Cabinet Secretary Report (Government Response)

Lord Young of Cookham Excerpts

Wednesday 19th October 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Leader of the House of Commons (Sir George Young)]

With permission, Mr Speaker, I would like to make a statement on the Cabinet Secretary’s report on the allegations against my right hon. Friend the Member for North Somerset (Dr Fox). In the interests of transparency, the Prime Minister published the report in full yesterday afternoon and copies were made available to Members immediately after publication. The Government have come to the House at the earliest appropriate moment following the report’s publication. It is not usual for the Government to make an oral statement following the resignation of a Minister. However, given the wider implications of the Cabinet Secretary’s report, it is right that the House has an opportunity to consider the Government’s response.

Before coming to the report, I would like first to set out to the House the changes to the regulations governing Ministers which this Government have already introduced. In May 2010, the Prime Minister published a new ministerial code and committed the Government to an unprecedented level of transparency. The Government are publishing on a quarterly basis details of all Ministers’ meetings with external organisations, including lobbyists, and including meetings with senior media executives; all hospitality received by Ministers; all gifts given and received by Ministers over £140; all Ministers’ visits overseas; contracts over £25,000; special advisers’ salaries over £58,200, and estimated pay bill; special advisers’ gifts and hospitality received; spend on Government procurement cards over £500; and senior officials’ hospitality expenses and meetings with external organisations.

The Prime Minister also significantly tightened the rules regulating former Ministers when they leave office. Former Ministers are now barred from lobbying Government for two years, as well as having to get the advice of the independent Advisory Committee on Business Appointments for any appointments or employment they wish to take up for a period of two years after leaving office, and the code makes it clear that former Ministers must abide by the advice of the Committee.

Turning now to the matter in hand, following speculation in the media my right hon. Friend the Member for North Somerset requested that the permanent secretary at the Ministry of Defence investigate the allegations. The Prime Minister then asked the Cabinet Secretary to establish the facts of the case in relation to allegations in the context of the ministerial code. The interim report prepared by the permanent secretary found that

“there are areas where the current guidance on propriety and the management of Ministerial Private Offices needs to be strengthened”.

As the ministerial code makes clear, it is the Prime Minister’s duty to enforce the ministerial code, having consulted the Cabinet Secretary. My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has therefore acted at all times in accord with the proper process.

Last week, my right hon. Friend resigned as Defence Secretary. As he said in his resignation letter to the Prime Minister:

“I mistakenly allowed the distinction between my personal interest and my government activities to become blurred”.

My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister accepted my right hon. Friend’s resignation from Government and his reasons for resigning while making it clear that he viewed him as a superb Defence Secretary, who had implemented fundamental changes that will help to ensure that our armed forces are fully equipped to meet the challenges of the modern era—and I wholeheartedly endorse that view.

The report by the Cabinet Secretary confirms that my right hon. Friend did indeed breach the ministerial code. The ministerial code requires Ministers to ensure that no conflict arises, or could reasonably be perceived to arise, between their public duties and their private interests, financial or otherwise. My right hon. Friend’s actions constituted a clear breach of the ministerial code which he has already acknowledged. However, as recognised in the Cabinet Secretary’s report:

“Dr Fox has stated to Parliament Mr Werritty had no access to classified documents and was not briefed on classified matters. There is nothing in the evidence we have taken to contradict this.”

The report also says that

“there is no evidence from this review that casts doubt on Dr Fox’s statement to Parliament that public funds were not misused”

or

“that Dr Fox gained financially in any way from this relationship”.

The permanent secretary at the Ministry of Defence has already accepted that there should have been much tighter procedures within the Department and is taking steps to strengthen them to ensure that the ministerial code is properly adhered to.

