4 The use of inquiries
11. The Government's claim is that there is no single
approach to the investigation of allegations of ministerial misconduct
that would be helpful in all cases. It is this, in their view,
which is the argument against a defined office, whether a panel
or a single official. Lord Butler, the former Cabinet Secretary,
was still very much of this view:
I have always said in the past that it depends
on the circumstances. […] you have to have, I think, horses
for courses on these things. There are some things which, and
many examples of it, where you need a judicial inquiry, a judge
sort of person, particularly when people's reputations are at
stake and you need to have a very fair process. There may
be things where it is the police who ought to look at them. My
view is I have always argued against having a set panel
of people who do this. […] I do not think that you can
have a one-size-fits-all piece of machinery for dealing with
these matters.[9]
12. Another of our witnesses, Professor Anthony King
of Essex University, was equally discouraging:
My own disposition is to think that to give one
person or the occupant of one role that job is probably misguided.
There is a lot more to be said for the Prime Minister, in his
own political interest quite apart from anything else, saying,
"This is a complicated, difficult matter", and getting
somebody who is appropriate to deal with that situation. That
person may not be either Sir John Bourn or Gus O'Donnell; it may
be somebody else who can do a good job. There are one or two instances
in which that has happened.[10]
13. So governments have tended to institute ad
hoc inquiries, in those instances where the case for some
sort of inquiry has been ceded. Yet these have met with only partial
success. Sir Anthony Hammond's inquiry of January 2001, into the
circumstances surrounding an application for naturalisation by
Mr S P Hinduja in 1998, may have finally established the facts
but came too late to save Peter Mandelson's ministerial career.
It was, in any case, never part of its function "to examine
the reasons which led to Mr Mandelson's resignation".[11]
Sir Alan Budd's investigation into allegations that the then Home
Secretary had misused his position in an application for indefinite
leave to remain, produced circumstantial evidence to suggest that
officials may have been prioritising a visa application in the
belief that this was at ministerial request. It was not conclusive,
but Mr Blunkett resigned. Nonetheless Sir Alan was clear in his
report that he had:
… not regarded it as appropriate […]
to express views on the application of the Ministerial Code of
Conduct to the conduct of Mr Blunkett. These are matters for others
and there is a well-established machinery for examining these
issues, including the propriety of Ministers' actions as Members
of Parliament.[12]
14. Giving evidence to the Committee at the time,
Sir Alan regarded "the Ministerial Code of Conduct and inquiries
relating to such matters as a special topic to be dealt with in
a special way by special bodies whose job it is to make such inquiries".[13]
However, when he was pressed what such machinery was he conceded
that he had "always rather liked the British genius for improvisation
and variety and those sorts of things so that you do not have
a set solution".[14]
9 Oral evidence taken before the Public Administration
Select Committee on 2 March 2006, HC (2005-06) 660-iii, Q 156
[Lord Butler] Back
10
Oral evidence taken before the Public Administration Select Committee
on 8 June 2006, HC (2005-06) 884-vii, Q 402 [Professor King] Back
11
Sir Anthony Hammond KCB, QC, Review of the Circumstances Surrounding
an Application for Naturalisation by Mr S P Hinduja in 1998,
HC 287, March 2001, para 1.6 Back
12
Sir Alan Budd, An Inquiry into an Application for Indefinite
Leave to Remain, HC 175, December 2004, para 1.16 Back
13
Oral evidence taken before the Public Administration Select Committee
on 12 January 2005, HC (2004-05) 51-iii, Q 808 [Sir Alan
Budd] Back
14
Ibid., Q 866 [Sir Alan Budd] Back
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