Ethics watchdog warns PM risks creating suspicion about ministerial code

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A powerful ethics watchdog has rowed in behind Boris Johnson’s ethics adviser, Christopher Geidt, warning that the prime minister’s approach to upholding standards in government risks creating lingering suspicion over the ministerial code.

Jonathan Evans, the chair of the committee on standards in public life and a former head of MI5, published a statement on Wednesday criticising changes to the way the ministerial code will be policed, which were announced by Downing Street on Friday.

In particular, he attacks the decision not to allow Lord Geidt, the ethics adviser who reportedly threatened to resign this week, to launch his own inquiries without Boris Johnson’s permission, as the committee had called for in a recent report.

While rejecting that proposal, No 10 said last week it would implement another change recommended by the committee – allowing ministers to escape resignation for minor infractions. Lord Evans said it was “highly unsatisfactory” that the government had accepted some elements of the package and not others.

“I agree with Lord Geidt that this represents a ‘low level of ambition’. The new arrangements fail to address the risk of what Lord Geidt describes as a ‘circular process’: an adviser who believes their advice will be rejected will simply not put forward advice at all, with the precedent already established that this will lead to the adviser’s resignation,” he warned.

Even before the Partygate scandal, Johnson’s government had been accused of undermining standards in public life, including by overruling the finding of Geidt’s predecessor Alex Allan that the home secretary had bullied staff, albeit inadvertently. Allan resigned in protest.

Evans said Johnson’s changes, which prompted accusations that he was watering down the system, would not “restore public trust”. Instead, he warned that “suspicion about the way in which the ministerial code is administered will linger”.

Geidt used his annual report, published on Tuesday, to pose what he called the “legitimate question” of whether Johnson had broken the ministerial code in receiving a fixed-penalty notice for breaching lockdown rules. The code includes an “overarching duty” to comply with the law.

Geidt reportedly considered resigning over the fact that, until Tuesday evening, Johnson had failed to make any statement setting out why he believed he had not broken the code. However, it is understood he now has no intention of stepping down.

The prime minister, who is the ultimate arbiter of the ministerial code, then published a letter in which he exonerated himself on several grounds including the fact that he had apologised, and did not believe he was breaking the rules at the time.

He also stated that he believed the principles of good conduct in public life, which include selflessness and integrity, remained “the bedrock of standards in our country and in this administration”.

Johnson still faces an investigation by the House of Commons privileges committee over whether he lied to MPs, when repeatedly asserting that “all guidance was followed” in Downing Street.

The committee on standards in public life is an independent body advising the prime minister. Evans had already expressed concerns about the government’s proposed changes to the standards system.

In Geidt’s annual report, he appeared to be trying to avoid that eventuality by declining to advise the prime minister about whether Johnson himself had breached the code.