Adviser on Ministerial Interests

Debate between Jackie Doyle-Price and Alberto Costa

Tuesday 21st June 2022 Commons Chamber

[Alberto Costa (South Leicestershire) (Con)]

At the outset, I should like to remind the House that I am a member of the Committee on Standards and of the Committee of Privileges. Accordingly, I will keep my comments short and away from any specific incident or series of incidents, or any particular personalities involved or alleged to have been involved, in any particular case or cases. My comments this afternoon relate to our constitutional arrangements and why I am unable to support the Opposition’s motion.

I have long championed enhanced standards in this place. I have been instrumental in putting forward proposals to develop our standards processes, and ensure that both complainants and those complained of are given a fair, transparent hearing, with a good appellate system. But I think the comments of my right hon. and learned Friend the Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General should be carefully listened to by all Members of the House. He rightly referred to the separation of powers, an issue that I regularly raise on the Committees on which I serve. It is useful for the House to remind ourselves of what we mean by “separation of powers”. It may be trite of me to do this, but some Members have come to me stating that they do not believe that the UK has any separation of powers, so it is important to remind the House of what we mean by separation of powers.

There are, of course, three arms to the British state—three organs of the state: this place, with the House of Lords and the sovereign in Parliament, which is the legislature, whose principal role is to make law; the judiciary, which comprises the courts and tribunals across the whole of the UK, whose principal function is to enforce the law that we make; and the Executive, who are of course a creature of this legislature, but are separate from it. They are separate from it and have their own staff, whom we call civil servants. Civil servants are loyal to the Government of the day and act impartially, but they are not neutral; they are there to further the democratic and legitimate aims of the elected Government of the day.

Part of our democratic and constitutional arrangements is that the Prime Minister of this country, the Head of Government of this country, has very limited defined powers, but one of them is patronage: choosing his or her Cabinet, choosing those who serve the Government. That includes choosing those who are operationally independent of government but part of the Government. That includes a very large number of people. This place also appoints individuals who are called “operationally independent” of the House, but who are officers of the House. Given that we are having a discussion on standards, let me say that the most obvious office holder who is a creature of the House of Commons—the office is created by this body—is of course the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards. Notably, the other House of the British legislature has its own Commissioners for Standards, separate from the officer of this House.

So it is imperative that in order to consider how Members might vote on this motion, we clearly understand the delineations of the separations of power. That is why the comments made by the able Minister at the Dispatch Box were absolutely correct; it would be utterly irresponsible to pass a motion that would create confusion and create the very opposite of what we want to see, which is transparency. What would happen is that the legislature would, in effect, be given authority over another arm of the state. We would not dream of appointing a House of Commons adviser on standards to the judiciary, would we? Would we impose our standards on day-to-day operations of the judiciary? That would be absurd. In fact, it would be dangerous.

[Jackie Doyle-Price]

I share in some of what my hon. Friend is saying, but we are talking about Ministers who are both simultaneously Members of this House and members of the Government. The fact remains that Back-Bench Members of Parliament are subject to more scrutiny through the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards than we have in the current situation with Ministers responsible to the Prime Minister through the ministerial code, unless there is some transparency through a process through an ethics adviser. Will my hon. Friend comment on that?

[Alberto Costa]

I welcome my hon. Friend’s intervention because it allows me to clarify what I consider to be an error. The right hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Angela Rayner) said that we must have a system of conduct that affects each and every one of us, but we do: all members of the Government are Members of this House or of the other place, and they must abide by a code of conduct. That code of conduct is adjudicated on by the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards in this place and the commissioners for standards in the other place, as well as the respective Committees on standards.

Most importantly, I should add that, under our system, the de facto sovereign body—the supreme governing body—of our country is this place, ultimately, Ministers are accountable to all hon. Members when they are at the Dispatch Box, and so is the head of Government. Under our constitution, if the head of Government loses the confidence of this House, they lose the role. That is the ultimate conduct check that our system allows for. Any moves to change that system, whatever the intentions might be—they might be noble—ought to be properly debated and consulted on, and must be cross-party in approach. It would be highly irresponsible to force through such a motion, which seeks to fundamentally alter our British constitutional arrangements vis-à-vis the Executive.