NOLAN PRINCIPLES
Near-live transcript. Not the official record.
Automatic speech recognition of this debate. Verify wording against the official report in Hansard before quoting. When Hansard publishes, about three hours after the House rises, the text below is replaced by the official record.
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And we now come to the backbench debate.
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Let's consider the Nolan principles.
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on Nolan
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I'd like to thank the Backbench Business Committee.
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put interests of the nation above the
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I'm frankly horrified that people might look at me this way. For years
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I am proud to serve that
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honesty and leadership
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These principles represent not just rules for us to follow.
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But an agreement and an understanding between the public andthose who they trust to serve
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and Downing Street. We all know about the
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Following a bullying incident in a school, my constituency
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East Staffordshire Council told them the
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That was not the truth.
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My constituent was forced to go to court.
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and the willingness of the council to spend taxpayers' money on a court case they lost. shows little objectivity and poor accountability
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To add to their ordeal, my constituents found the naughts were not only inaccurate, but they had
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unaltered. They did not find this out because they were told or because it was
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And it has had serious negative consequences for the child involved.
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By focusing on the Nolan principles, I have necessarily concentrated on the accountability
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This child was the victim of aserious and very distressing incident by a fellow
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And my constituent requested that safeguarding arrangement be put in place.
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Only for those arrangements to be removed without either my
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to protect their child.
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The authority, like others, has been subject to
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A parent should have to go to court to find out what has been written about her.
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Liberty is something people have to fight for.
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The Scottish Government is responsible for
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This should be the foundations of
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sound can sound
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But these cases show why they matter. Just as the lives
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Young people were let down and the
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When they were not followed.
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The former Chief Executive
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and made sure it could never happen again.
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honesty and leadership
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That helps to rebuild
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of those that govern them.
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powers, and more importantly, the ability to issue stronger higher fines to ensure that when
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I have three asks of government.
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statutory basis with the power to open an
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public life. The public needs to be able to see that public bodiesMPs and political parties are held to account when they break the public's trust.And I look forward.
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Yes, I've just finished
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and with a tie, five minutes
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IPSA, Sam Rushworth.
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that this debate follows
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Yeah.
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I thank the hon. Member for giving way. This is the point I was going to
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It's really important that when the debate ends we treat each other with respect and courtesy and I think the majority of members do that in this place. Would you agree me it's disappointing when they some Members of this House but don't treat other Members of this House with the same respect.
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to uphold
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Yeah, 100%.
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used this place to enrich ourselves. We have to get a grip with separate second jobs, for example, and I'm not talking
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huge sums of money elsewhere. You simply can't do it and we need to legislate very strongly
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against that. But we also probably need to do more to enable our constituents to see the difference. Maybe there needs to be greater transparency. I've I've often wondered if we should clock in and out of thethe chamber and report how many surgeries we all hold and so on so that people can make fair comparisons and
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and who's doing the work and who's not doing the work. Another point that I think we need to
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Maybe we need to review Erskine May and what constitutes parliamentary language because I've been really disappointed at times since
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is our actual debate and
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disgusting, and we all know that we got abuse because of that. The things that get said in this
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I think that that's another thing we need to address.
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We also need to look beyond this place. There are examples
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I was very disappointed to see in Durham County Council, which some of the
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Reform councillors who have left the council or who have resigned as Reform councillorsour citizens' independence them selves
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has a majority
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opinions under the guise of free speech.Before before Reform took control of Doncaster
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racist with the leader of the House today. There needs to be stronger accountability for regional mayors and for local government.
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that that that need to have legal safeguards that that protect them
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is at the moment Town and
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councillors do not
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Thank you.
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Missing the opening remark.
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Sir Bernard Jenkin.
