Penny Mordaunt – 2022 Statement on Code of Conduct and Guide to the Rules
The statement made by Penny Mordaunt, the Leader of the House of Commons, in the House on 12 December 2022.
I beg to move,
That—
(1) this House takes note of:
(a) the First Report from the Committee on Standards, on New Code of Conduct and Guide to the Rules: promoting appropriate values, attitudes and behaviours in Parliament (HC 227), and approves the revised Code of Conduct for Members annexed to that Report, subject to the following amendment:
In section C (Seven Principles of Public Life): leave out “; as set out below, they are supplemented by descriptors, which apply specifically to Members of Parliament” and the Principles and descriptors as set out in the Report and insert:
“Selflessness
Holders of public office should act solely in terms of the public interest.
Integrity
Holders of public office must avoid placing themselves under any obligation to people or organisations that might try inappropriately to influence them in their work. They should not act or take decisions in order to gain financial or other material benefits for themselves, their family, or their friends. They must declare and resolve any interests and relationships.
Objectivity
Holders of public office must act and take decisions impartially, fairly and on merit, using the best evidence and without discrimination or bias.
Accountability
Holders of public office are accountable to the public for their decisions and actions and must submit themselves to the scrutiny necessary to ensure this.
Openness
Holders of public office should act and take decisions in an open and transparent manner. Information should not be withheld from the public unless there are clear and lawful reasons for so doing.
Honesty
Holders of public office should be truthful.
Leadership
Holders of public office should exhibit these principles in their own behaviour and treat others with respect. They should actively promote and robustly support the principles and challenge poor behaviour wherever it occurs.”
(b) the Third Report from the Committee on Standards on New Guide to the Rules: final proposals (HC 544), and approves the revised Guide to the Rules relating to the Conduct of Members annexed to that Report, subject to the following amendments:
(i) In Introduction, paragraph 14, leave out, “Whilst Members are not required to register Ministerial office” and insert, “Members are not required to register either Ministerial office or benefits received in their capacity as a Minister”.
(ii) In Chapter 1 (Registration of Members’ Financial Interests), paragraph 17, at end insert: “() Donations or other support received in a Member’s capacity as a Minister, which should be recorded, if necessary, within the relevant Government Department in accordance with the Ministerial Code.”
with effect from 1 March 2023, except that paragraph 8 of Chapter 3 of the Guide to the Rules shall only have effect in respect of past financial interests or material benefits from six months after the date on which the revised code and guide come into effect.
(2) previous Resolutions of this House in relation to the conduct of Members shall be read and given effect in a way which is compatible with the Code of Conduct and the Guide to the Rules relating to the Conduct of Members.
The House is being asked to consider a motion today which would take note of the first report from the Committee on Standards, “New Code of Conduct and Guide to the Rules: promoting appropriate values, attitudes and behaviours in Parliament”, and approve the revised Code of Conduct for Members annexed to that report. The motion would also take note of the third report from the Committee on Standards, “New Guide to the Rules: final proposals”, and approve the revised Guide to the Rules Relating to the Conduct of Members annexed to that report.
This is House business, and Members will be asked to make up their own minds on these matters—I sense the panic already, but I hope Members, even if they do not contribute to the debate, will feel free to ask questions and fully apprise themselves of the issues at hand. As Members of Parliament we must uphold the highest standards in public life, acting with integrity and professionalism. I believe these reforms are an important step in that process, building on the progress this House made in October when we approved the introduction of a new formal appeals process.
I am grateful to the Committee on Standards for its work reviewing the code of conduct for Members and the overall operation of the standards system in the House of Commons. I welcome the engagement that is happening in this area and the conversations I have had with the Chair of the Committee, the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant); I look forward to hearing from him and I expect he will wish to take Members through the details of his Committee’s work, so I will not steal his thunder.
The Government have carefully considered his Committee’s recommendations and reports. The Committee has proposed around 20 substantive changes; at the time of the Government response, we had disagreement with five of those, but that has subsequently been reduced to disagreement with just two.
We have already acted in one vital area. In October, the House of Commons unanimously agreed the introduction of an appeals process for standards cases. We have reflected upon and now accept the Committee’s recommendation on the “serious wrong” exemption, and the recommended introduction of a requirement for Members who undertake outside work to obtain a written contract or separate letter of undertaking that their duties will not include lobbying or the provision of paid parliamentary advice. The Committee has also moved on its position on initiation versus participation, and now agrees with the Government. I hope those changes will show that the Committee and the House are listening, and that we are seeking ways of finding cross-party consensus on addressing these issues.
