Some ex-ministers unclear about rules on outside roles, watchdog says

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Not all former government ministers are “sufficiently clear” on the standards of behaviour, rules and legislation they are bound by after leaving top jobs, an anti-corruption watchdog has said.

Eric Pickles, the chair of the advisory committee on business appointments (Acoba), said he was “increasingly concerned” about behaviour, after the former health minister Steve Brine failed to seek advice on an outside role until after he had taken up the job, in a breach of the rules.

Brine, who was paid ?19,992 a year for 96 hours of work by Sigma, a pharmaceutical company, then asked Nadhim Zahawi, the vaccines minister at the time, to take part in a webinar in February 2021 organised by the firm and hosted by Brine, letters released on Monday showed.

In the documents, Brine said Zahawi had been aware the event was being hosted by him when the minister agreed to attend. The former health secretary Matt Hancock also took part in one of the webinars hosted by Brine, in June 2021.

Lord Pickles said that while he had “no doubt Mr Brine believed contacting the government on Sigma’s behalf was appropriate”, he had “reasonable concern” that he was only able to make “direct engagement” with Zahawi because of his former government job.

He said: “I do not consider it was in keeping with the letter or the spirit of the government’s rules for a former minister at DHSC [the Department of Health and Social Care] to contact a minister with responsibility for health on behalf of a pharmaceutical company which pays him.”

In correspondence with Acoba, Brine, the MP for Winchester, admitted he had “made a mistake, by a few weeks” in not consulting the body before taking up the job and said he could “only apologise again for poor admin on my part”.

He said his interests were properly registered and that “no lobbying on behalf of Sigma took place”, but Pickles said these were different rules and that it was “a former minister’s personal responsibility to understand” which guidelines they must abide by.

Brine said: “More widely, I feel it is important to point out that any attempts in the media designed to smear members of parliament demean the entire political process and the reputation of decent people. At all times I have acted with respect for the, albeit often complex, rules that rightly exist to regulate any outside interests we have.”

Brine, who was a health minister between 2017 and 2019, said his role with Sigma ended in November 2021.

In a letter to the Cabinet Office minister Steve Barclay, Pickles said he was “growing increasingly concerned that not all former ministers of the crown are sufficiently clear on the various standards of behaviour, rules and legislation that are incumbent on them.”

Labour’s deputy leader, Angela Rayner, who wrote to Pickles about the case, said: “From the revolving door to crony contracts, the scandals just keep mounting for a Conservative party mired in sleaze from the prime minister down. Even the government’s in-house committee is ‘increasingly concerned’ about the behaviour of former Tory ministers and has called on them to act.

“Labour will ban ministers for at least five years after they leave office and create a genuinely independent watchdog to enforce the rules, ending the days that Tory politicians could profit from privileged access, information and taxpayers’ money. Enough is enough.”