strengthen standards in public life.
It is important that we address a couple of areas in particular. One is around stronger safeguards that give our constituents confidence that when we choose to put ourselves forward and become elected to this place, we genuinely have their interests at heart and are not using this place to enrich ourselves. For example, we have to get rid of second jobs. I am not talking about medics maintaining their medical licences; I am talking about people earning vast sums of money while not representing their constituents in this place. I have found that this job is equivalent to two full-time jobs. It is impossible to be a proper Member of Parliament and to do our job properly while constantly being away earning huge sums of money elsewhere. It simply cannot be done, and we need to legislate strongly against that. We also need to do more to enable our constituents to see the difference. Maybe there needs to be greater transparency. I have often wondered if we should clock in and out of the Chamber and report how many surgeries we all hold, and so on, so that people can make fair comparisons and understand who is doing the work and who is not doing the work.
Another point we need to address is our debating. Maybe we need to review “Erskine May” and what constitutes parliamentary language. I have been really disappointed at times since I was elected by the things that are deemed acceptable. For example, I thought it was disgusting when the Leader of the Opposition described Members on the Government Benches as “paedo defenders”, and we all know that we got abuse because of that. The things said in this Chamber get repeated to us by our constituents. Members on the Government Benches who are themselves survivors of child sexual abuse had that label attached to them, and it was deeply distressing to them. Frankly, the Leader of the Opposition should have done better, but that was not called out by Mr Speaker because it is apparently deemed to be parliamentary language. We need to address that.
We also need to look beyond this place. There are examples—one has been given already—of where the public simply do not have the transparency that they would expect at lower levels of government and in public bodies. I was very disappointed to see that the leadership of Durham county council changed the rules on hearing standards complaints, so that a very small committee, on which Reform always has a majority, hears an increasing number of serious complaints. Some former Reform councillors who resigned and sit as independents have described the leadership as shambolic.
The Nolan principles predominantly deal with integrity, but do we need to consider principles that address the challenges of 2026? Is it acceptable for people in public life to express racist opinions under the guise of free speech? Before Reform took control of Durham county council, I supplied it and the media with a full dossier of disgusting Facebook posts from accounts that claimed to be their candidates’ accounts and who the administrators of those accounts were. One of those people went on to become a Reform councillor, which was entirely unacceptable.
Finally—as I raised with the Leader of the House today—as we look increasingly to devolve power, there needs to be stronger accountability for regional mayors and local government, right down to parish council level. There need to be legal safeguards in place to provide protection. At the moment, town and parish councillors do not have to declare interests and are not subject to the same scrutiny as us, yet planning decisions are often made by them. I think we can do better on this issue in a number of areas.
Sir Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)
First, I apologise to the hon. Member for Mid Dunbartonshire (Susan Murray) for missing her opening remarks. I was rushing to the Chamber from another meeting.
I very much welcome a debate about the Nolan principles. To start with a point that the hon. Member for Bishop Auckland (Dr Rushworth) made at the beginning of his speech, it is indeed surprising and perplexing that we would regard nearly 100% of the colleagues in this Chamber—from whichever party—as careful, diligent and morally upstanding people. There is a tiny minority who we perhaps do not trust, but basically, although we might not be able to remember the seven principles of public life by heart, that is the way we want to live our lives. That is the example we want to demonstrate in the work we do, yet the more paraphernalia created around the enforcement of standards in the House of Commons, the worse the reputation of politicians seems to become. I think that is because we think of ourselves as legislators, and the hon. Member for Bishop Auckland fell into that trap: “We need more rules about this. We need more rules about that. We need rules to address this.”
I spent the previous Parliament on the Standards Committee, and I participated in producing the report that came out in May 2022. That report was a complete revision of the House of Commons code of conduct, and was trying to start a different conversation. One witness, who was a Chief Whip of a major political party, told us in evidence, “The seven principles are quite simple, and if you do not understand them, you should not be in public life.” On the face of it, they are very simple, but is navigating conflicts of interest as a Member of Parliament simple? We all have them; whether we are paid as an outside director or sponsored by a trade union, everybody has conflicts of interest. What about the conflicts of interest—even if they are not necessarily declarable—between our parties’ programmes and the interests of our constituents? We all have to deal with conflicts of interest.
The image we were given in one piece of evidence from the Westminster Abbey Institute was that we are trying to navigate our way across a stormy sea, with lots of conflicting pressures and priorities, and it is not always easy to decide what to do in a given set of circumstances. If any hon. Member present thinks it has been easy, they probably do not realise what they have stumbled into. Yes, we want transparency, and yes, there need to be rules, but the rules should not be the culture. If you go into the Tea Room and talk about the House of Commons code of conduct, Madam Deputy Speaker, I am sure that you find—like everyone else—that people discuss how to stay clear of the rules. That is what the conversation appears to be about; it does not tend to be about how to deal sincerely and honestly with conflicts.
The problem with the way in which the House of Commons has set up the adjudication of the code is that it tends to be a very legalistic process. Anyone who has been under the cosh of an investigation by the Commissioner for Standards finds first that they have got nobody to talk to. I have recommended that we should split the role of the commissioner, with somebody to advise and counsel Members of Parliament about conflicts of interest and the code, and somebody—preferably a former High Court judge—to adjudicate.