The Cabinet Secretary’s report concludes that my right hon. Friend’s close and visible association with Mr Werritty in the UK and overseas, and the latter’s use of misleading business cards, has fuelled a general impression that Mr Werritty spoke on behalf of the UK Government. The risks of my right hon. Friend’s associations with Mr Werritty were raised with him by both his private office and the permanent secretary. My right hon. Friend took action in respect of business cards, but clearly made a judgment that his contact with Mr Werritty should continue. This may have been a reasonable judgment had the contacts been minimal and purely personal and had not involved Mr Werritty’s frequent attendance at meetings in the MOD main building and on overseas visits. The damage arose because the frequency, range and extent of the contacts were not regulated as well as they should have been, and that was exacerbated by the fact that the Department was not made aware of all the various contacts.

The Cabinet Secretary also concluded that the links and a lack of clarity in the roles meant that the donations given to Mr Werritty could give rise to the perception of a conflict of interests. He went on to say that there was an inappropriate blurring of the lines between official and personal relationships. Mr Werritty should not have been provided with access to my right hon. Friend’s diary and itinerary. Nor should he have been allowed to participate in the social elements of the then Defence Secretary’s overseas trips in a way that might have given rise to the impression that he was part of the official party. He should not have had meetings in the MOD with such frequency, as that access may have provided others with a belief that Mr Werritty was speaking for Government and was part of an official entourage. That impression was, of course, reinforced by the business cards that Mr Werritty provided to people.

The Cabinet Secretary has recommended further strengthening of procedures across Government. There are five specific recommendations in his report and it is worth setting those out in full. The first is:

“Where discussions take place with external organisations which raise substantive issues relating to departmental decisions or contracts and where an official is not present Ministers should inform their department.”

The second is:

“On Ministerial visits, whether in the UK or abroad, departments should make sure there is no confusion about who is and is not a member of the Ministerial party”,

and the third states:

“Officials should accompany Ministers to all official visits and meetings overseas at which it is expected that official matters may be raised, and should seek guidance from the FCO if there is any uncertainty about the status of such meetings or the attendance of non-officials at them.”

The fourth is:

“Permanent Secretaries should discuss with Ministers at the time of their appointment and regularly thereafter whether any acquaintances or advisers have contractual relationships with the department or are involved in policy development. The Minister and the Permanent Secretary should take action as necessary to ensure there can be no actual or perceived conflict of interest in line with the principles of the Ministerial Code.”

Finally:

“Permanent Secretaries should take responsibility for ensuring departmental procedures are followed, and for raising any concerns with Ministers, advising the Cabinet Secretary and ultimately the Prime Minister where such concerns are not resolved.”

The Prime Minister has accepted those recommendations in full and the Cabinet Secretary is writing to permanent secretaries today to set out the processes that now need to be followed.

Finally, I will turn briefly to wider action that the Government already intend to take to ensure greater transparency between Ministers and external organisations. The coalition agreement committed us to regulating lobbying through introducing a statutory register of lobbyists, ensuring even greater transparency. It is worth noting from the Cabinet Secretary’s report that:

“Whilst Mr Werritty was not a lobbyist, the Government’s commitment to consult on a statutory register of lobbyists will bring further transparency to this area.”

We intend to produce a consultative document setting out our proposals next month, with an aim of legislating next year. This work is being taken forward by the Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office, my hon. Friend the Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper), and my hon. Friend the Deputy Leader of the House.

At the end of the last Parliament, public trust in Parliament was at an unprecedented low. This Government are committed to working to rebuild confidence in our political and democratic institutions and we will continue to put in place any measure necessary to ensure that the highest standards rightly expected of our elected representatives are met.

I commend this statement to the House.

[Ms Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)]

I thank the Leader of the House for his statement, but what a condemnation it was of the way in which government is being run in this country. It is a matter of deep regret that the Prime Minister has chosen not to deal with this statement himself. It is the Prime Minister and not the Leader of the House who is the guardian of the ministerial code, and who has the final say on who is fit to be in his Government. Today, he has ducked those responsibilities.

