Current rules allowing government ministers to enjoy less scrutiny of their financial interests than backbench MPs “can’t be right”, parliament’s outgoing standards chief has said.

Andy Gregory www.independent.co.uk

Appointed commissioner for standards in 2017, Kathryn Stone’s term came to an end in December, after a bruising series of high-profile investigations into ex-Commons speaker John Bercow and former Tory MP Owen Paterson, whose case triggered the collapse of Boris Johnson’s premiership.

In her first interview about the role, Kathryn Stone said that one of her “real frustrations” has been failing to persuade the government to ensure that those in both MP and ministerial roles are held equally accountable.

But the retiring watchdog hailed the “hugely important” move to hand the members of the public who sit on the Commons standards committee, known as “lay members”, the power to vote on investigations, enacted after its MPs blocked her attempt to probe bullying claims against Mr Bercow in 2018.

And speaking after revelations that Tory MPs have pocketed a total of £15.2m on top of their salaries since 2019, Ms Stone hit out at parliamentarians for whom being an MP is their “second, third or fourth job”.

While ordinary MPs have to register their financial interests with the standards commissioner within 28 days, with a new list published every fortnight, ministers can choose to declare some gifts and hospitality under their department’s name instead, in less detailed lists published quarterly.

This “ministerial exemption” saw Mr Johnson opt not to declare a free holiday at Zac Goldsmith’s luxury Spanish villa in 2021, enabling him to keep the gift’s value private.

Meanwhile, his home secretary Priti Patel took five months to declare attending the No Time To Die premiere as a guest of the Jamaican tourist board, resulting in an ally suggesting she used the “exemption” because the nature of the fictional film related to her ministerial role.

“One of my real frustrations has been not being able to persuade government, parliament about the need to have a kind of equality of arms, if you like, between ministers’ financial interests, and backbench MPs’ financial interests,” Ms Stone told The Times.

“For me, it can’t be right that ministers are held to a different level of accountability. In fact, a lower level of accountability than backbench MPs. That can’t be right because ministers are in an elevated position and much more, it seems to me, at risk of there being a perception of influence.

“And I really do believe that ministers should be held to the same level of accountability as backbench members of parliament.”

MPs on the standards committee are in agreement, having repeatedly called on the government to close the accountability gap, most recently last May, as part of a series of recommendations aimed at cracking down on “sleaze” in the wake of the scandals involving Tory MPs Geoffrey Cox and Mr Paterson.

The committee also called for a ban on MPs acting as consultants, providing “paid parliamentary advice or strategy services”, a move backed in September by Liz Truss’s short-lived government.

Ms Stone was supportive of MPs having other paid roles, however, saying that their “outside interests can bring a very rich seam of knowledge, skill and experience” to Westminster.

“When it tips over to the point where being a member of parliament is your second, third or fourth job, then that’s problematic for me,” said Ms Stone.

“And it’s also problematic for members of the public who elect a representative and expect their interests to be the priority of the member of parliament and not somewhere down the pecking order.

“So I think when MPs are thinking about outside interests, there needs to be a consideration of what that means for their ability to carry out their democratically elected mandate here, which brings enormous responsibility and is an enormous privilege.”

On Sunday it will be five years since the outsourcing giant Carillion collapsed under the weight of £1.5bn debt.

by Rachel Wearmouth go.pardot.com 

The mega-firm held around 450 separate public-sector contracts, spanning schools, prisons, transport and hospitals. 

Its bosses were paid huge six-figure salaries and bonuses before the companycollapsed; 3,000 jobs were lost and 7,000 suppliers and contractors were affected.

Carillion’s collapse was particularly catastrophic because the firm was so deeply embedded in public life. Vital infrastructure projects were delayed; schools suddenly found themselves with no cleaning or catering services.

The accounting firm KPMG was later fined £14.4m for misleading the accounting regulator, the Financial Reporting Council, during inspections of its audits of Carillion and another company. A new watchdog to shake up the audit market and rebuild trust in corporate governance was promised, but after a number of reviews the draft legislation is still buried in a lengthy consultation.

To examine what lessons the government has failed to learn about outsourcing more generally, it is worth looking at children’s social care.

The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) launched a review of the sector in 2021 amid concern the high cost of private sector children’s care homes was draining council budgets while demand was steadily rising.

