Contribution
I am delighted that the hon. Gentleman is willing to stand up and try to defend the record around Peter Mandelson. I will come to the points he has raised in just a few moments.
As I was saying, the former Prime Minister made assurances to this House, despite Mandelson having failed his vetting. It clearly shows that the Nolan principles of integrity, objectivity, honesty and openness were no longer guiding the former Prime Minister. While this scandal ended up costing him his job, which some may argue is the Nolan principle of accountability in action, unfortunately he tried to cling on to power by throwing the jobs of his chief of staff, Cabinet Secretary, head of the Foreign Office and director of communications in No. 10 under the bus first, along with, it seems, the two remaining Nolan principles of selflessness and leadership.
Governments, like fish, rot from the head down. I will not go on to list all the examples that occurred under that leadership, but it is worth noting that a donor was appointed to the civil service and the Treasury—and I will not go into the detail of the infamous Le Chameau wellies. All of this happened under Keir Starmer’s leadership; I do not think that service and respect will be his legacy. We now have a new Prime Minister, who took over two years into this Government promising to do things differently. I had hoped to see the Nolan principles upheld better under his leadership, but I do have concerns, and I will return to those shortly.
Turning to the ways in which we can improve standards in public life, the Government’s newly introduced Ethics and Integrity Commission published its first annual letter to the Prime Minister last month. As the Government do not yet appear to have responded to that letter, I hope that the Minister will enlighten the House as to the Government’s view on a number of points.
On public service appointments, for a while there have been delays, with fewer than one in five public service recruitment campaigns completed in line with the three-month target. In its letter, the commission expresses concerns that there is risk that the lengthy delays could deter the best candidates from entering public service. It would be useful to know what the Government are doing to speed up the public appointments process. The letter also pointed out that the 2021 Committee on Standards in Public Life report, “Upholding Standards in Public Life”,
“called for all future Independent Advisers to be appointed through an enhanced version of the current process for significant public appointments”.
Again, the House awaits the Government’s opinion on that proposal.
The commission further recommended that the cross-governmental task and finish team, announced in September, looking at political finance and the way in which political parties play a vital role in our democracy, should
“engage with all major political parties so that decisions are not seen to be enacted in a partisan manner”,
to ensure that
“reforms have democratic legitimacy and are more likely to endure.”
This Government have singularly failed at such an approach in their consultation up to this point. I hope that that can be addressed.
The previous Conservative Government pledged to develop a single database to collate and publish departmental returns. The commission’s letter says that work should begin, but this Labour Government have scrapped it. The Conservatives also pledged to modernise the business appointment rules and take a risk-based approach to considering applications. Again, the commission recommends that; again, Labour has failed to deliver. Those proposals would help to promote the Nolan principles, and both were recommended to the Prime Minister by the Ethics and Integrity Commission in its annual letter.
Similarly, under the Procurement Act 2023, the previous Conservative Government introduced a form of accountability for when rules are broken in the public sector by introducing the Debarment Review Service to prevent businesses that are failing to meet standards in their current Government contracts from winning more contracts. Like many MPs, my inbox has been full of horror stories from local constituents and their families who have been unable to access their public sector pensions due to the poor service that Capita is providing. We are all aware that Capita has failed on public service pensions, and I give credit to the Minister for the work that she is doing on that. I wish her all the best, but will she provide a specific update on whether she is considering use of the debarment service for Capita?
My speech has focused heavily on the Government’s conduct, but integrity, objectivity and accountability are for all public servants across the British state. The whole country was shocked by the rape gang scandal. Though the last Prime Minister smeared those calling for a national inquiry as jumping on a far-right bandwagon, we have heard allegations that some in authority, including in the police, local councils and social services, covered up cases because of concerns about so-called community relations, thinking it was more important to do that than to protect vulnerable young children from heinous predators.
It took relentless campaigning and finally, just days before they looked set to lose the vote in Parliament, the Government U-turned and agreed to a national inquiry. Hardly a shining example of the Nolan principles. Meanwhile, in the Senedd, Labour and Plaid Cymru voted against commissioning an independent inquiry, and in Scotland, the SNP Government held out against an inquiry for even longer, finally announcing a date for one just a week ago.
There are some serious questions for the Government to answer on whether they still believe in the Nolan principles of public life. This Labour Government have seen resignations of their homelessness Minister, anti-corruption Minister, Deputy Prime Minister and Housing Secretary, and Transport Secretary, and all of that, we were told, because—