When news of the potential wrongdoing at the Ministry of Defence first surfaced, the former Secretary of State for Defence announced an inquiry into himself, but only after he had called the allegations “baseless”. As the revelations mounted daily, the Prime Minister belatedly announced this limited inquiry by the Cabinet Secretary. By then, it was apparent to everyone that the ministerial code had been breached. The Secretary of State admitted as much. Why then did the Prime Minister not refer this case to the independent adviser on Ministers’ interests, Sir Philip Mawer?

What we have today is a far cry from such a full, independent, external inquiry. The Cabinet Secretary has been forced to rely on the word of Adam Werritty and the former Defence Secretary, whose explanations have repeatedly unravelled at the first hint of scrutiny. This report merely scratches the surface of potential misconduct in government. Consequently, it raises more questions than it answers.

Even in its narrow and limited form, the Cabinet Secretary’s report is damning. It finds the former Defence Secretary’s conduct

“not appropriate and not acceptable”.

It reveals, in stark detail, multiple breaches of the ministerial code. The former Defence Secretary has knowingly circumvented the long-established rules that are in place to prevent conflicts of interest from arising. The report shows that wealthy individuals funded Adam Werritty. He was, in effect, a privately funded special adviser. The former Secretary of State’s shadow political operation routinely undermined our civil service structures and their accountability. The report fails to expose the full facts about the money trail. There is no investigation into the benefits that Adam Werritty received. There is no full disclosure of his funders and the purpose behind the donations. Given the Prime Minister’s failure to answer this question earlier today, can the Leader of the House give the House a categorical assurance that no similar practices are taking place anywhere else in this Government?

I turn now to the details of the report. We need answers on the following issues. The role of the Sri Lanka Development Trust is not considered in the report. Mr Werritty’s presence in Iran, Washington and Israel remains unexplained. We do not know whether Mr Werritty profited from his association with the former Defence Secretary, although we do know about the five-star nature of his taste in flights and hotels. We do not know what those secretive donors, who were in effect Mr Werritty’s paymasters, were promised for their money, nor indeed if they got it. We do not know whether the former Defence Secretary commissioned any work from the MOD as a result of the offline and irregular meetings brokered by Mr Werritty. We do not know which other Ministers and senior staff have met Mr Werritty, because the Prime Minister has refused to publish a full list. That is totally unacceptable. A full list must be published. In order to deal with all those issues, will the Leader of the House agree that further investigation is both essential and urgent?

Will the Leader of the House also tell the House whether he has initiated an inquiry into the use by the former Defence Secretary of his parliamentary office to run Atlantic Bridge as a charity, and whether he is satisfied that that was proper under parliamentary rules? Some of the key funders of Atlantic Bridge were the key funders of Adam Werritty. They are also the key funders of the Conservative party. The links are complex, but they are deep and well-established.

We learned yesterday of the meeting between Adam Werritty and two members of the existing Defence team. They must give the House a full explanation of the details of those meetings and their connections to Adam Werritty.

We also learned in the report that the risks of the former Defence Secretary’s association with Mr Werritty were raised with him by his private office, the permanent secretary, a former permanent secretary and a former Chief of the Defence Staff. He chose to ignore those warnings. Why was he allowed to make that choice? What did the permanent secretary at the MOD then do? Were any of those concerns raised with the Cabinet Secretary and, if so, did the Cabinet Secretary raise them with the Prime Minister? Why was this situation allowed to continue for so long? Why was the former Defence Secretary allowed to treat the ministerial code as if it was an optional extra?

The report recommends that senior civil servants have greater oversight of ministerial behaviour. Yet the fact remains that it is Ministers who are responsible for their own conduct and the Prime Minister who is the guardian of the ministerial code. He is expected to enforce it, not allow it to be broken multiple times.

Before the last election, the Prime Minister promised to end the

“cosy relationship between politics, government, business and money”.