In England 79 per cent of places for children are provided by the private sector. The Scottish and Welsh governments are aiming to end for-profit care for looked-after children, but there is no such plan for England. This is despite the landmark Independent Review of Children’s Social Care, published last May, which criticised rampant profiteering and warned that “without a dramatic whole-system reset” of family services there could be 100,000 children in care (up from 80,000) by 2032.

If that unhappy prediction comes to pass, the companies involved in care provision stand to make a lot of money. The service providers considered by the CMA averaged profit margins of 22.6 per cent between 2016 and 2020. Most councils in England have at least one looked-after child whose private placement costs at least £10,000 a week, and in some extreme cases that number can run to £60,000 a week.

It recommended bringing some aspects, such as fostering agencies (many of which rely on agency workers, who can demand higher rates), back in-house, as councils were paying high prices for a service they could provide and save money on long-term, given extra investment. More worryingly, the CMA warned some large providers were “carrying high levels of debt”, especially those run by private equity firms, increasing the “risk of disorderly firm failure, with children’s homes shutting their doors abruptly”. Sound familiar?

There are broader questions as to why asset-strippers continue to prowl the public sector while investment in the wider economy is weak, but Carillion’s ruinous failure should have pushed the government to act half a decade ago. There is scant evidence it has.

A Wiltshire Council gritting yard is being used as a make-shift morgue after its local hospital hit capacity. Bodies are being stored at High Post Salt Store near Salisbury in response to an increase in need across Salisbury NHS Foundation Trust.

Hannah Currie www.wiltshirelive.co.uk

The trust has confirmed that security guards will monitor refrigeration units at the site, used to cope with an increase in demand, for 24-hours a day. They added that despite the location, it will treat “deceased and loved ones with dignity and respect at all times regardless”.

A spokesperson for Salisbury NHS Foundation Trust said: “We can confirm that we have opened additional mortuary capacity to accommodate an increase in need across the local community.

“Our mortuary service operates to the national standards treating the deceased and loved ones with dignity and respect at all times regardless of location. All our additional capacity provides privacy and has 24/7 security” it added.

Cllr Richard Clewer, Leader of Wiltshire Council, added: “We are supporting our partners at Salisbury District Hospital during this period of extreme pressure for the NHS.

“The site at High Post is private and is an appropriate location to provide this facility, and it is guarded by security at all times. Our staff are specially trained to work in a professional and proper manner, and behave respectfully and sensitively at all times.”

East Devon leads the way in showing how essential it is for the “ABCs” (anyone but the conservatives) to form alliances and coalitions – they work! – Owl

The Conservatives will continue running Plymouth City Council despite suffering a twin by-election defeat.

www.bbc.co.uk

Will Noble gained a seat for Labour in Moor View and the Greens’ Lauren McLay took Plympton Chaddlewood.

Following the election on Thursday, Labour has 25 seats and the Conservatives 23.

However, neither party has the 29 councillors needed for an overall majority.

Conservative leader Richard Bingley said he would not resign.

He blamed the defeats on “national issues” for his party and said the results were a “litmus test” for the Conservative government.

Will Noble, who won the Moor View ward for Labour, said: “There’s a lot of worry and disappointment at the way things have been run and the way things are going and it’s about trying to offer people a bit of hope that actually services and things can improve and that things won’t just get worse.”

Analysis from Ewan Murrie, Political Reporter

It was a set of results that many Conservatives had privately expected – but the party will still be worried about the direction of travel.

Last night, the Greens clinched their second council seat in less than a year in the previously blue ward of Plympton Chaddlewood.

Labour says its win has bolstered hopes of winning back the Moor View parliamentary seat – which it lost to the Conservatives in 2015.

The Tory council leader has pinned blame for the defeats on his party’s national woes, calling the by-elections a “litmus test” for the government.

But infighting among the local Tory ranks will not have gone unnoticed. The group’s on its third leader since 2020 and has also lost scores of councillors.

Plymouth remains under no overall control.

Labour is unlikely to call a no confidence vote before the May elections – leaving the Tories to push through a difficult budget in February.

Lauren McLay said: “It means that we can hold the administration to account better.

“It means that we can scrutinise more. And it also means that we will be able to stand up and present our ideas a little bit more. But ultimately, I just hope that it means that the people that we represent have better representation.”

The election was prompted after the previous councillors stood down following complaints they had moved out of the area and could no longer serve local residents.

Turnout in Plympton Chaddlewood was 23.76% and in Moor View it was 26.04%.