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that she made uh as a
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from another meeting. I very much welcome a debate about the Nolan principles, and if I might jump off from the beginning from the
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of nearly
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100% of the colleagues that we meet in this Chamber, from whichever party, we would regard as careful, diligent
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Morally upstanding people. There's akind of minority maybe we don't trust. But basically, we look at the seven principles of public life. We might not be able to remember them by heart, but that's the way we want to live our lives. the example that we want to demonstrate in the work we do. And yet, the more paraphernalia that is being created
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We think of ourselves as legislators, and the hon. Gentleman who's just spoken absolutely fell into the same trap
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We need more rules about this. We need more
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but was trying to start a different conversation.
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Which isOne Whip this week had who was a Chief Whip of a major political
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told us in evidence. Well, the seven principles are quite simple, and if you don't understand them, you
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in public life. Well, on the face of it, they are very simple.
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But is it simple navigating conflicts of interest as a Member of Parliament? We all have them.
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outside, director or sponsored by a trade union, everybody has conflicts of interest. What about the conflict of interest between your party's programme and the interests of your royal constituents?
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These aren't necessary declarable interests or declarable conflicts, but we all have to deal with conflicts. And the image we were given
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one piece of evidence from the Westminster Abbey Institute
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was that actually we are trying to navigate our way across a stormy sea.
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of conflicting pressures and priorities, and it is not always easy to decide
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what to do under which circumstances
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And if any hon. Member present thinks it has been easy, they probably don't realize. what they have possibly stumbled into.
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Yes, we want transparency. Yes, there need to be the rules, but the rules
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If you go into the tea room, Madam Deputy Speaker, and talk about the House of Commons code of conduct,I'm sure you, like everyone else, finds people discuss how to stay clear of the rules.
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tend to be about how you sincerely and honestly
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deal with conflicts. And the problem, I think the way that the House of Commons has set up the adjudicationthe codeis that it tends to be a very legalistic
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Anybody who's been under the cosh of an investigation by the Commissioner for Standards, first of all, they find they've got nobody to talk to.And I have recommended previously that we should split the role of the Commissioner. There should be somebody to advise and counsel Members of Parliament about conflicts of interest and the code, and there should be somebody toPreferably aformer High Court judge rather than I've got no criticism to make of the present commissioner, of course.
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But I mean I think we could upgrade the juridical process of a
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As we have done for appeals, that is now presided over by a High Court judge and a panel in a much
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more strictly judicial process. The advantage of a High Court judge being someone who's used to adjudicating, someone who's used tojudging evidence and facts and coming to a conclusion a conclusion I agree to the
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worth worth listening to on this.
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the growth in rules is not a response
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the scandals that we've had rather than the producer of them and is he is he
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I'm not arguing for an abolition of the code or anything like that.
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I am arguing for a system that recognizes that conflicts of interest inevitably arise and have to be handled.It should be a system that creates a supportive environment for Members of this House to discuss and explore the dilemmas they're confronted with.
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That doesn't exist at the moment.And also I think the margin of appreciation in the interpretation
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the rules should be much more forgiving. Now, the present Commissioner has made it very clear that that's not his method, and indeed the House of Commons resolutions don't steer
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have been approved by the House along with the code of conduct rules them selves, they are therefore have equal force. as the law of Parliament. Now, I don't think that's what Parliament really understood when it voted the guidance to the rules through, or each time it does. I what I would like to
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And one that's a more open conversation about the dilemmas we face.
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Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, and I congratulate the hon. Member on on securing this debate. I do think trust in politics is one of the big challenges of our time.It has never been particularly high, I should say, but at the moment Britain is among the lowest in Western Europe, and there are obviously many theories as to why that might happen.
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of working before coming to this place on open government in over 70 countries, there are ways that we
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plus delivery on the issues that our constituents care about, and I do not think those two things need to be in tension. Some do try to argue that. but I think they can be complementary and I hope the big opportunity coming up for the government is the white paper on rewiring the state. I'm personally
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Open government transparency and opportunities for public participation lead to better decisions and better government.It's about ensuring that citizens have
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voice and the state is then accountable for those decisions and that failures are learned and not covered up.
