Ministerial Appointments: Vetting and Managing Conflicts of Interest Debate
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Viscount Hailsham
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Ministerial Appointments: Vetting and Managing Conflicts of Interest
Viscount Hailsham Excerpts(1 year, 4 months ago)
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The Minister of State, Cabinet Office (Baroness Neville- Rolfe) (Con)
My Lords, there are established procedures for the appointment of Ministers, and by Ministers, and these are followed. This was the purport of the question we are replying to, and we need to allow the process to run its course. As the noble Baroness suggests, the Prime Minister has appointed Sir Laurie Magnus, who is the independent adviser on Ministers’ interests. As I said when I answered questions last year, the Prime Minister was then moving quickly to appoint the independent adviser. The terms of reference will give the independent adviser the opportunity to look into what he thinks needs to be looked into—having a look at the issues that have been raised and speculated on—and we have made clear that anyone in the Government should help the independent adviser with that process. On the point about the texts, the Information Commissioner has looked at that. He concluded his investigation on 18 January this year—so, last week—and he did not require any steps to be taken. He considered that BEIS had conducted sufficient searches for the relevant information.
Viscount Hailsham (Con)
My Lords, may I suggest to my noble friend that any public concern about ministerial interests will be greatly alleviated if the independent adviser could, of his own initiative, institute investigations?
Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)
The independent adviser, as my noble friend suggests, is appointed by the Prime Minister and it his constitutional position to be the ultimate arbiter of the Ministerial Code, and to decide whether a breach of the code has occurred upon the advice of the independent adviser. So it makes sense for the Prime Minister to be the ultimate decision-maker, but, of course, we have appointed Sir Laurie Magnus to take on this role and to look extremely carefully at the issues that have arisen and been reported on this week.