Select Committee on Public Administration Seventh Report


2  More than a question of procedure

5. During the course of World War II, cabinet ministers were given ad hoc guidance on procedures it was desirable they should follow. This was subsequently collected into one document and first issued to new ministers by the then Prime Minister, Clement Attlee, in 1945. Since then, the document has grown both in size and status. The original version of Questions of Procedure for Ministers (QPM) was 65 paragraphs long. In 1997 it had doubled in size to 135 paragraphs and in the latest edition, published on 21 July 2005, it has grown by over a quarter again, to 173 paragraphs.

6. The document has become equally weighty in status. When Attlee circulated his guidance he observed only that it might be "convenient" for colleagues. In 1992 the then Prime Minister, John Major, published the document for the first time, thus giving it unprecedented public profile. In 1997 QPM shed its narrowly procedural image and became a fully fledged Ministerial Code, taking its place alongside those for civil servants and special advisers.

7. This change in title underlined how the nature of regulation of ethical standards in public life had changed and developed, even since the CSPL published its first report in 1996. As Peter Riddell of The Times pointed out to us:

    We are now in a much more code-based system. Governments could still get round codes, like the Ministerial Code, but the fact these things are published and are public documents, your committee and the predecessor committee […], getting the code more accepted - all of these things are gains.[2]


2   Oral evidence taken before the Public Administration Select Committee on 2 February 2006, HC (2005-06) 884-i, Q 8 [Mr Peter Riddell] Back


 
previous page contents next page

House of Commons home page Parliament home page House of Lords home page search page enquiries index

© Parliamentary copyright 2006
Prepared 6 September 2006