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And that's why I was really glad that the Prime Minister
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are committed to working with me, for example, on Justice for Grenfell, a tragedy that would not have happened had the Nolan principlesbeen followed by the Royall Borough of Kensington and Chelsea leadership and I agree with the Chair of the Ethics and Integrity Committee on my hon. Friend
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what the Morbic inquiry has uncovered about the conduct of quite a number of bodies and people concerning that trade.
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that led to that tragedy. It wasn't just It was a system failure. And who takescapability for system failures is much more important, and the problem of the rules of aapplying rules is
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don't necessarily address system failures because they're about culture, attitude, behaviour, and that's what we need to address and
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Grow bar of Kensington Chelsea belatedly. is now undergoing what
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call a culture review, but I have a fear that that may fall into the category of what he was
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mentioning earlier around um uh
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may not necessarily lead to the change we want, but let's see. I'm I'm I'm I want to keep anmind on that. It's also why I support the idea of a national oversight mechanism. I know the Cabinet Office is doing work on this, because if we are going to spend time
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and energy and resources into inquests and inquiries, it is important that the recommendations are tracked and monitored, otherwise
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It kind of feels to me that we may defeat the point. And of course the Hillsborough Law, the Public Accountability Bull, which I hopebecome an act very soon, is a big, big potential stepon on duty of candour. I just want to address two two quick areas. Firstly, the Representation of the People Bull There is a huge amount
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for money in politics, the Right Crofton recommendations,And obviously we'll get that bill back here shortly from the other place. But there were so many good suggestions in the debates around
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Um and I'm reallyin the Electoral Commission, for example, um on their looking uh at spending caps uh during the
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from the Ethics and Integrity Commission, I think was a
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because it's only restricted to consultant lobbyists and it's captured in very disparate databases across government. making it hard to track that information and make it useful. And we know from Greensill to Covid contracts that modern lobbying happens in lots of
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not just through formal meetings. And this is not about policing who the government meets. Government should be meeting with businesses and stakeholders and so on.
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But it's about having the right to know what voices are informing major decisions so the public can makejudgment as to whether that requirement to consult widely has been met. So I
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step would be to clean up the number of
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easier to understand and view and then obviously the report calls for legislation. I askedCabinet Office rules a few weeks ago where the legislation was something the government was open to and the minister confirmed they were.
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so I hope that that is something we can see too and too often I think it has taken as my honourable friend said it has taken a crisis to create the
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And now, of course, the multiple ongoing investigations from different bodies into Reform UK's funding and them ember for Clacton. So the opportunity now, I haven't formed, the opportunity now is to create a reset moment for standards in public
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And I think the rewiring the state white paper is a great opportunity.
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Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. On that note, my hon. Friend was was referring to the wider rewiring of the state, and as we move into solution? Does he agree with me that our local councils need to be much more held accountable at the moment even when they are sanctioned?or there are so is apologize and that gets nowhere you they don't bother to do it.
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I thank you for that intervention and I completely agree. I'm a huge supporter of devolution, but it's important as the anti-corruption plan that the government has callsfor example to have a local audit office to look at finance and also codes of conduct for local councillors and senior officerslocal government is required to follow the Nolan principles, but I'm not sure we have all the systems yet to track and monitor that, so I agree with
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So the first opportunity the white paper on rewiring the state, the second to finish the job on the Representation of the People Bull and the Public Accountability Bull And my third and final suggestion is could we have something like a Clean Up Westminster Bull in the next session to bring together alldifferent elements where we know action is needed on lobbying, on second jobs, finishing the job on money in politics.
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and send a clear message to the public that open and accountable politics is central to this government's mission of rewiring the
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and hope across the country.
