Limit spin doctors say MPs

Mr Campbell is the best known of New Labour's spin doctors

The number of spin doctors employed by the government should be limited by law, according to an influential committee of MPs.

Advisers like Tony Blair's director of communications, Alastair Campbell, should be restricted to a number set out in the government's promised civil service bill.

The Commons public administration committee argues that actual numbers could be set at the beginning of each Parliament and approved by both Houses.

The prime minister is currently able to appoint up to three special advisers with management powers over civil servants under the Order of Council - although he only has two.

They are Mr Campbell and Number 10 chief of staff Jonathan Powell.

Burying bad news

Relationships between government ministers and their special advisers have come under intense scrutiny ever since the row over an e-mail sent by Jo Moore.

Ms Moore - who worked for the then transport secretary Stephen Byers - sent an e-mail within hours of the terror attack on 11 September saying it was a good day to "bury bad news".

She was allowed to keep her job and the subsequent row rumbled on for months until eventually she quit her job just before her boss was forced to leave the government.

The Commons committee has drawn up a discussion paper in which the limits are proposed.

The MPs are also drawing up their own proposed civil service bill.

Committee chairman and Labour MP Tony Wright said: "There is a pressing need for Parliament to play a more active role in helping to maintain ethical standards in the public service.

"A bill would make sure that long-standing public service principles like impartiality and integrity were underpinned by proper Parliamentary debate and discussion, and that proposed changes had a full airing."

He told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "The time has come to say: let's just accept that special advisers are an established part of the way we do government in this country and bring them under the constitution."