, Labour's Deputy Leader
and Shadow Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster,
commenting on a new report from the Public Administration and
Constitutional Affairs Committee (PACAC) that
recommends reform to Whitehall's standards and ethics system
including tougher rules on ministers' employment after
leaving government, said:
"The buck stops with the Prime Minister, but despite all the
promises of integrity clearly has no plan to restore
standards in public after years of sleaze and scandal. Instead of
appointing a genuinely independent ethics watchdog with real
teeth, he's showing every sign of seeking to preserve the rotten
ethics regime of his disgraced predecessors.
"Labour will stop the revolving door between Government and the
companies that ministers are supposed to regulate, banning
ministers from lobbying for at least five years after they leave
office and with proper enforcement against those who break the
rules.
"Labour recognises the standards system is broken and we have a
plan to clean up politics. Our genuinely independent Integrity
and Ethics Commission will bring the alphabet soup of existing
committees and bodies that oversee standards in Government under
a single body, removed from politicians. The Commission will have
powers to launch investigations, collect evidence and decide
sanctions.
"We'll deliver the tougher rules and proper enforcement
mechanisms our democracy needs."