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Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, and it's a pleasure to speak in this debate on the Nolan principles and I congratulate the hon. Member forand Barton Sheffield for securing it. As Chair of the APPG on Anti-Corruption and Responsible Tax, let me say this: it is on all of us to speak truth to power in a spirit of constructive criticism.
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One, lobbying reform, which is long overdue, and two, MPs outside employment. First on lobbying reform, let me say this from the outset, lobbying is a vital part of the public discourse in driving workable policy solutions. shows different viewpoints are heard within government before decisions are made, but we need to know who is being lobbied by whom so that politicians, the public and the media cancurrently scrutinise the machinery of government. Regrettably, that is not the case in the United Kingdom in 2026. Indeed, in July of this year, the Ethics and Integrity Commission published its review, Lobbying, Business Appointment Rules and Disclosure: Access to Government
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to modernise the regime. Doug Chalmers, the EIC's Chair, wrote in that report that, and I quote, "the lobbying system fails to deliver
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required level of transparency, and in doing so fall short of meeting the Nolan principles. Over the years,
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Review after review, scandal after scandal have shown that the current system is broken. Only about 4% of all lobbying activity is required to be declared on the register. consultant lobbyists, that means that 96 out of 100 lobbying interactions at the moment simply fall outside the disclosure requirements, including in-house lobbyists, lobbyists with a turnover below £90,000.
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I thank you for giving me, Madam Deputy Speaker, most people can see mostly who lobbies me because there's pictures on my Facebook page when I meet them. I can'tI do have to correct him. It's wrong to say there's there's robbings not taken seriously in the UK because in Scotland there is
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of Floppiest. So there is things we can learn even inside the UK. It's not perfect
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whether it's something we can learn from. Does he agree?
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Well, I welcome my hon. Friend's contribution. I'm always willing to learn from comparative analysis of what works elsewhere and what
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EIC's recommendations require primary legislation. There's recommendation eight, that the government simply refuses to meet any organisation seeking to lobby it unless that organisation is on the lobbying register. Recommendation 10on one digital repository for transparency releases is a simple fix. How about recommendation 13, that transparency releases
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informal communication channels, including the likes of WhatsApp. But if we are to truly address the deficiencies in our system, then I urge the Government to
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that it serves as more than merely box-ticking.
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Now let me turn to MPs' outside employment, colloquially known as second jobs.This government pledged in the 2024 manifesto it would, and I quote, "task the modernisation committee to take forwardUrgent work on the restrictions that need to be put in place to prevent MPs from taking up roles that stop them serving their
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constituents in the country. In November 2024, the right hon. Member for Manchester Central tasked the Committee on
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how, and I quote, "further work into how changes to the rules on outside
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might be implemented. The Standards Committee opened its inquiry on the 8th of January 2025.
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It took oral evidence in public through to July 2025. Yet more than a year later, no report has been published, no recommendations
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In government no action has been taken due to this delay, and despite my writing to the Secretary
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requesting an update, I've yet to receive a substantive response. Madam Deputy Speaker,Having advised on conflicts of interest in my old job for the good part of more than a decade, and on outside employment and related matters
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months of waiting for a report. After my mentioning this matter previously in the House, after writing to the Select Committee, the
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No progress.
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I said in Westminster Hale more than four months ago that this house is moving at a glacial speed. My fear is
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not good enough. So I will give way. Can I
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suggest that these questions about lobbying and members' outside interests might have turned out to be a little bit more complicated than the Labour manifesto considered them to be.
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And can I also suggest that he approaches the Chair of the Standards Committee because he's a Member of Parliament.
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House, there's only 650 of us. Can I suggest he does that rather than getting on his high horse and criticising the committee because he doesn't know what they're doing?
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It's not difficult to find.
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Well, I thank the right hon. Member for his contribution. As he may have heard, I have approached the
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committee, and I have followed the proceedings that the Standards Committee has been undertaking over the past two years. I have not named any
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in this chamber? I have approached him and I have had correspondence. So, I think the hon. Member will know
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I will be starting frontbench speeches at 4:30 and we do have another member who is wanting to speak.