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
I think the Leader of the House means that the Government now agree with the Committee, because the Committee certainly has not changed its position on initiating and participating. I think that that was the tenor of the letter that she sent me last week.
Penny Mordaunt
I understood that it was the other way around, but the important point is, I think, that we agree. My remarks will, for the benefit of Members, focus largely on the areas in which we disagree, because I think those are what people would like to hear about.
The first area is in relation to the seven principles in public life. Amendment (a) in the name of the hon. Member for Rhondda seeks to reinsert into the code customised descriptors of the seven principles in public life. The Government have chosen to leave out those recommendations from the Committee and maintain the status quo in relation to the seven principles. The Government believe that those principles and their descriptors should remain the basis of the MPs’ code of conduct, and that the principles, as set out in the code, should be updated to the version published by the Committee on Standards in Public Life in 2013. The strength of the principles lies, in part, in the fact that they are a long-standing and widely understood set of standards expected of all public office holders. Adjustments of the kind suggested to the descriptors would undermine that universality. It is therefore preferable to retain the descriptors put forward by the Committee on Standards in Public Life when the principles were last updated as a whole.
The second area of disagreement is in relation to ministerial declarations. The hon. Gentleman has claimed that there is an exception for Ministers. That is not the case. We have two systems of reporting interests. First, there are MPs’ interests, which are in accordance with the rules of this House and subject to oversight by the commissioner, the Committee on Standards and, ultimately, the House. Secondly, there are ministerial declarations, the basis of which is the ministerial code. The rules regulating Members’ interests and ministerial interests are distinct for a good reason, reflecting the underlying constitutional principle of the separation of powers and the operational differences between the role of an MP and that of a Minister. In addition, Members should not have to use the resources of their parliamentary offices, which should be focused on constituency business, to declare ministerial interests.
The hon. Gentleman is asking in amendment (b) for dual reporting. He wants, by March, to make Ministers and envoys—trade envoys and others—report on a monthly basis information that will, at that time, be available only quarterly. If an MP is in breach, they may face two possibly concurrent investigations—one on the ministerial route and one by this House. Nor is it clear how that would be applied. Perhaps in his remarks, the hon. Gentleman could clarify for the House what the threshold for a Minister would be. If the hon. Gentleman wants parity between Ministers and MPs, is he asking for the threshold to be £300 or the current, more stringent threshold for Ministers of £140? Could he confirm whether that applies to shadow Ministers?
Despite the problems that I have outlined, and the suggestion of the hon. Member for Rhondda, I agree that there needs to be more parity between MPs’ and ministerial reporting. I will set out the changes that the Government intend to make.
Andy Carter (Warrington South) (Con)
I am grateful for the way in which the Government have moved on many aspects of the report by the Committee on Standards, but I hope that the Leader of the House agrees that there is a problem with ministerial reporting. On many occasions, Departments fail to deliver their quarterly reports. I understand that the Government have some proposals and I am looking forward to hearing them, but will my right hon. Friend assure us, given that we will vote tonight, that the proposals will be delivered in a timely manner so that there is transparency about the way in which Ministers publicly report their receivables?
Penny Mordaunt
I thank my hon. Friend for his comments. He is right: the current situation is unacceptable and the Committee has a valid point. I hope that I will suggest a way in which we can address that. However, it is important to say that if we do it in the way that the Committee suggests, we will end up in some difficulty, which I shall explain.
First, we have extensively reviewed the existing guidance on transparency data. I have also audited each Department’s returns and sat down with the propriety and ethics team to look at ways in which we can improve the timeliness, quality and transparency of Ministers’ data and ease of access to it. The guidance, which we have reviewed, will be published online on GOV.UK for the first time. It commits Departments to publishing data within 90 days of the end of each quarterly reporting period. That is a modest, but necessary first step.
Our goal will be first to ensure that all Departments are complying with their current obligations consistently, as reflected in the new guidance as soon as it comes into effect. We will then look to move to a system of reporting that provides the parity that the Committee on Standards is seeking on transparency and timeliness. That means monthly reporting.
The Cabinet Office will also consider the alignment of ministerial returns with the House’s system and the frequency of publication, as part of the Government’s wider consideration of the Boardman and Committee on Standards in Public Life recommendations. It is reasonable to conclude that work by the start of the summer. My plan is therefore about three months’ adrift of that of the Committee on Standards.
The Government are fully committed to transparency and to ensuring that all Ministers are held to account for maintaining high standards of behaviour and upholding the highest standards of propriety, as the public rightly expect, but we need to avoid creating a system that delivers further confusion and unintended consequences. That is why I have outlined the alternative proposal from the Government today. I have worked closely with colleagues across Government to set out how we will improve our system, and if the Committee on Standards remains concerned, I commit to revisiting the issue and engaging with ministerial colleagues to drive further improvements.
