4 days ago
The Guardian view on standards in politics: a golden reform opportunity squandered
A year ago, following Labour's election win and the Conservative rout, the new government's standing could hardly have been higher or its opportunities greater. The political field lay open, in ways that it only does after an election, for serious political reform. One of the most trenchant sections of Sir Keir Starmer's election manifesto had pinpointed 'a crisis of confidence in our political system'. Labour had accordingly promised 'a reset in our public life'.
Twelve months ago, the voters gave permission to Sir Keir to do just that. Fatally, he failed to seize the opportunity. Instead, the chance to make radical change to Britain's government and politics has largely been squandered. As a result, the work of rebuilding confidence has become harder than ever, as the continuing rise of Reform UK makes clear.
The government's new ethics and integrity commission, a manifesto promise, should have been launched decisively last year on a tide of post-election reforming commitment and goodwill. Instead, momentum was lost by the freebie furore and wider policy failures. Long overdue, the commission was quietly announced on Monday in a written parliamentary statement to MPs, which few of them are likely to have read, on the eve of the summer recess.
It is false to claim, as the Conservatives did this week, that this was a Labour attempt to bury bad news. The Tories are in no position to talk, having so often trashed the existing standards regimes in recent years. But Labour should be ashamed. It should not have left things unaddressed for so long, so that the impetus for post-Tory reform and for rebuilt trust were wasted.
The statement, published by the Cabinet Office minister Pat McFadden, is fine as far as it goes. Uncertainty over whether the commission would be an oversight body for standards regulation, or would bundle up the work of established committees and regulators, has been resolved. It will mainly be the former, beefing up and replacing the committee on standards in public life (as advocated by Sir John Major) while leaving individual cases to a reduced number of regulatory bodies. The current advisory committee on business appointments will also be scrapped, with its ministerial and civil service arms enforced by separate bodies. As a tidying-up exercise, this all makes sense.
The real problem is that a golden chance to reform the system in a watertight way has been passed up. The McFadden statement implies ministers want to avoid legislation to set up the commission. The result is that enforcement is not properly addressed or strengthened. The role of independent scrutiny, essential for public confidence, is left hanging.
The statement leaves enforcement sanctions too vague. It is good that ex-ministers should 'be expected' to lose their severance pay if they take post-ministerial jobs that raise conflicts of interest. But what if that expectation is not fulfilled? Or if the rewards of such jobs are so high that the loss of severance pay is treated as a price worth paying? The system risks looking toothless.
Cleaning up politics is not an optional priority. It is a compulsory one. These steps don't go far enough. Nor do they suggest a ruthless culture of ethical behaviour, led from the top, of the kind required. Mr McFadden's statement accepts that the changes will depend on the public's wider view of the work of politicians and government. That is indeed the problem. But there is not enough here to shift that dial.
