, Deputy Leader of the
Labour Party and Shadow Chancellor of the Duchy of
Lancaster, has written to raising "serious questions and
concerns" about the findings of his investigation on the Downing
Street refurbishment.
The text from the letter is below.
----------
Dear ,
You wrote to the Prime Minister last month regarding his failure
to disclose to you WhatsApp communications with , the text of which have now
been made public. You yourself note in the correspondence with
the Prime Minister that you doubt you would have reached the same
conclusions, without qualification, in your previous report had
those message been made available to you.
However, you do not appear to have revised those conclusions, nor
addressed some of the issues that have been raised by the
information that is now available. This raises a number of
serious concerns and questions.
Your previous report concluded that "In respect of , as a member of the House of
Lords his interests are set out publicly and there is no evidence
that he acted with anything other than altruistic and
philanthropic motives" and that as such there was no
potential conflict of interest.
However, the WhatsApp messages clearly
show the discussion between the Prime Minister and
about the release of funds
also covered the 'Great Exhibition 2.0' project in which
had a personal
interest. The Prime Minister offers positive support for the
project in the same exchange of messages in which he
pursues funding for the refurbishment of his
flat. Just 6 weeks later met the relevant Secretary of
State to discuss the Great
Exhibition 2.0 and the involvement of the Royal Albert
Hall, of which he is a trustee. Official statements
have indicated that this arose from the Prime Minister referring
to the Department following
this exchange.
Do you stand by your original conclusion
that there could be "no reasonably
perceived conflict" in the Prime Minister seeking the support of
a donor who at the same time is lobbying him for government
support of a project they are promoting?
It is irrelevant in this regard whether Lord Brownlow’s motives
are altruistic; the issue is that a reasonable person could
surely perceive that his financial relationship with the Prime
Minister has provided him with privileged access to government,
and that relationship was undeclared at the time.
This leads me to a more serious and general point. You appear to
set the standard for a potential conflict of interest as being
that in your personal judgement any third party was acting with
altruistic motives. This is not the test that is set out by the
Ministerial Code. It is also a far weaker one than is set, for
example, by the House of Commons Members’ Code of Code. This
suggests that you will hold Ministers to a lower standard of
transparency than backbench MPs.
Can you assure me that is not the case, and will not be
the standard you set in future?
The Ministerial Code states "Ministers must scrupulously
avoid any danger of an actual or perceived conflict of interest
between their Ministerial position and their private financial
interest” and that “no Minister should
accept gifts, hospitality or services from anyone which would, or
might appear to, place him or her under an obligation”. Your
original report accepted that funding for the luxury
renovation of the Downing Street flat is a private interest,
and a publicly-funded and
government-endorsed national cultural events
is clearly a matter ministerial
responsibility. Indeed, it is obvious from the exchanges
that the personal support of the Prime Minister, in his official
capacity, is exactly what sought.
Can you clarify how the exchange of
messages does not breach the Code in this
regard?
You note originally that the Prime Minister accepted that the
blind trust had been set up without further questioning because
he was working through the pandemic. You will know that in
November 2020 the country was gripped by a second national
lockdown and anxieties about the Christmas period were
high. Yet in this period the Prime
Minister still managed to find time to message about his hugely expensive
flat refurbishment.
Do you continue
to believe that because
it was "in the middle of a
pandemic" the "normal
circumstances" in which "a Prime Minister might reasonably be
expected to be curious about the arrangements, and especially the
financial arrangements that led to the refurbishment of his
apartment at Downing Street" were not
applicable, despite the Prime Minister evidently being curious
enough to correspond with ?
Finally, I note that you have not issued a new report or amended
your original report on the matter. The correspondence is of
course helpful in making transparent the discussions you have
had, but you say the WhatsApp messages would add qualifications
to your findings. Surely, therefore, those qualifications should
be expressed formally in a new, or amended report?
As this is a matter of great public interest, I look forward to
your swift response to the points raised.
Yours sincerely,
Angela Rayner