That promise has now been broken. This scandal has only damaged public confidence in the Government further. Meetings without civil servants; money off the books; luxury social visits in between visits to our brave servicemen and women; and today, the Prime Minister’s contempt on the matter was revealed. Simply saying that the Defence Secretary has resigned is not good enough. The Government need to take responsibility for this self-inflicted crisis. The House needs answers to the unanswered questions, or people will only conclude that this Government have something to hide.

[Mr Speaker]

Order. We do not take points of order in the middle of statements, or at any time in statements, only afterwards.

[Sir George Young]

I will go through the issues that the hon. Member for Wallasey (Ms Eagle) raised. No Prime Minister has ever made a statement to the House following the resignation of a Minister. In circumstances such as these, when there has been a report on a breach of the code, there has normally been a written ministerial statement. There has never before been an oral statement in circumstances such as these, but this Government have come to the Dispatch Box at the earliest stage, having made a written ministerial statement and set out our proposals.

The hon. Lady said that the Cabinet Secretary or the Prime Minister had not followed due process. If she looks at paragraph 1.3 of the ministerial code, she will see that it states:

“If there is an allegation about a breach of the Code, and the Prime Minister, having consulted the Cabinet Secretary feels that it warrants further investigation, he will refer the matter to the independent adviser on Ministers’ interests.”

That is exactly what he has done. We have established that there has been a breach of the code, the Secretary of State has resigned and we have a comprehensive report identifying the breaches and making recommendations for the future. It is not a superficial report; it is a comprehensive piece of work by the Cabinet Secretary, and the House should be grateful for it.

I turn to the specific questions that the hon. Lady asked. Other Ministers are perfectly happy to make it clear whether they have met Mr Werritty. On whether similar practices are going on throughout Government, if she has any evidence I would like her to bring it forward. [Interruption.]

[Mr Speaker]

Order. Members must not chunter or, worse still, yell at the Leader of the House. He must be heard.

[Sir George Young]

It is worth noting that paragraph 11 of the Cabinet Secretary’s report states:

“I am of the view that this is an issue which was specific to Dr Fox.”

The hon. Member for Wallasey raised a number of other issues, some of which are for other bodies to deal with. If she looks at paragraph 1 of the Cabinet Secretary’s report, she will see that it states:

“Since then, more allegations about Dr Fox’s conduct have arisen many of which will be the responsibility of others to answer, including the Electoral Commission which regulates political parties and their funding.”

She also asked a specific question on a matter that is the responsibility of the Charity Commission.

The hon. Lady then asked what went wrong in the Ministry of Defence. If she reads the report, she will see that what went wrong was that the permanent secretary did not raise the issue with the Cabinet Secretary, who would then have raised it with the Prime Minister. There is a specific recommendation in the report that that situation should not happen again, and that if there are any future instances, the permanent secretary should notify the Cabinet Secretary, who will notify the Prime Minister.

I say very gently to the hon. Lady that her party is not negotiating from a position of strength on this issue. I think what the public want is a serious debate about what went wrong, and they want Members on both sides of the House to join together in driving up standards in public life.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

[Mr Andrew Tyrie (Chichester) (Con)]

I warmly welcome the Leader of the House’s statement. In it, he said that senior civil servants “accepted that there should have been much tighter procedures within the Department”. Will he say specifically what is wrong with existing procedures, and what steps he is taking to ensure that the failing lies with those procedures rather than with the action or inaction of the civil servants themselves?

[Sir George Young]

I thank my hon. Friend for his endorsement. What went wrong was that the permanent secretary, having raised the matter with the Secretary of State, and the Secretary of State having persisted in the behaviour that she found disturbing, did not take further action. The matter should have been escalated to the Cabinet Secretary, who would then have notified the Prime Minister. A specific recommendation is going out to all permanent secretaries today that should there be a recurrence in future, it should be escalated. Had that happened in this case, the issue probably would have been addressed at a much earlier stage.