Of course, I have no criticism to make of the present commissioner, but we could upgrade the juridical process of adjudicating the code as we have done for appeals, which are now presided over by a High Court judge and a panel in a much more strictly judicial process. The advantage of that is a High Court judge is used to adjudicating: judging evidence and facts and coming to a conclusion.
Dr Rushworth
I genuinely think that the hon. Gentleman’s is a voice worth listening to on this. Does he not feel that the growth in rules has been a response to the scandals we have had rather than the producer of them? Is he arguing for less regulation or that we have just got the wrong rules and system in place?
Sir Bernard Jenkin
I am not arguing for abolition of the code or anything like that. I am arguing for a system that recognises that conflicts of interest inevitably arise and have to be handled. The system should create a supportive environment for Members of this House to discuss and explore the dilemmas they are confronted with, openly and frankly and without fear. That does not exist at the moment.
I also think that the margin of appreciation in interpreting the rules should be much more forgiving. The present commissioner has made it clear that that is not his method, and indeed the House of Commons resolutions do not steer him in that direction. We might think that the guidance accompanying the rules was just guidance, but the official advice from the House Service is that, because it has been approved by the House, along with the code of conduct rules, it has equal force as the law of Parliament. I do not think that is what Parliament really understood when it voted the guidance through, or each time it does so. I would like to see a more flexible and forgiving system: one where there is a more open conversation about the dilemmas we face.
Joe Powell (Kensington and Bayswater) (Lab)
I congratulate the hon. Member for Mid Dunbartonshire (Susan Murray) on securing the debate. Trust in politics is one of the big challenges of our time. It has never been particularly high, but at the moment, Britain’s trust in politics is among the lowest in western Europe. There are obviously many theories as to why that might be, but, from my experience before coming to this place of working on open government in over 70 countries, I recognise that there are ways in which we could reverse the trend. That is part of what this debate is about. My strong belief is that it is about a combination of transparency and accountability plus delivery on the issues that our constituents care about. Those two things do not need to be in tension, although some try to argue that; they can be complementary.
The big opportunity coming up for the Government is the White Paper on rewiring the state. I am personally very excited about that, because of the term “taking on unaccountable government”. I hope that there is space in that vision to articulate why open government, transparency and opportunities for public participation lead to better decisions and better government. It is about ensuring that citizens have a voice, and that the state is accountable for decisions and failures are learned from and not covered up.
I was therefore really glad that the Prime Minister committed to working with me on justice for Grenfell—a tragedy that would not have happened had the Nolan principles been followed by the leadership of the royal borough of Kensington and Chelsea. I agree with the chair of the Ethics and Integrity Commission and my hon. Friend the Member for Bishop Auckland (Dr Rushworth) that more needs to be done on local government. That is an important commitment in the Government’s anti-corruption plan.
Sir Bernard Jenkin
I share the hon. Gentleman’s horror and disgust at what the Moore-Bick inquiry has uncovered about the conduct of quite a number of bodies and people that led to the Grenfell tragedy. It was a system failure, and the question of who takes responsibility for system failures is much more important. The problem with just applying rules is that they do not necessarily address system failures, because they are about culture, attitude and behaviour. That is what we need to address and demonstrate leadership on, as we are figures in public life.
Joe Powell
I agree that culture is a huge part of this. The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea is belatedly undergoing what it calls a culture review, but I fear that it may fall into the category of reviews that may not necessarily lead to the change we want, as the hon. Gentleman mentioned earlier. Let us see what happens; I want to keep an open mind.
I also support the idea of a national oversight mechanism —I know the Cabinet Office is doing work on this. If we are going to spend time, energy and resources on inquests and inquiries, it is important that the recommendations are tracked and monitored; otherwise, it feels to me that we may defeat the point. Of course, the Hillsborough law—the Public Office (Accountability) Bill, which I hope will become an Act very soon—may be a big step forward on the duty of candour.
I want to cover two areas. First, there is a huge amount to welcome in the Representation of the People Bill, particularly on foreign money in politics and the Rycroft recommendations, and we will shortly get that Bill back from the other place. There were so many good suggestions that could not find their way into the Bill, which is why the Government were right to set up a task and finish group. I hope the ideas that come through that group will see the light of day, potentially in future legislation. I really welcome the Bill, but I do not want to lose the ideas that we could not get through this time. I really hope that when the Electoral Commission looks at spending caps during the regulated period, it will take an expansive view and think about whether we need to have wider ones, given the nature of modern campaigning, which is essentially permanent.
The second main area that I want to cover is lobbying reform. The July report from the Ethics and Integrity Commission was a really thorough and good piece of work that contained lots of recommendations about lobbying. At the moment, the public record captures only 4% of lobbyists, because it is restricted to consultant lobbyists, and information is captured in disparate databases across Government, making it hard to track and make useful. We know from Greensill and the covid contracts that modern lobbying happens in lots of different ways, not just through formal meetings.