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And just mine, of course. So, I do want to ask him, does does any of his constituents think it's aIf people are earning hundreds of thousands of pounds outside this chamber, do they think it's complicated about as to whether or not that should be
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I don't think it's complicated. I welcome the hon. Member'sI think it's pretty simple and the government has said this repeatedly that the focus should be on delivering for all constituents. In summary, I asked the Minister, will she do what she can to ensure that this report is expedited? Because across
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And so my final ask, might the Parliamentary Secretary venture to ensure such a meeting takes place as soon as possible?
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And on a four-minute time limit, Adam Thomson.I thank the Member for Mid Dunbartonshire for bringing this debate forwards today for which we are all very grateful. Madam Deputy Speaker, despitewhat the media might have us sometimes think. I think that people in my constituency are not actually that interested in the toing and froing of us here in Westminster.
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and accountability in their politicians and their government.
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ask about the sparring that's happened that week in
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tackle the challenges facing the country and improve people's lives. This is why the Nolan principles matter. They're about restoring trustat a time when many people have lost faith that politics can deliver for them. Rebuilding that confidence requires those in public life to uphold the highest standards of honesty, integrityand accountability. The Nolan principles are not about party politics, they're the core of good public service and they help ensure thatare taken in the public interest. They set out the standards that British people have
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in politics falls, so does our ability
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Standards of conduct are more important than ever. People hear a lot about politics, but they don't
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With political deepfakes,
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towards politicians. I remember the incident last year involving my friend the hon. Member for Mid Norfolk, who I have notified I would be mentioning today.
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A deepfake video was created of him in which the fake version of him announced his defection from the Conservative Party to Reform, which of course the real
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of openness, integrity and honesty. Where uncertainty
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is in the information space exists, people should be able to look to public servants for clarity and not be met with falsehoods or ambiguity. Every story of poormakes it a little harder for people to believe that politics is working for them. Trust is hard to build and easy to lose. Once it's lost,Regaining it takes time, and it has been lost. Just four years ago, Liz Truss sent the currency crashing and interest
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Liaison. This morning I raised an incident in Derbyshire County Council, Madam Deputy Speaker, who had
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Engagement sanctions on our
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lifted, I thought I
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I strongly agree with the Leader of the House, Mr Speaker, when he said it sounded like they were running scared from
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the public to regain faith
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should never be taken for granted. It must be earned and maintained. That's why the Nolan principles, Madam Deputy Speaker, remain as important today
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met Dumbartonshire for
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Madam Deputy Speaker, to become a member of
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this debate. It
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There's no relation at all to most of the people that I have met in this
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But as with most things in life, there are always a few who ruin it for everyone else, those people who don't care quite so much for the niceties. or the traditions.
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So I believe that we must ensure we have the rules and regulations in place to hold those people to account, to uphold the values of publicif we are to restore faith and trust in politics. And I did hear the view of the right hon. Member for Harwich andNorth Essex, that we need a system that supports members, although I'm not sure we entirely agree on the need for a flexible system to get around the conflicts of interest that somespace
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Because if politics isn't clean, if politicians aren't honest and accountable, and if people can't trust those they send to represent them, then frankly what's the point?
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I think Moran would be fine for giving way.
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I will give way.
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Mark's professional experience is a vet. If I broke the rules and lied about it, I'd get struck off. There doesn't seem to be an equivalent standard for
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politicians. And surely politicians should be held to the same account as anyone in a regulated profession, whether that is medicine, teachers, and anyone else who has to be registered and maintain a certainpublic behavior
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I thank my hon. Friend for his contribution, and I think it's a very good point that most other professions are regulated to a much higher degree than than we are in this place.In 1995, Lord Nolan set out seven principles for public life: selflessness, integrity,
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civil service code, but time and time again in recent years these principles have been brushed aside.
