Ministerial Appointments: Vetting and Managing Conflicts of Interest Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Cabinet Office
Ben Bradshaw
Main Page: Ben Bradshaw (Labour - Exeter)Department Debates - View all Ben Bradshaw's debates with the Cabinet Office
Ministerial Appointments: Vetting and Managing Conflicts of Interest
Ben Bradshaw Excerpts(1 year, 3 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Urgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
Each Urgent Question requires a Government Minister to give a response on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Jeremy Quin
The full process would have been undergone, in terms of the appointment of my right hon. Friend the Member for Stratford-on-Avon to the Government as chairman of the Conservative party or his appointment to the Cabinet Office, when he was appointed by this Prime Minister. That was clearly in a period after the July commentary in the press. I do not know what was disclosed; I imagine that everything was disclosed, but that is a matter for the independent adviser to ascertain.
Mr Ben Bradshaw (Exeter) (Lab)
BBC journalists have to spend a great deal of their time defending the BBC’s impartiality and integrity from criticism from all sides in this country. How is their job made easier by the revelation that the current BBC chairman involved himself in the private financial affairs of the then Prime Minister before he was appointed to the job? That was something that, under civil service rules and BBC rules, they should both have disclosed to the independent Commissioner for Public Appointments, but apparently—according to the former commissioner Sir Peter Riddell—neither did.
Jeremy Quin
My understanding is that my right hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Boris Johnson) and the gentleman in question have both said that no financial advice was provided from one to the other. That is my understanding. I do know that the chairman of the BBC has invited the senior non-executive at the BBC to look into his disclosures to make certain that everything was done properly. That process will also be undertaken by William Shawcross as Commissioner for Public Appointments, to make certain that the process, which appeared to be an extremely robust one—indeed, it involved a grilling in front of the Select Committee, before the right hon. Member for Exeter (Mr Bradshaw) and others—was absolutely consistent with the Government’s rules on these appointments.