This is not about policing who the Government meet, because they should be meeting businesses, stakeholders and so on. It is about having the right to know what voices are informing major decisions, so that the public can make a judgment on whether the requirement to consult widely has been met. An initial step would be to clean up the number of different lobbying databases that we have, and to make them easier to understand and view. The report calls for legislation, and I asked at Cabinet Office orals a few weeks ago whether the Government were open to legislation. The Minister confirmed that they were, so I hope that is something we will see.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Bishop Auckland said, it has too often taken a crisis to create the urgency to act on matters of ethics and integrity in politics. We can all name them: Greensill, the previous ambassador to the United States, the covid contracts, Owen Paterson and, of course, the multiple ongoing investigations by different bodies into Reform UK’s funding and the hon. Member for Clacton (Nigel Farage)—I have informed him that I would say this. We now have an opportunity to create a reset moment for standards in public life, and the rewiring the state White Paper is a great opportunity to do so.
Amanda Martin (Portsmouth North) (Lab)
My hon. Friend refers to the wider rewiring of the state. As we move towards further devolution, does he agree that our local councillors need to be much more accountable? At the moment, even when they are sanctioned, all they are asked to do is apologise. That gets nowhere, because they do not bother to do so.
Joe Powell
I completely agree. I am a huge supporter of devolution, but it is important that the Government’s anti-corruption plan calls for a local audit office to look at finance and at codes of conduct for local councillors and senior officers. Of course, local government is required to follow the Nolan principles, but I am not sure that we have all the systems in place to track and monitor that, so I agree with my hon. Friend.
The first opportunity is to finish the job on the Representation of the People Bill and the Public Office (Accountability) Bill, and the second is the White Paper on rewiring the state. My third and final suggestion is to have a “clean up Westminster” Bill in the next Session. It would bring together all the different elements on which we know action is needed, such as lobbying and second jobs, finishing the job on money in politics and sending a clear message to the public that open and accountable politics is central to this Government’s mission of rewiring the state in a way that delivers growth, opportunity and hope across the country.
Phil Brickell (Bolton West) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to speak in this debate on the Nolan principles; I congratulate the hon. Member for Mid Dunbartonshire (Susan Murray) on securing it.
As chair of the APPG on anti-corruption and responsible tax, let me say that it is on all of us to speak truth to power in a spirit of constructive criticism, regardless of which party is in power. I wish to focus my remarks on two topics where, collectively, it is my view that we are falling short of the Nolan principles: lobbying reform, which is long overdue, and MPs’ outside employment.
Let me say from the outset that lobbying is a vital part of public discourse in driving workable policy solutions. It ensures that differing viewpoints are heard by the Government before decisions are made, but we need to know who is being lobbied by whom so that politicians, the public and the media can accurately scrutinise the machinery of government. Regrettably, that is not the case in the United Kingdom in 2026.
In July, the Ethics and Integrity Commission published its review “Lobbying, Business Appointment Rules and Disclosure: Access to Government Decision Making”, which details 37 recommendations to modernise the regime. Doug Chalmers, the EIC’s chair, wrote in that report that the lobbying system
“fails to deliver the required level of transparency and, in doing so, falls short of meeting the Nolan Principles.”
Over the years, review after review and scandal after scandal have shown that the current system is broken. Only about 4% of all lobbying activity is required to be declared on the register of consultant lobbyists. That means that 96 out of 100 lobbying interactions simply fall outside the disclosure requirement, including in-house lobbyists, lobbyists with a turnover of below £90,000, non-VAT registered foreign businesses, the activities of special advisers, and informal comms such as WhatsApp.
Dr Scott Arthur (Edinburgh South West) (Lab)
People can mostly see who lobbies me because I often cannot resist putting their pictures on my Facebook page when I meet them. However, I do have to correct my hon. Friend. He is wrong to say that lobbying is not taken seriously in the UK, because in Scotland there is a register of lobbyists, so there are things we can learn even from inside the UK. What is in place in Scotland is not perfect, but does he agree that there is something we can learn from?
Phil Brickell
I am always willing to learn from comparative analysis of what works elsewhere, including in other jurisdictions across the United Kingdom.
The Government have it in their power to bring about a culture shift, and the time to do so is now. Not all of the EIC’s recommendations require primary legislation. There is recommendation 8, which is that the Government simply refuse to meet any organisation seeking to lobby them unless that organisation is on the lobbying register. Recommendation 10 on having one digital repository for transparency releases is a simple fix. How about recommendation 13, which is that transparency releases include informal communication channels, including the likes of WhatsApp?
If we are to address the deficiencies in our system, I urge the Government to find time to overhaul the register of consultant lobbyists so that we have a truly representative register that closes the loopholes I have mentioned, that empowers the regulator to levy significant fines for systemic offences of the registration requirement, that is properly resourced, and that documents interactions between the Government and organisations in sufficient detail that it serves as more than a mere box-ticking exercise.
Let me turn to MPs’ outside employment, colloquially known as second jobs. This Government pledged in the 2024 manifesto that they would
“task the Modernisation Committee to take forward urgent work on the restrictions that need to be put in place to prevent MPs from taking up roles that stop them serving their constituents and the country.”
In November 2024, my right hon. Friend the Member for Manchester Central (Lucy Powell) tasked the Committee on Standards to look at how
“to conduct further work into how changes to the rules on outside interests and employment might be implemented”.