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objectivity, accountability,
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As been as has been mentioned by many members here today, take Partygate. While families were separated from dying relatives,And people stood alone at
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Those writing the rules were
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received a gift of £5 million from a wealthy donor but did not declare it. The hon. Member for
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rules, my family included that very week
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Caroline Voaden.
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Madam Deputy Speaker, I believe that I was merely mentioning something that we all know had happened. But whatever the
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Whatever the outcome of that case, there will be many people outside this place who do have questions about £5 million passing quietly to a politician. Integrity means
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on that scale and whether it is
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I thank the hon. Gentleman for his point of order. I'm sure that the noble Lady
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It is little wonder that trust is where it is. People have rightly lost faith
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that is meant to work for them. The issue is that our system depends almost entirely on voluntary compliance. It'sassumes that people who break the rules will admit it, resign and make things right, but anyone
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Rules built on good faith give no protection against those who act in bad faith.
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People are not asking for perfection. They are asking for accountability. They want to know that when someone in public life crosses a line, there will be consequences, which is why the Liberal Democrats have a clear plan to restore standards in public life.Put the ministerial code into law. We have
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called for this repeatedly and we will keep calling for it. A code that is only guidance can be ignored. A code that is law has to be followed.
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Adviser on Ministerial Standards
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We would make the Independent
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The Prime Minister can still raise concerns that stop an investigation in its tracks. The Prime Minister still decides
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what follows from its findings, and the Prime Minister alone still chooses who holds this post.
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and to publish their findings and an appointment confirmed by Parliament, not made by the Prime Minister alone.
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We would also reform the rules on outside work. Voters send us here to work for them. They didn't
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Speaking arrangements. That reform should be led by the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards.
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by MPs deciding
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The simplest way to remove the temptation and the doubt
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is to remove the money. So we would cap individual donations, whatever country a
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So people can see exactly who is paying for politics. I would like to support the remarks by their hon. Member for Bolton West. about lobbying and the transparency
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and you give the public confidence that their voice counts for more
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someone else's bank balance. And these are only some of the changes we would make. Madam Deputy Speaker, trustand politics can be rebuilt, but not through
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apologies or promises
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It will be rebuilt when the rules are enforceable, when they apply to everyone equally, and when breaking them has consequences, and that is what the public expects and it is what theHouse should deliver, thank you.
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Shut up, Minister Charlie Elphicke.
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for Mid Derbyshire for securing it. And may I also thank my hon. Friend the Member for Harwich and North Essex
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Backbench Business Committee for allocating time for this debate as well as the hon. Member for
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for his very powerful contribution earlier in the debate.
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As hon. Members have set out, the Nolan principles, introduced in 1995, are the foundation of trust
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and are the standard all public servants should adhere to.Members of Parliament, to councillors, police
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or uphold different beliefs. We should always work
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crime commissioners and mayors
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of the nation first. That is what these principles of integrity, objectivity, selflessness, accountability, honesty, openness and leadership ensure. The previous Prime Minister arrived in office promising to restore service and respect to politics, Madam Deputy Speaker.
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for him to wander around Downing
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the Taylor Swift concerts, the Adele
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The hon. Gentleman will be aware that the rules of the House are very clear on this. and that the conduct of another member of either House who is sitting cannot be brought into question unless on a substantive motion.
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I apologize for that, Madam Deputy Speaker, and I will continue.
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without further hopefully without further catching your attention on such matters.It is worth saying that the former Prime Minister's total expenses bill was more than any other recent party leader and more than
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that we know that this is known about because everything was declared in the appropriate way and through through the system that that we have in
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houses shouldn't throw stones and we don't need to end up in a tit-for-tat argument today. He's right that those things werebut when it comes to the point I was making about the former ambassador, I think you'll find that the issues that weren't declaredled to that downfall because despite the former Prime Minister being well aware, as he later
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distinguish between that and when people take gifts and conceal it and
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crime, the former Prime Minister's assurances to this
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last year that full due process was followed.
