Speeches by Lamb.

“That is a very good point. Thank you. At this point, is there any evidence of action being taken by the Government to resolve the issues?”

“On that point, I entered this room thinking I knew what the purpose of the commission was, and now I think it just maintains a database online, as far as I can tell. There was no attempt whatsoever to protect the public interest or the interests of people who are vulnerable who are in the charge of these charities. On …”

“The bit where we can give you some grace is on the point around the current legal position that you are dealing with. Sam has consulted the legislation and given an interpretation of it. I am prepared to accept that maybe there is more to it. If the commission is aware of the problems and restrictions on its current re…”

“So in the view of the Charity Commission, this person would have been fit to serve on a children’s charity dealing with vulnerable children, despite the fact that they had made this request that was clearly wrong?”

“That would mean that the only context that the severance payment might be required to be repaid would be for a breach around those rules?”

“The Government have changed the guidance, so if a Minister has breached the code or is subsequently found to have breached the code, they are expected to pay back their three-month severance payment. If the Independent Adviser does not investigate former Ministers, who makes that judgment?”

“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?”

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

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

“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?”

“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 we do have these areas where former Ministers are still held to account, does that mean that the Prime Minister has the ability, if he chose, to modify the code to enable former Ministers to similarly be investigated?”

“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?”

“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?”

“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?”

“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?”

“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?”

“Yes.”

“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.”