The Standards Committee opened its inquiry on 8 January 2025 and took oral evidence in public through to July 2025, yet—more than a year later—no report has been published, and no recommendations have been forthcoming, and no action has been taken in Government due to this delay. Despite my writing to the Standards Committee requesting an update, I have yet to receive a substantive response.
Having advised—for the good part of more than a decade, in my old job before being elected to this place —on conflicts of interest, and on outside employment and related matters, I have been incredibly patient and so have other Members of this House. The Standards Committee has a broad remit and does good work, but after almost 24 months of waiting for a report, after my mentioning this matter previously in the House and after writing to the Standards Committee, there seems to have been no progress. I said in Westminster Hall more than four months ago that this House is moving at a glacial speed. My fear is that the glaciers will have melted by the time the report is published. The lack of progress is simply not good enough.
Sir Bernard Jenkin
May I suggest that the questions about lobbying and Members’ outside interests might have turned out to be a little bit more complicated than the Labour manifesto considered them to be? May I also suggest that the hon. Gentleman approaches the Chair of the Standards Committee? The Chair is a Member of Parliament, so he is not difficult to find. We are in the same House—there are only 650 of us. May I suggest he does that, rather than getting on his high horse and criticising the Committee because he does not know what it is doing?
Phil Brickell
As the hon. Gentleman may have heard, I have approached the Chair of the Standards Committee and I have followed the proceedings that the Standards Committee has been undertaking over the past two years. I have not named any Member in this Chamber. I have approached the Chair and I have had correspondence, so I think the hon. Member for Harwich and North Essex (Sir Bernard Jenkin) will know that I have been following these matters very closely, suffice it to say. As I said, I worked on conflicts of interest in the private sector for more than a decade, so I have sufficient expertise to be able to talk at length about this matter.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)
Order. The hon. Gentleman is being very generous with his time, but I will be starting Front-Bench speeches at 4.30 pm and we do have another Member who wants to speak.
Phil Brickell
I do not think it is complicated; I think it is pretty simple, and the Government have said repeatedly that the focus should be on delivering for constituents.
In summary, will the Minister do what she can to ensure that the report is expedited? Across the standards landscape, it pains me to see progress moving at far too slow a pace. My understanding is that the Prime Minister has yet to meet the EIC, so my final ask is: might the Minister venture to ensure that such a meeting takes place as soon as possible?
Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)
On a four-minute time limit, I call Adam Thompson.
Adam Thompson (Erewash) (Lab)
I will be as brief as possible. I thank the hon. Member for Mid Dunbartonshire (Susan Murray) for bringing the debate forward—we are all very grateful.
Despite what the media might have us think sometimes, I think people in my constituency are not actually that interested in the to-ing and fro-ing of us here in Westminster. Instead, what they want to see is honesty and accountability in their politicians and their Government. They want some breathing space from the pressures of the cost of the living crisis, and they expect that those elected to serve them are focused on the issues that matter to them most. When I speak to people across Erewash, they rarely ask about the sparring that has happened that week in Prime Minister’s questions. What they actually want to ask me about is whether they can get a GP appointment, if their train will turn up on time, or how they will make ends meet at the end of the month.
People need to know that politics is working for them. When confidence in politics falls, so does our ability to tackle the challenges facing the country and improve people’s lives. That is why the Nolan principles matter. They are about restoring trust at a time when many people have lost faith that politics can deliver for them. Rebuilding that confidence requires those in public life to uphold the highest standards of honesty, integrity and accountability. The Nolan principles are not about party politics; they are the core of good public service, and they help to ensure that decisions are taken in the public interest. They set out the standards that British people have a right to expect from those who are elected to serve them.
In the era of social media, where misinformation can spread quickly and public confidence is easily eroded, standards of conduct are more important than ever. People hear a lot about politics, but they do not always see reasons to trust it. The rise of artificial intelligence of course has merit. However, it has created room for the rapid spread of disordered information and misinformation. With political deepfakes—often from accounts registered from abroad—seamlessly depicting Members of this House doing or saying things they have not done, it is unsurprising that people feel distrust towards politicians.
I remember the incident last year involving the hon. Member for Mid Norfolk (George Freeman)—I have notified him that I would be mentioning him today. A deepfake video was created in which the fake version of him announced his defection from the Conservative party to Reform, which, of course, the real hon. Member had not done. It was terrifying for all of us here, because of how close to reality the video was, despite it being totally fabricated. Fake news spreads six times faster than truthful content online, and 70% of people struggle to distinguish between real and fake news. Two thirds of Brits now see misinformation as the leading threat to our democracy, and with trust in politicians at an all-time low, that should concern us all. That is why it is essential that all politicians uphold the principles of openness, integrity and honesty. Where there is uncertainty in the information space, people should be able to look to public servants for clarity and not be met with falsehoods or ambiguity.
Every story of poor conduct makes it a little harder for people to believe that politics is working for them. Trust is hard to build, and easy to lose. Once it is lost, regaining it takes time. And it has been lost. Just four years ago, Liz Truss sent the currency crashing and interest rates soaring; six years ago, Boris Johnson broke his own lockdown rules to host parties in Downing Street; and this year, Reform UK has been investigated by the National Crime Agency for alleged dodgy dealings.