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I will happily give way. Each and every single one of us could talk through a litany of issues or scandals that have happened in years past, but what I'm very keen to hear from the Shadow Minister is his policy proposals, akin to what the Starmer government did ingetting up the Ethics and Integrity Commission, getting rid of the hereditary peers, bringing in to into being more frequent disclosures the transparency. What's
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Malthouse, I will come to the points he has raised in just a few moments.Now, despite Mandelson having failed his vetting and as clearly shows that the
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Let's go into the details of the infamous Leveson.All of this happened under Kerr Starmer's leadership, Madam Deputy Speaker, and I don't think that service and respect will be his legacy. We now have a new Prime Minister whotook over two took over two years into this government promising to do things different. I had hoped to see Nolan principles upheld better under his leadership. do have concerns and I will return to that.
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shortly. Turning to the ways we can improve standards in public life, the government's newly introduced Ethics and Integrity Commission published its first annual
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the government does not yet appear to have responded to that letter. I'm hoping the Ministerin her speech today might be able to enlighten the House as to the Government's views on a number of points. on public service appointments. For a while now, there have been delays with fewer than one in five public service recruitment campaigns completed in
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In their letter, the Commission expresses concerns that there is risk that these lengthyLengthy delays could deter the best candidates from entering public service, so it's useful to know what the government is doing to speed up the
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appointments process. The letter also pointed out that the 2021 Committee on Standards in Public
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not democracy, should engage with all major political parties so the decisions are notto be enacted in a partisan manner and to ensure reforms have democratic legitimacy and are more likely to endure.
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This government has singularly failed in such an approach in its consultation up to this point, and I hope that that can be addressed.
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Furthermore, the previous Conservative government pledged
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also would help promote the Nolan
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My inbox has been full of horror stories from local constituents.
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families who have been able to access their public sector pensions due to
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poor service that Capita is providing. Capita has failed on public service pensions, we're all aware of it, and I will give credit to the Minister for the work she's
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at the moment, and I do wish her all the best, but I'd be grateful if whether she'll find any specific update on whether she's considering the debarment
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the government's conduct, Madam Deputy Speaker, but integrity, objective
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ability are all for all public service servants across the British
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The whole country was shocked by the rape rape gang scandal.
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While the last Prime Minister smeared those calling for a national inquiry as jumping on a far-right
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bandwagon, we have heard allegations that some in authority, including the police, local councils and social services, covered up cases
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Just days before they looked set to lose a vote in Parliament, the government finally U-turned and agreed a national inquiry. Hardly a shining example of the Nolan principles, Madam Deputy Speaker.
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and the SNP government held out against
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Labour and Plaid Cymru voted against commissioning an independent inquiry and
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on whether it's still believes
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Labour the this Labour government has seen resignation
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And the noble gentleman mentions mentions of former Prime Minister who indeed, you know, was was
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to account and as a result lost his job and I think that is an example perhaps of the Nolan principles working. ButThis government is under new management, Madam Deputy Speaker. Kerr Starmer has been replaced by a new Prime Minister who promised to do thingsdifferently differently it seems in this case means
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immediately pointing the right hon. Member for Sheffield Heeley to the First Secretary of State, Shadow Chancellor of the Shadowthe Duchess of Lancaster, the Minister of State for the
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Cabinet Office, overseeing the very debate today, the Standards in Public Life. Madam Deputy Speaker, I do not believe that is necessarily a great
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Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, and I want to welcome this Backbench Business debate on the seven principlespublic life, or as they are known also, the Nolan principles. And I want to thank the hon. Member for Mid Dunbartonshire for bringingthis here today and raising some really important examples from her constituency which I know will have been heard by many people today. councillors can be referred to the Standards Commission in Scotland. Councillors, sorry, and I hope that
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Member for Brighton Kemptown and Peacehaven stood at this Dispatch Box in response to this