Sir Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)
I am grateful for the way in which the Leader of the House has engaged with the matter. The whole House understands that there are what a “Yes Minister” script would describe as “administrative difficulties” with recording ministerial interests in a timely manner. However, surely the objective should be—we had a lot of evidence about this—that a member of the public can find in one place where Members have registrable interests, whether they are Ministers or not. Could we end up with a system, even if it were just a reporting mechanism that put stuff on the register without obligation, whereby the Register of Members’ Financial Interests showed all ministerial declared interests as well as all other Members’ interests in one place? That is the sort of accountability and transparency that the public are entitled to expect.
Penny Mordaunt
My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and I have had those discussions with the propriety and ethics team. This needs to be taken in steps, and we have to get Departments producing the right data in a consistent fashion for that to happen, but I have already had discussions with them about how we would design a system that puts all this in one place. I am very clear that the objectives the Standards Committee have are that this information is as accessible as the Register of Members’ Financial Interests and on a par with the timing of the register. In amendment (b) the hon. Member for Rhondda proposes a system of reporting immediately in March, when this comes into effect, that the Whitehall machine will currently not be able to deliver on.
Chris Bryant
Really?
Penny Mordaunt
It will not, but we can move to that system. At the moment Departments can produce this information only on a quarterly basis, and by March that will still be the case.
Jess Phillips (Birmingham, Yardley) (Lab)
Imagine I am a layman: may I ask why? This does not seem beyond the wit of man; we all have to do it as Members of Parliament. There are considerably more staff in Whitehall than I have in my office. So I simply ask: really?
Penny Mordaunt
I am afraid so, and if the hon. Lady would like to know more I can bore her for hours on this. I have been through literally every single Department’s processes and returns, and some of the information takes a while to extract, such as that from the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office. That is not an acceptable situation and it needs to change. I have set out how we will do that and by when I think we will have been able to do so, but I cannot stand at the Dispatch Box today and say that by March we will have a system where Labour Members of Parliament and Members of Parliament on the Government side of the House, if they are envoys or Ministers, will be able to report on a monthly basis. We can move to that system, and I think for the sake of a few months we should do this properly and get Whitehall in the place it needs to be in.
Justin Madders (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab)
I am concerned to hear that the Leader of the House is hiding behind officials, really. Members on the Opposition side of the House have a responsibility to make sure our records are correct; surely that applies to Members on the Government side of the House, whether they are a Minister or not?
Penny Mordaunt
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for raising this point, because this does apply to those on his side of the House: among his colleagues on his Benches there will be trade envoys and other people undertaking work for the Government, and this will apply to them. I do not disagree that there should be parity between the two systems in access, transparency and timeliness; what I am saying is that the way in which the Committee has suggested this happen in amendment (b) will fail, and in a few months’ time—beyond March, when this system will come in—we will be in a position where we can succeed. That is what I am setting out for the House; it is for Members to decide, and they can vote whichever way they like. I am just apprising them of the facts. Anyone who wants to come and look at the audits I have done will regret it, but they are more than welcome.
Wendy Chamberlain (North East Fife) (LD)
Given that we have not had ministerial reporting since the end of May 2022 and the Leader of the House is now asking us to give her more time to bring a process into place, when can we expect to see up-to-date ministerial reporting?
Penny Mordaunt
As I have outlined in my speech, the new guidance has been put in place and will come into effect this spring. By the time the Committee wants the reforms we are voting on today to come into effect, Whitehall will be back up to what it is supposed to be doing now, and I think a few months after then, as we head into summer, we should have a system in place that will enable us to report at the same timeframes as MPs’ interests. Then we can potentially look at moving to having just one system rather than separate reporting by each ministerial Department. Those are the conversations I have had with the propriety and ethics team.
The effectiveness of our standards system and the code of conduct rests on its commanding the confidence of both the public and Members on a cross-party basis. Approval of the proposed reforms and strengthening of the rules will represent an important step towards restoring and strengthening trust in our democratic institutions. We support the work being done to undertake and introduce measures to empower the standards system in Parliament, and I am committed to continuing conversations both within Government and with parliamentary colleagues to continue to bring forward any further improvements proposed by the Committee on a cross-party basis.
I assure the House that my door is always open to discuss these matters with all Members. I hope that hon. Members will approve the reforms in the main motion, which I commend to the House. I thank the Committee for its work.