This morning on the Floor of the House I raised an incident with Derbyshire county council, which had placed engagement sanctions on our brilliant local democracy reporter, Eddie Bisknell. Although I understand that those sanctions are now lifted, I strongly agree with the Leader of the House’s comment that it sounded like they were running scared from basic scrutiny.
Public trust has been seriously undermined. It is up to us, as Members of Parliament and public servants, to adhere to the highest standard of professional and personal conduct. If we want the public to regain faith in politics and us, selflessness, integrity, objectivity, accountability, openness and honesty are the life foundations by which we must abide. Public trust should never be taken for granted; it must be earned and maintained. That is why the Nolan principles remain as important today as they have ever been.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)
I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.
Caroline Voaden (South Devon) (LD)
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Dunbartonshire (Susan Murray) for bringing forward this debate. It is strange to become a Member of Parliament for the first time when trust in politicians is at an all-time low. The feeling of antipathy towards MPs from much of the public bears no relation at all to most of the people I have met in this place. Colleagues across the House work extremely hard for their constituents in surgeries, casework, meetings and debates, and in the long quiet hours that nobody sees.
As with most things in life, however, there are always a few who ruin it for everyone else, those people who do not care quite so much for the niceties or traditions. I believe that we must ensure that we have the rules and regulations in place to hold those people to account and uphold the values of public service if we are to restore faith and trust in politics. I heard the view of the hon. Member for Harwich and North Essex (Sir Bernard Jenkin) that we need a system that supports Members—although I am not sure that we entirely agree on the need for a flexible system to get around the conflicts of interest that some of us face.
If politics is not clean, if politicians are not honest and accountable, and if people cannot trust those whom they send to represent them, then frankly what is the point?
Dr Danny Chambers (Winchester) (LD)
In my professional experience as a vet, if I broke the rules and lied about it, I would get struck off. There does not seem to be an equivalent standard for politicians. Surely politicians should be held to account the same as anyone in a regulated profession, whether that is medics, teachers or anyone else who must be registered and maintain a certain standard of public behaviour.
Caroline Voaden
My hon. Friend makes the good point that most other professions are regulated to a much higher degree than we are in this place. In 1995, Lord Nolan set out seven principles for public life: selflessness, integrity, objectivity, accountability, openness, honesty and leadership. They are not complicated. They are what any member of the public would expect from us, and they are written into the ministerial code, the MPs code of conduct and the civil service code. However, time and again in recent years those principles have been brushed aside.
Take partygate, which has been mentioned by many Members: while families were separated from dying relatives and people stood alone at funerals—my family included, that very week—those writing the rules were holding parties in Downing Street. That was a disgraceful failure of selflessness, and above all, a failure of leadership.
Not long ago, the leader of Reform UK received a gift of £5 million from a wealthy donor but did not declare it. The hon. Member for Clacton (Nigel Farage), not in his place, claimed that it was for his security and that no rules were broken—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)
Order. The hon. Lady will be very aware of the rules of this House and of this debate. It is not in order to criticise the conduct of another hon. Member, except on a substantive motion.
Caroline Voaden
I believed that I was merely mentioning something that we all know had happened, but whatever the outcome—
Madam Deputy Speaker
Order. I am sure the hon. Lady understands full well the parameters of this debate and the rules of this House.
Caroline Voaden
Forgive me.
Whatever the outcome of that case, there will be many people outside this place who have questions about £5 million passing quietly to a politician. Integrity means not placing ourselves under obligation to those who might seek to influence us. The public are entitled to ask what would be expected in return for a sum of money on that scale, and whether it is merely a gift.
Let us take the situation of the former ambassador to the United States of America—a man with a long history of controversy.
Sir Bernard Jenkin
On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. The hon. Lady is still alluding to the case you told her she could not discuss. I urge you to call her to order. She said she would obey the rules.
Madam Deputy Speaker
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his point of order. I am sure that the hon. Lady can remember my previous two rulings on this. I am sure that she understands that it is imperative that we all obey the rules in this House.
Caroline Voaden
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker.
It is little wonder that trust is where it is. People have rightly lost faith in a system that is meant to work for them. The issue is that our system depends almost entirely on voluntary compliance. It assumes that people who break the rules will admit it, resign and make things right, but anyone who has followed politics in recent years knows that that does not always happen. Rules built on good faith give no protection against those who act in bad faith. People are not asking for perfection; they are asking for accountability. They want to know that when someone in public life crosses a line, there will be consequences.
That is why the Liberal Democrats have a clear plan to restore standards in public life. We would put the ministerial code into law. We have called for this repeatedly, and we will keep calling for it. A code that is only guidance can be ignored, but a code that is law must be followed.
We would make the independent adviser on ministerial standards truly independent. I applaud the Labour Government under Keir Starmer for giving the adviser the power to start their own investigations, but that does not go far enough. The Prime Minister can still raise concerns that stop an investigation in its tracks, the Prime Minister still decides what follows from its findings, and the Prime Minister alone still chooses who holds this post. That is still, in part, marking one’s own homework. We would go further, with no prime ministerial power to halt an investigation, the right for the adviser to decide whether there has been a breach and to publish their findings, and an appointment confirmed by Parliament, not made by the Prime Minister alone.