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integrity and selflessness. But the right hon. and hon. Members will be aware that we now stand on the brink of significant change when itstandards across a full spectrum of public life. The House knows that the principles are the foundation of standards in public life, something which we all aspire andsomething that unites us across the floor in this and the other place. They sit behind the codes of conduct in place for ministers, special advisers, civil servants, as well asstandards in public life, and the House knows all too well that public trust can be eroded when these standards are ignored and
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I will not seek to rehearse the same arguments made by my hon. Friend last year, but I do wish to talk about the progress we have made in that time and address somethe points raised by hon. Members across the House today. I am delighted to say that the Ethics and Integrity Commission, which sits at the heart of our standards system,has now been operational for 13 months. They've produced their first report into lobbying, theappointment rules and disclosure in July this year. The Chair of the Commission has also reported to the Prime Minister as part of his annualcapabilities, setting out the state of the standards landscape across the public sector. The Prime Minister will be responding to this shortly.And I'm sure the House will be updated then. The Commission is currently looking into public sector codes of conduct in preparationthe commencement of the duty of candour as part of what is widely known as Hillsborough
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We are immensely grateful to the
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work to drive up ethical
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sounded in a busy year and look forward to seeing the progress the
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over the years ahead. The Public Accountability Bull or Hillsboro Law is approaching its final stages in the remaining stages in the House of Lords having already passed in the Commons back inlie and the uh the government is currently working very closely with members in the other place who are rigorously examining that legislation.
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which was not to include first more than first tier contractors.
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therefore to include subcontractors and subcontractors of subcontractors, because it's very evident
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I'll make sure she gets response. I won't take any more interventions just in the context of the time we've got left.
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But if we don't have truth-telling right the way down the system when so many conservices are contracted
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On the points raised by hon. Members in relation to the independent adviser, it's has existed for 20 years advising thePrime Minister's Ministerial Code and is not an independent regulator and the government is not minded to change that in legislation. I want to thank my hon. FriendBolton West for his work on the anti
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the government is working with Parliament to restore a politics of servicewith the high standards expected of public office holders. The Modernisation Committee is exploring ways to
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The government fully supports the inquiry being undertaken by the Standards Committee to consider further changes to the
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rules around second jobs with very limited exceptions such as MPs who need to do a minimum number ofwas to maintain
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existing professional qualifications and I'm sure that
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and all the other things that have been raised in that House in the House today around this will have been heard. To the hon. Member inTo rpenhow, I take his point on mayoral accountability and as he knows I'm working on this very closely as part of the rewiring the state deliveryplan and I hope to be able to update him and others on that very soon. And I also take the pointBayswater by the hon. Member for Kensington and Bayswater on how accountable government needs to be
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arrangements relating to financial disclosure for ministers and senior officials
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transparency around lobbying, including the government's publication of monthly and quarterly integrity data.
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and the business and appointment rules. I want to thank the commission and the Douglas Chalmers as chair.
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for um its thorough and considered work on these important matters. The Government is carefully considering the report's findings and will present agovernment's response to Parliament in the not too distant future. In relation to some of the points raised bythe opposition spokesperson. For legal reasons, I cannot discuss debarment, but he will be aware of what the
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that conforms to the Nolan principles, the
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is committed to a whole system reform of local government standards and their framework to make it stronger and more effective, and we will
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legislator on that when parliamentary time allows.Madam Deputy Speaker, I'm aware I wouldn't have covered all the points raised in today's debate and
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you and the rest of the House will knowGovernment takes standards in public life incredibly serious. I welcome this debate. I welcome all the views that have been heard by thetoday on the Nolan principles, and I look forward to further conversations as this as the government reports backmany of the issues raised today.
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Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, and I'd like to thank everyone who took part in today's debate for their
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as meaningful today as they were thirty years ago. a contract between every holder of public office and the British public. Perhaps
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