[Mr Ben Bradshaw (Exeter) (Lab)]

I feel sorry for the Leader of the House for his being forced to make this statement because the Prime Minister does not have the gumption to do so.

Given that it was quite clear on day one of this scandal to anybody who has bothered to read the ministerial code that the Minister in question not only broke it but drove a coach and horses through it, why the dither and delay from the Prime Minister? Does that not show yet again that we have a Prime Minister who does not do detail and does not have a clue what is going on in the rest of his Government?

[Sir George Young]

If I may say so to the right hon. Gentleman, I think that is way over the top. When Lord Mandelson resigned not once but twice, the Prime Minister did not come to the House to make a statement. In this case there is a statement from a Minister on the action that we propose to take to stop any recurrence. Far from the Prime Minister dithering or delaying, he asked for something to be on his desk on Monday. He then asked the Cabinet Secretary to produce a report. Out of decency and fair play, the Prime Minister decided to wait until the report was available rather than taking precipitate action. That is not dither and delay; that is fair play.

[Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)]

Does my right hon. Friend not think it rather strange that some of those who are campaigning hard for a register of lobbyists did nothing over the past 13 years and created a lobbyists’ free-for-all? Does he not also think that it is strange for the Labour party, which found itself in the Bernie Ecclestone lobbying scandal, to now pretend it is Mother Teresa?

[Sir George Young]

My hon. Friend reminds the House that, as I said a moment ago, the Opposition are not negotiating from a position of strength. It is indeed the case that from 1997 to last year, no action was taken to introduce a statutory register of lobbyists. When the Public Administration Committee recommended that in 2009, the Labour Government specifically rejected it, and they voted against other measures that would have promoted transparency, so I do not think we have any lessons to learn on this matter from Labour Members.

[John Cryer (Leyton and Wanstead) (Lab)]

Is Mr Werritty the only unofficial representative acting on behalf of a Cabinet Minister or a Minister of State?

[Sir George Young]

If the hon. Gentleman has any evidence—[Hon. Members: “Ah.”] I think people should be careful before making general allegations without any specific evidence at all. This is a—[Interruption.]

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I apologise for interrupting the Leader of the House, but may I say to the House that he is a person of unfailing courtesy? I think that would be accepted on both sides of the House. He does not yell at other Members, and—[Interruption.] Order. And other Members should not yell at him.

[Sir George Young]

I quoted a passage from paragraph 11 of the Cabinet Secretary’s report, in which he stated that he believed the situation was “specific to Dr Fox”. I do not think there is any evidence at all that Mr Werritty had a similar relationship with any other Minister in the Government. If the hon. Member for Leyton and Wanstead (John Cryer) has any evidence of any irregularity, I think he should put it forward and substantiate what he has said.

[Brandon Lewis (Great Yarmouth) (Con)]

I appreciate the Leader of the House’s point about a register of lobbyists, and I add my voice to the call for a statutory register. Does he find it surprising to hear some of the comments from the Opposition, given that under the right hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown), union officials were regularly in No. 10 unofficially attending meetings?

[Sir George Young]

I agree with my hon. Friend that this should not become part of the political currency between the two parties. On the issue of lobbying, as I think he knows, we plan to publish a consultation document early next month on our proposals for a statutory register of lobbyists, with a view to legislating next year.

[Mr Michael Meacher (Oldham West and Royton) (Lab)]

I appreciate the right hon. Gentleman’s seemingly all-encompassing catchment in the designation of lobbyists, but I would like assurance on two points. First, will he confirm that the ultimate funding of all lobbyists, think-tanks and all others who seek to exert influence will be revealed on an open public register that is readily accessible and tell us what the sanctions will be if that is not done? Secondly, since all those who seek to manipulate always want to escape detection, how will he deal with the admittedly difficult situation in which formal meetings suddenly morph into informal meetings where significant commitments might be made but remain undetected?

