Speeches by Lamb.

“It was recently reported that the Independent Adviser can only investigate a current Minister. It cannot investigate a Minister who is suspended or resigned. Where is that rule set out?”

“If you know you have done wrong in the role and you are about to be found out, you are best off to resign because you will get a severance payment?”

“Regardless of whether or not you were aware of them?”

“If there was something in the central Department, there would be an expectation that you would have been having sufficient control?”

“Given the changes being made to the standards regime and the goal to address some of these issues of public confidence, is this something we could potentially have the Cabinet Office try to do—to assess not necessarily that role but public confidence in the system as a whole?”

“Is there any evidence that we have seen an increase in public confidence as a consequence of the changes made to that role?”

“The point here—and there is obviously a very specific case that comes to mind at the moment around this—is we still teach students this as being a fundamental part of the ministerial role. And I cannot think of a single occasion in the last decade and a half, at least, where any Minister has resigned from their role on…”

“The term that I have heard used throughout my time doing two degrees in politics is “individual ministerial responsibility” but I am happy to take any term within that.”

“Turning to the issue of local government, the Government have indicated that they plan to legislate and introduce a new standards system for local authorities, including a mandatory code. Having been at council quite a long time, this is desperately needed. There was a noticeable decline after the removal of the Standa…”

“It still affects public confidence in the system. Is there a reason you can think of why we would not want former Ministers to be able to be investigated where there had been some evidence of wrongdoing?”

“The premise is that ultimately, regardless of whether or not a Minister is aware of something that is happening within their Department, they are still accountable for it and have to take responsibility?”

“Yes.”

“So the convention that Ministers are not only responsible for their own actions but those undertaken by those underneath them in the structure no longer remains a part of the UK constitution?”

“There may be the odd example. They stand out as outliers for precisely that reason. This is still viewed as being a basic part of a ministerial role in our constitution. As the constitutional affairs Committee, it is challenging to see how it applies when we can point to any number of examples where we would have thoug…”

“One of the concerns we have heard is that people have not understood the local government standards system, which is understandable. What consideration has been given for reducing the complexity and matching it up with the standards regime in Government and Parliament?”

“What do you understand by the term “individual ministerial responsibility”?”

“Consequences have not been absent for a while now from the system. What role do the Government envisage EIC playing in standards at the local level?”

“Mr Madden, the Government have changed the title of the Independent Adviser and increased its ability to initiate inquiries. In practice, what effect do you believe these changes have had?”

“The premise of individual ministerial responsibility is that Ministers are responsible for everything that happens in their Department, regardless of whether or not they are directly involved.”

“You said earlier that for the system to bed in it should not just be purely responsive to what happens at the time, and I agree with that. The rules we create must last well beyond the length of this current Government and need to take into account all possible eventualities as a result of that. I have a hypothetical q…”