Tories demand ministerial watchdog

Lord Neill is challenged over the ministerial code

Shadow cabinet office minister Andrew Lansley has called for an independent office to be established to scrutinise potential breaches in the ministerial code of conduct.

In a letter to Lord Neill, the chairman of the committee on standards in public life, Mr Lansley accuses Tony Blair of failing to meet his responsibility to enforce the code.

Mr Lansley refers to Lord Neill's recommendation that both the ministerial code and the way it is presented should be redrafted.

Lansley issued challenge

"The purpose of the proposal you made, as I understood it, would be to make clear that not only should ministers be responsible themselves for meeting the requirements of the code, and that they are responsible to parliament for their conduct, but that also the prime minister remains the ultimate judge of the requirements of the code and the consequences of breaches of it," Mr Lansley wrote.

He requests that Lord Neill and his committee considers the creation of an independent office "since the prime minister will not meet his responsibility to determine whether or not the code has been breached".

The code was tightened when Labour came to power with the implication that ministers would have stronger principles than the previous Tory government.

Prescott's flat

Among the examples submitted in Mr Lansley's letter is the issue of the lease of a flat by Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott from the RMT rail union which Mr Lansley first outlined in July last year.

"This case illustrated three problems with the prime minister's approach: first, that he is prepared to regard an inquiry by the House of Commons standards and privileges committee, measured against the requirements of the register of members' interests, as sufficient to meet the test of the ministerial code," Mr Lansley wrote.

Mr Lansley also complained that Mr Blair allowed his deputy prime minister to be "judge and jury in his own case".

Mr Prescott was given a mild reprimand after he failed to declare his tenancy of a flat owned by the RMT.

But the standards and privileges committee rejected complaints that he was guilty of a conflict of interests.

Thwarted

Mr Lansley also said that he believes he is unable to get a "substantive investigation of alleged breaches using parliamentary processes" in the current system.

He points to the size of Labour's Commons majority thwarting any critical motion and ministers able to use their "discretion to answer questions as they see fit".

And in what could be taken to as a challenge to the authority of Lord Neill's committee, the senior Conservative said that "the inadequacy of the scrutiny of compliance with the ministerial code in practice must ... bring into question the continuing validity of your committee's judgement that no external investigating body is required".

Revised code

On becoming prime minister in 1997, Mr Blair issued a revised Code of Conduct and Guidance on Procedures for Ministers.

It warns ministers that they must "scrupulously avoid any danger of an actual or apparent conflict of interest between their ministerial position and their private financial interests".

It states: "It is a well established and recognised rule that no minister or public servant should accept gifts, hospitality or services from anyone, which would, or might appear to, place him or her under an obligation."