[Sir George Young]

I am very grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his contribution. The answer to the first section of his question is yes, that is exactly what we have in mind: an open, accessible register of statutory lobbyists. On the other issues, we propose to consult on what exactly a lobbyist is. I think the definition should embrace what people outside generally believe to be lobbying and should be comprehensive. On the question of what activity is then caught, we would be very grateful for his views during the consultation process.

[Charlie Elphicke (Dover) (Con)]

May I welcome the Leader of the House’s statement? The Select Committee on Public Administration is looking into how we can do more to fix broken politics. I particularly congratulate him on ending the sofa government that we saw in the past as well as the tidal wave of sleaze, and I urge him to take action on the revolving door that still persists for former Ministers of this House.

[Sir George Young]

The revolving door is an issue I addressed in my statement and we are tightening up the process for it. I am delighted to hear that the Public Administration Committee, which originally proposed the statutory register in its report, is thinking of returning to this issue and I hope that it will inform the Bill when it is introduced.

[Ms Gisela Stuart (Birmingham, Edgbaston) (Lab)]

On 10 October, I asked the then Defence Secretary when he was first made aware of concerns by his permanent secretary. He said that

“I was not aware of any direct approach from them. The first direct approach I can remember was when my current permanent secretary came to me in August”.—[Official Report, 10 October 2011; Vol. 533, c. 30.]

That leads to two questions. Either the then Defence Secretary misled the House and he was made aware of that before then or the previous permanent secretary has some serious questions to answer. These things have been going on since he took office and for more than a year concerns have arisen and nobody has done anything. The civil service must look at its own conduct in how it makes people aware when things go wrong.

[Sir George Young]

I think it is clear from the report that things did go wrong in the Ministry of Defence. That was accepted in the permanent secretary’s initial report. Procedures were not followed and we are learning from that and ensuring that there is no recurrence.

[James Morris (Halesowen and Rowley Regis) (Con)]

Is it not the case that my right hon. Friend the Member for North Somerset (Dr Fox) has resigned and that the Cabinet Secretary’s report could not be clearer that there was no breach of national security and that my right hon. Friend did not gain financially from any of these arrangements? Is not the most important thing now for the debate to move on? We have important operations in Libya and Afghanistan that we must focus on in the national interest.

[Sir George Young]

I agree with my hon. Friend. We have commissioned a report, we have found out what went wrong, we have made recommendations to put it right and we have learned the lessons. I agree that we should now move on.

[Mr David Anderson (Blaydon) (Lab)]

Both in questions to the Prime Minister and during this statement today, the question of whether other Ministers have behaved in a similar manner has been raised. The Leader of the House has made it clear that anyone who wants to make allegations should do so. I do not think that people are making allegations—they are raising the general worry that the rest of the population of this country feels. If someone as experienced as the former Secretary of State allowed this to go on, thinking that it was reasonable, surely it is possible that other Ministers, equally unwittingly, might be doing the same thing. Would it not benefit us all if the Cabinet Secretary were to look into all these things to ensure that there is not any other concern?

[Sir George Young]

I understand the hon. Gentleman’s point, but in the last Parliament a number of Ministers from his party had to resign. We never made any suggestion that because one Minister had broken the code, all Ministers had broken the code, and it is important that similar accusations should not be made in this Parliament.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

The trouble with the idea of trying to move on is that we are seeing a pretty shabby pattern in which the Prime Minister is given evidence, refuses to look at it but holds on for dear life to as many of his friends as he can. It happened with Coulson and it has happened again now. Now there is evidence about the hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle (Gregory Barker) and his apparent adviser, Miriam Maes. Will there be an investigation into that, too?

[Sir George Young]

On the first point, to say that the Prime Minister refused to look at the evidence is simply absurd as he looked at it, published it and has acted on it. As for the issues concerning the Department of Energy and Climate Change, the matter has been resolved. The person concerned is an adviser to the Department and not to a Minister.

