Public Office (Accountability) Bill: Exclusion

Lord Young of Acton Excerpts

Thursday 26th February 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Acton (Con)]

My Lords, I declare my interest as the director of the Free Speech Union, which may well end up defending people as a result of the Public Office (Accountability) Bill, given that it creates a new speech offence. As we have heard, the offence is that of misleading the public. A public authority or public official commits an offence if, first, in their capacity as such an authority or official, they act with the intention of misleading the public or are reckless as to whether their act will do so; and, secondly, they know, or ought to know, that their act is seriously improper.

The problem is not that MPs and Peers are immune to being prosecuted for this offence but that the carve-out is not large enough. According to my reading of the Bill, MPs or Peers acting as public officials—that is, Ministers of the Crown—would be liable. This is a gold-embossed invitation to the Jolyon Maughams of this world. It will unleash a wave of politically motivated lawfare. Is that really what we want?

As the noble Lord, Lord Knight, just pointed out, the new offence of misleading the public is intended to replace the offence of misconduct in public office. Let us not forget that attempts have been made by political activists to bring private prosecutions against their opponents for committing that offence. For instance, in 2019, an outfit called the Brexit Justice Group brought a private prosecution against Boris Johnson for misconduct in public office because, according to the BJG, he had knowingly misled the electorate in the EU referendum campaign by claiming that leaving would bring a bounty of £350 million a week. It was an obviously vexatious case, but a magistrate issued three summonses against the then Prime Minister before the case was eventually thrown out in the High Court.

Should this Bill become law, we can look forward to a slew of similar cases. Rachel Reeves, for instance, might find herself in the dock for claiming that she would not raise taxes on working people, while Ed Miliband could have his collar felt for promising that household energy bills would fall by £300.

If the Bill is amended along the lines that the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, wants, would not her party’s candidate in the Gorton and Denton by-election find herself in difficulty—assuming that she becomes an MP? During her now infamous campaign video in Urdu, released a few days ago, she said that Reform UK wants to put higher taxes on people who were born abroad. That is misleading, to put it at its most charitable. The noble Baroness, Lady Jones, said there are safeguards in the Bill to prevent private prosecutions, but what is to stop members of the public bringing judicial reviews against the police for not prosecuting politicians for misleading the public?

The Free Speech Union recently defended an SNP activist and editor of a blog, “Wings Over Scotland”, who had supposedly said something transphobic on social media. A trans activist, Lynsay Watson, tried to sue Greater Manchester Police for not prosecuting him. I am happy to say that he failed, but that is not to say that others will not attempt to sue the police for not arresting lying politicians.

I do not want to see Hannah Spencer behind bars for misleading the public any more than I do the Chancellor of the Exchequer or the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero. Candidates campaign in poetry and govern in prose. If they fail to keep their promises or traffic in obvious mistruths, there is already an adequate mechanism for punishing them—the ballot box. Rather than extend the scope of the Bill to include MPs and Peers, let us limit it to make sure that Members of both Houses, in whatever capacity, are properly excluded.

I would go further and urge the Government to amend the Bill to exclude civil servants too—and not just those working in the intelligence services. As a recent piece in the Economist pointed out, making Whitehall officials liable for prosecution for misleading the public could have disastrous unintended consequences. It would mean fewer civil servants willing to take responsibility for decisions or giving ministerial advice, and more decision-making by committee to dilute liability. Rather than providing Ministers with timely, sensible advice, they will mitigate the risk of a prosecution down the line by obfuscation and delay. To quote from the Economist:

“Ministers complain that the civil service is bogged in a ‘sludge’ of slow decision-making. But officials will have an incentive to take more detailed minutes, keep more records and give risk-assessments even lengthier consideration to insure against future court challenges”.


I am reminded of the effect of the Freedom of Information Act 2000. Rather than leading to greater transparency on official decision-making, it resulted in MPs, Peers and Whitehall officials abandoning email in favour of WhatsApp, with disappearing messages switched on—less transparency rather than more.

The intentions behind the Bill are undoubtedly good. The families of those who died in the Hillsborough tragedy deserve to hear the truth from public officials, particularly those testifying to various inquiries, but it is hard to legislate for candour. To pretend that the Bill will

“once and for all end the culture of cover-ups and hiding the truth”,

as the Labour manifesto promised, is, I am afraid, just another example of misleading the public.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

I thank the noble Lord for raising the profile of our candidate in the Gorton and Denton by-election. That is very kind of him.