We would also reform the rules on outside work. Voters send us here to work for them, not to use Parliament as a launchpad for a career in media consultancy or the boardroom. I agree with the hon. Member for Bishop Auckland (Dr Rushworth) about Members not having time when doing this job properly to be earning a fortune from media gigs or speaking arrangements. That reform should be led by the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards, not by MPs deciding what they believe is good enough for themselves.
Then there is the elephant in the room: big money in politics. Where there are huge donations, there will always be suspicion of influence. The simplest way to remove the temptation and doubt is to remove the money. We would therefore cap individual donations whatever country a donor lives in, cap party spending all year round, and put donations, spending and political advertising on a real-time, searchable public database so that people can see exactly who is paying for politics. I support the remarks made by the hon. Member for Bolton West (Phil Brickell) about lobbying and the transparency needed around it. If we take out the money, we take away the temptation and we give the public confidence that their voice counts for more than someone else’s bank balance.
These are only some of the changes we would make. Trust in politics can be rebuilt, but not through apologies or promises. It will be rebuilt when the rules are enforceable, when they apply to everyone equally, and when breaking them has consequences. That is what the public expects, and it is what this House should deliver.
Charlie Dewhirst (Bridlington and The Wolds) (Con)
I thank the Backbench Business Committee for allocating time for this debate and the hon. Member for Mid Dunbartonshire (Susan Murray) for securing it. I also thank my hon. Friend the Member for Harwich and North Essex (Sir Bernard Jenkin) for his very powerful contribution earlier in the debate.
As hon. Members have set out, the Nolan principles, introduced in 1995, are the foundation of trust in public service and the standard that all public servants should adhere to. From Members of Parliament, councillors, police and crime commissioners and mayors to civil servants and all those working in our health, education, police and court services, our mandates come from, and our salaries are paid by, the British taxpayer. No matter our party or different beliefs, we should always work in the interests of the nation first. That is what the principles of integrity, objectivity, selflessness, accountability, honestly, openness and leadership ensure.
The previous Prime Minister arrived in office promising to restore service and respect to politics. He had a plan for change. It turned out he might have meant pocket change—£12,000 for free clothing, £2,000 for designer sunglasses and £20,000 of luxury accommodation from Lord Alli, who slipped hundreds of thousands of pounds to the Labour party, then Starmer gave him a free pass to wander around Downing Street. Add in his freebies to the Taylor Swift concerts—
Madam Deputy Speaker
Order. The hon. Gentleman will be aware that the rules of the House are very clear that the conduct of another sitting Member of either House cannot be brought into question unless on a substantive motion.
Charlie Dewhirst
I apologise for that, Madam Deputy Speaker. I will continue, hopefully without catching your attention on such matters again.
It is worth saying that the former Prime Minister’s total expenses bill was more than any recent party leader and more than two-and-a-half times that of any MP in that period. That is certainly doing politics differently. If “passes for glasses” was not enough, the Government’s crony appointments got worse. The former Prime Minister disgracefully chose to appoint the twice-fired Peter Mandelson.
Dr Rushworth
I think it is important that we note that this is known about because everything was declared in the appropriate way through the system that we have in place. It is important that the public are able to distinguish between that and people taking gifts and concealing them from the public. I am not going to bring up previous scandals in the hon. Gentleman’s own party, but I think he knows that they exist.
Charlie Dewhirst
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his point. He is right that people in glass houses should not throw stones, and we do not need to end up in a tit-for-tat argument. He is right that those things were declared, but when it comes to the former ambassador, I think he will find that there were issues that were not declared, and they led to that downfall.
The former Prime Minister was, as he later admitted, well aware that Peter Mandelson had maintained his friendship with Jeffrey Epstein even after his conviction for child sex offences. The choice to appoint him was bad enough, but it was the cover-up that ended up being worse perhaps than the crime. The former Prime Minister’s assurances to this House last year that full due process was followed, despite not maintaining a record of what it was doing, not recording the Prime Minister’s decisions and despite key Government WhatsApp messages and phones mysteriously—
Phil Brickell
Each and every one of us could talk through a litany of issues or scandals that have happened in years past. What I am keen to hear from the shadow Minister is his party’s policy proposals. The Starmer Government set up the Ethics and Integrity Commission, got rid of the hereditary peers and brought into being more frequent disclosures for transparency. What is his party’s position on these matters?
Charlie Dewhirst
I am delighted that the hon. Gentleman is willing to stand up and try to defend the record around Peter Mandelson. I will come to the points he has raised in just a few moments.
As I was saying, the former Prime Minister made assurances to this House, despite Mandelson having failed his vetting. It clearly shows that the Nolan principles of integrity, objectivity, honesty and openness were no longer guiding the former Prime Minister. While this scandal ended up costing him his job, which some may argue is the Nolan principle of accountability in action, unfortunately he tried to cling on to power by throwing the jobs of his chief of staff, Cabinet Secretary, head of the Foreign Office and director of communications in No. 10 under the bus first, along with, it seems, the two remaining Nolan principles of selflessness and leadership.