[Mr David Winnick (Walsall North) (Lab)]

Is the Leader of the House aware that some good has come out of all this, as it has shown up the whole murky world of various shady and dubious lobbyists and various individuals who have contributed heavily to the Tory party? One thing is absolutely clear: the Tory party has not changed from last time it was in office.

[Sir George Young]

It would be easier to take the hon. Gentleman seriously on this had he not voted against a specific amendment to promote transparency in lobbying.

[Jonathan Ashworth (Leicester South) (Lab)]

A few moments ago, the Leader of the House said—if I heard him correctly—that other Ministers would be perfectly happy to reveal whether they had meetings with Mr Werritty. Will he therefore tell the House when we will get a full and comprehensive list of all meetings between Ministers and Mr Werritty and whether it will extend to senior officials, too?

[Sir George Young]

It has already been put in the public domain for a number of Government Departments. It will be put in the public domain by the rest of the Departments very shortly.

[Huw Irranca-Davies (Ogmore) (Lab)]

How many Government Front-Bench Members have received donations from Pargav Ltd and will the Leader of the House investigate that? May I urge on him caution about the defence of bringing forward evidence? The last time that was used was on the 10th of this month and the former Secretary of State subsequently resigned, having used that very defence.

[Sir George Young]

Any donations that Ministers or any Members of the House have received from a company such as Pargav have to be put in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests.

[Mr Nigel Dodds (Belfast North) (DUP)]

I welcome the fact that the Government are adopting the procedure of coming forward today and making a statement, which is a departure from previous practice and is to be welcomed. One of the recommendations of the report is that greater responsibility should be given to permanent secretaries to ensure that departmental procedures are followed, yet in this case the permanent secretary at the MOD has already accepted that there should have been much tighter procedures within the Department. What confidence can the public have, given the obvious failings within the Department at that senior level?

[Sir George Young]

The recommendations apply not just to the permanent secretary but, for example, to the private office as well. I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his welcome for this new procedure and I hope that it is one that I do not have to follow too often.

[Mr Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

How is what the Leader of the House has said about conflicts of interest or perceived conflicts of interest and the ministerial code be consistent with the approach the Government have taken in the case of the hon. Member for Huntingdon (Mr Djanogly), who has been relieved of those areas of his portfolio where such a conflict might occur?

[Sir George Young]

That matter has been dealt with by the Cabinet Secretary.

[Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)]

The Leader of the House said in his statement that Mr Werritty was not a lobbyist. How then will the register and the reforms that he proposes affect the behaviour of someone like Mr Werritty?

[Sir George Young]

I did not say that I did not think that he was a lobbyist but that the Cabinet Secretary did not think that he was a lobbyist. When we publish the consultation paper next month, we will be open to consultation on what a lobbyist is. In the view of many people, the definition should include Mr Werritty.

[Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)]

Leaving political differences aside, it is a genuine shame that one of the few members of the Government from an ordinary background has been forced to resign. Will the Leader of the House tell us how many donations were solicited by the former Defence Secretary, how much those donations were valued at and why he solicited them?

[Sir George Young]

I am grateful for what the hon. Gentleman said about my right hon. Friend the Member for North Somerset (Dr Fox), but he was not forced to resign. He chose to resign last Friday and set out the reasons for that in his letter.

[Paul Flynn (Newport West) (Lab)]

Is it not the prime duty of the Leader of the House to try to restore public faith and confidence in this institution? We handled the expenses scandal in an atrocious way that damaged us greatly. Would it not be a terrible mistake if we ignored the real abuses of the revolving door and of lobbying and went ahead and indulged in a process of blaming each other? If we are going to be successful in convincing the public, we must follow the Public Administration Committee. Otherwise, the public will look at this debate today and say, “Same old MPs, same old sleaze.”

[Sir George Young]

I believe that the hon. Gentleman’s question will be the last. On that consensual note, I hope we can draw these exchanges to a close.