PARLIAMENTARY DEBATE
Ministerial Code - 23 April 2026 (Commons/Commons Chamber)

Good morning, Mr Speaker. It is nice to be back in the Chamber. [Laughter.]

Since coming into office, the Prime Minister has published a new and strengthened ministerial code that places emphasis on the importance of public service and new principles on gifts and hospitality, and includes strengthened powers for the independent adviser on ministerial standards. The Prime Minister has also introduced new rules on severance. Ministers who leave office after having been found to have seriously breached the code are expected to forgo their severance pay, and former Ministers who are found to have seriously breached the business appointment rules are expected to repay any severance too. Colleagues across the House will remember the spectacle of former Tory Minister after former Tory Minister receiving it during the last Parliament, but that has now ended under this Labour Government.

I was reading the ministerial code just yesterday evening. Paragraph 2.1 states:

“The Prime Minister is the ultimate judge of the standards of behaviour expected of a minister and the appropriate consequences of a breach of those standards.”

That provides clarity on how Ministers can be held to account by the Prime Minister. However, as the old saying goes, “Who watches the watchmen?” When there is a concern about whether the Prime Minister’s conduct goes against the ministerial code, does the Minister agree that the code itself needs strengthening so that the PM can be held to its standards?

I reassure the hon. Member and the House that the ultimate accountability for the Prime Minister is both to this House and to the public at a general election.

It is really great that Ministers have rapidly set about reforming the ministerial code so that never again will the public purse be forced to pay out £253,720 for ex-Ministers who were in post for less than six months, as happened in 2022 under the Tories. Now that we hear about Peter Mandelson, the payoff he wanted and the payoff he got, are the Government open to the logic of applying the same principles of the ministerial code to disgraced ex-political appointee ambassadors, perchance? That way, we can restore consistency.

My hon. Friend will recognise that appointments to the civil service are made on the basis of employment law, which is different from the situation for Ministers and Members of this House, but it is right that the Government have changed the rules to ensure that disgraced politicians do not receive payouts for wrongdoing, which is what happened under the last Conservative Administration.

I call the shadow Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster.

Paragraph 1.6.c of the ministerial code states:

“It is of paramount importance that ministers give accurate and truthful information to Parliament, correcting any inadvertent error at the earliest opportunity.”

Yesterday, the Prime Minister said to the House that Sir Olly Robbins

“went on to say: ‘I…have complete confidence that… recommendations to me and the discussion we had and the decision we made were rigorously independent of’ any ‘pressure.’”—[Official Report, 22 April 2026; Vol. 784, c. 316.]

What Sir Olly actually said to the Foreign Affairs Committee was:

“I also have complete confidence that their recommendations to me and the discussion we had and the decision we made were rigorously independent of that pressure.”

Sir Olly said “that” pressure, not “any” pressure. The Prime Minister materially changed Sir Olly’s meaning. Robbins was clear that he had been put under pressure. Does the Chief Secretary to the Prime Minister know whether the Prime Minister intends to correct the record?

I think the difference between the words “that” and “any” is not of material relevance to the question that the shadow Minister is putting to the House. The Prime Minister has not misled the House. The testimony of the Prime Minister and of Sir Olly Robbins is very clearly on the record, and that makes the case.

The Chief Secretary to the Prime Minister is perfectly intelligent enough to know that there is an enormous difference between those two words. I will remind him that the Prime Minister is bound by the ministerial code.

Yesterday, the Prime Minister also told the House:

“Sir Olly was absolutely clear that nobody put pressure on him to make this appointment”—[Official Report, 22 April 2026; Vol. 784, c. 316.]

but that is not what Sir Olly said to the Foreign Affairs Committee. He actually said:

“Throughout January, honestly, my office and the Foreign Secretary’s office were under constant pressure.”

Again, he said that

“while I think the Department felt under pressure, we were proud of the fact that we had not bowed to that pressure.”

Again, he said that Philip Barton’s handover to him

“contributed to my strong sense that there was an atmosphere of pressure”.

To avoid being in breach of the ministerial code, Ministers must correct the record at the earliest available opportunity. At the very latest, the earliest opportunity is now. Will the Prime Minister correct the record?

It is not the view of the Prime Minister or the Government that the Prime Minister needs to do so.

I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.

At Prime Minister’s questions yesterday, when asked by my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Ed Davey), the Prime Minister failed to deny that he knew that his team were lobbying for a head of mission role for Matthew Doyle, and that they were doing so with his authority. Under the ministerial code, he has clear duties of transparency to this House. For No. 10 to ask the Foreign Office to find a plum diplomatic job for another Labour mate who was friends with a convicted sex offender, let alone to then keep it secret from the Foreign Secretary, is completely shocking. The Prime Minister has shown another catastrophic lack of judgment. Will the Minister ensure that an inquiry is launched by the Cabinet Secretary to determine who did the lobbying and why, and what the Prime Minister knew and when?

The Prime Minister has spent very many hours at the Dispatch Box this week being held to account and answering questions on a whole range of issues. In respect of the particulars of the hon. Lady’s question, I refer her to the Prime Minister’s words of only yesterday.