Governments, like fish, rot from the head down. I will not go on to list all the examples that occurred under that leadership, but it is worth noting that a donor was appointed to the civil service and the Treasury—and I will not go into the detail of the infamous Le Chameau wellies. All of this happened under Keir Starmer’s leadership; I do not think that service and respect will be his legacy. We now have a new Prime Minister, who took over two years into this Government promising to do things differently. I had hoped to see the Nolan principles upheld better under his leadership, but I do have concerns, and I will return to those shortly.
Turning to the ways in which we can improve standards in public life, the Government’s newly introduced Ethics and Integrity Commission published its first annual letter to the Prime Minister last month. As the Government do not yet appear to have responded to that letter, I hope that the Minister will enlighten the House as to the Government’s view on a number of points.
On public service appointments, for a while there have been delays, with fewer than one in five public service recruitment campaigns completed in line with the three-month target. In its letter, the commission expresses concerns that there is risk that the lengthy delays could deter the best candidates from entering public service. It would be useful to know what the Government are doing to speed up the public appointments process. The letter also pointed out that the 2021 Committee on Standards in Public Life report, “Upholding Standards in Public Life”,
“called for all future Independent Advisers to be appointed through an enhanced version of the current process for significant public appointments”.
Again, the House awaits the Government’s opinion on that proposal.
The commission further recommended that the cross-governmental task and finish team, announced in September, looking at political finance and the way in which political parties play a vital role in our democracy, should
“engage with all major political parties so that decisions are not seen to be enacted in a partisan manner”,
to ensure that
“reforms have democratic legitimacy and are more likely to endure.”
This Government have singularly failed at such an approach in their consultation up to this point. I hope that that can be addressed.
The previous Conservative Government pledged to develop a single database to collate and publish departmental returns. The commission’s letter says that work should begin, but this Labour Government have scrapped it. The Conservatives also pledged to modernise the business appointment rules and take a risk-based approach to considering applications. Again, the commission recommends that; again, Labour has failed to deliver. Those proposals would help to promote the Nolan principles, and both were recommended to the Prime Minister by the Ethics and Integrity Commission in its annual letter.
Similarly, under the Procurement Act 2023, the previous Conservative Government introduced a form of accountability for when rules are broken in the public sector by introducing the Debarment Review Service to prevent businesses that are failing to meet standards in their current Government contracts from winning more contracts. Like many MPs, my inbox has been full of horror stories from local constituents and their families who have been unable to access their public sector pensions due to the poor service that Capita is providing. We are all aware that Capita has failed on public service pensions, and I give credit to the Minister for the work that she is doing on that. I wish her all the best, but will she provide a specific update on whether she is considering use of the debarment service for Capita?
My speech has focused heavily on the Government’s conduct, but integrity, objectivity and accountability are for all public servants across the British state. The whole country was shocked by the rape gang scandal. Though the last Prime Minister smeared those calling for a national inquiry as jumping on a far-right bandwagon, we have heard allegations that some in authority, including in the police, local councils and social services, covered up cases because of concerns about so-called community relations, thinking it was more important to do that than to protect vulnerable young children from heinous predators.
It took relentless campaigning and finally, just days before they looked set to lose the vote in Parliament, the Government U-turned and agreed to a national inquiry. Hardly a shining example of the Nolan principles. Meanwhile, in the Senedd, Labour and Plaid Cymru voted against commissioning an independent inquiry, and in Scotland, the SNP Government held out against an inquiry for even longer, finally announcing a date for one just a week ago.
There are some serious questions for the Government to answer on whether they still believe in the Nolan principles of public life. This Labour Government have seen resignations of their homelessness Minister, anti-corruption Minister, Deputy Prime Minister and Housing Secretary, and Transport Secretary, and all of that, we were told, because—
Charlie Dewhirst
Well, indeed. The hon. Gentleman mentions the former Prime Minister who was held to account and, as a result, lost his job. I think that is an example of the Nolan principles working.
The Government are under new management. Keir Starmer has been replaced by a new Prime Minister who promised to do things differently. “Differently” seems, in this case, to mean immediately appointing the right hon. Member for Sheffield Heeley (Louise Haigh) to the role of First Secretary of State, Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and Minister for the Cabinet Office, overseeing the debate on the very issue of standards in public life that we are having today. I do not believe that that is necessarily a great decision.
I look forward to the Minister’s response. I hope we will get honesty, openness and accountability in response to the points that I have raised.
The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Sally Jameson)
I welcome this Backbench Business debate on the seven principles of public life or, as they are also known, the Nolan principles. I thank the hon. Member for Mid Dunbartonshire (Susan Murray) for opening the debate and raising some important examples from her constituency, which will have been heard by many people. As she will know, councillors can be referred to the Standards Commission for Scotland, and I hope that that will be done, but her speech has highlighted some important points, particularly in respect of transparency in Holyrood.
A year ago today, my hon. Friend the Member for Brighton Kemptown and Peacehaven (Chris Ward) stood at this Dispatch Box to respond to an Adjournment debate on this very issue. Of course, the principles remain the same as they were on that evening—openness, accountability, objectivity, honesty, leadership, integrity and selflessness—but right hon. and hon. Members will be aware that we now stand on the brink of significant change on the matter of standards across the full spectrum of public life. The House knows that the principles are the foundation of standards in public life—something we all aspire to and that unites us across the Floor of this House and the other place. They sit behind the codes of conduct that are imposed for Ministers, special advisers, civil servants and others in public life, and the House knows all too well that public trust can be eroded when those standards are ignored and forgotten.
I will not seek to rehearse the arguments made by my hon. Friend last year, but I do wish to talk about the progress we have made in that time and address some of the points raised by hon. Members across the House. I am delighted to say that the Ethics and Integrity Commission, which sits at the heart of our standards system, has now been operational for 13 months. It has produced its first report into lobbying, the business appointment rules and disclosure in July. The chair of the commission has also reported to the Prime Minister as part of his annual responsibilities, setting out the state of the standards landscape across the public sector. The Prime Minister will respond to that shortly, and I am sure the House will be updated then.
The commission is currently looking into public sector codes of conduct in preparation for the commencement of the duty of candour as part of what is widely known as the Hillsborough law. We are immensely grateful to the commission for its work to drive up ethical standards in a busy year, and we look forward to seeing the progress over the years ahead.
The Public Office (Accountability) Bill, or Hillsborough law, is approaching its remaining stages in the House of Lords, having already passed in the Commons back in July. The Government are working closely with Members in the other place who are rigorously examining that legislation as we head towards Report. The Ministry of Justice is leading on this legislation, but the Cabinet Office owns the duty of candour provisions, which are significant and form a considerable part of the Bill.
Tessa Munt (Wells and Mendip Hills) (LD)
On the Hillsborough Bill, have the Government reconsidered their decision not to include more than first-tier contractors, and therefore not to include subcontractors or subcontractors of subcontractors? It is evident that we must have truth telling right the way down the system when so many services are contracted out—this has to change.
Sally Jameson
I take the hon. Member’s point and will come back to her on that. As I say, the Bill is mainly with the Ministry of Justice, but I will ensure that she gets a response. I will not take any more interventions, given the time we have left.
On the points raised by hon. Members on the independent adviser, the role advising the Prime Minister on the ministerial code has existed for 20 years. He is not an independent regulator, and the Government are not minded to change that in legislation. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton West (Phil Brickell) for his work on anti-corruption as chair of the APPG. I know that he recently met my noble Friend Baroness Twycross to discuss a number of issues, some of which he has raised today.
The Government are working with Parliament to restore a politics of service consistent with the high standards expected of public office holders. The Modernisation Committee is exploring ways to drive up standards that also address matters of culture and procedure in the House of Commons, and the Government believe that the primary job of MPs is to represent their constituents. The Government fully support the inquiry being undertaken by the Committee on Standards to consider further changes to the rules on second jobs so that there are very limited exceptions, such as for MPs who need to do a minimum number of hours to maintain existing professional qualifications. I am sure that a number of the points raised in the House about this issue will have been heard.
I take the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Bishop Auckland (Dr Rushworth) on mayoral accountability. As he knows, I am working closely on this as part of the rewiring the state delivery plan, and I hope to be able to update him and others on that very soon. I also take the points raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Kensington and Bayswater (Joe Powell) on how accountable government needs to be weaved throughout the rewiring the state programme across all tiers of Government as we progress through the devolution agenda.
The EIC published its report on 9 July, having reviewed the current arrangements relating to financial disclosures for Ministers and senior officials; transparency around lobbying, including the Government’s publication of monthly and quarterly integrity data; and the business appointment rules. I thank the commission and its chair, Douglas Chalmers, for its thorough and considered work on these important matters. The Government are carefully considering the report’s findings and will present their response to Parliament in the not-too-distant future.
Let me turn to some of the points raised by the Opposition spokesperson, the hon. Member for Bridlington and The Wolds (Charlie Dewhirst). For legal reasons, I cannot discuss debarment, but he will be aware of what the legislation says and the powers that the Government now have in relation to that. I share his concern and annoyance at the performance of Capita in the civil service pension scheme, and we continue to work night and day to ensure that that is resolved.
In relation to standards in local government, the Localism Act 2011 requires every local authority in England to adopt a code of conduct that conforms to the Nolan principles. The Government are committed to whole-system reform of the local government standards framework to make it stronger and more effective, and we will legislate on that when parliamentary time allows.
I am aware that I have not covered all the points raised in the debate, but I have prevented myself from responding to some of the ludicrous claims from the Opposition. I want to express my full support for my right hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield Heeley (Louise Haigh), who is doing an incredible job as our First Secretary of State and is a trailblazer for women in politics across the country.
Madam Deputy Speaker, as you and the rest of the House will know, this Government take standards in public life incredibly seriously. I welcome this debate and all the views expressed on the Nolan principles, which have been heard by the Government, and I look forward to further conversations as the Government report back on many of the issues raised today.
Susan Murray
I thank everyone who took part in the debate for their speeches and interventions and the Minister for her replies.
The Nolan principles are raised regularly in this House by Members, and rightly so. Although we hear concerns, as we have today, that the erosion of standards risks widening the chasm between the public and our institutions and politics, I am heartened to hear that the seven Nolan principles are valued and that their importance is acknowledged. They are as meaningful today as they were 30 years ago, forming a contract between every holder of public office and the British public. Perhaps rules should not be the culture, but they should influence and guide the culture, and the system should be fair and reasonable, based on principles and transparency.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House has considered the Nolan principles.
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