My Lords, the first and to date the only edition of the Cabinet Manual was published in 2011 by the Cameron Government as, to quote the Cabinet Office, a
“guide to laws, conventions and rules on the operation of government.”
Ten years on, in 2021, the Government advised, in a letter dated 5 March from Simon Case, Cabinet Secretary to the chair of the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee, that it did not plan to update the manual in the short term. The Constitution Committee decided to conduct a short inquiry to explore whether it needed to be updated, the process for doing so, how Parliament should be involved, and what role the manual should play as a public document.
To set the Cabinet Manual in its historical context, amidst allegations of misconduct in public life, the Committee on Standards in Public Life—the Nolan committee—was established by the former Prime Minister, the right honourable Sir John Major, to advise on how standards could be raised. The committee outlined the Seven Principles of Public Life, known as the Nolan principles, a set of ethical standards that those working in the public sector should adhere to.
The standards of conduct and behaviour to be adhered to by Ministers, parliamentarians and officials have been articulated in various codes, including the Ministerial Code, the Civil Service Code and the Code of Conduct for Special Advisers. They all explicitly incorporated the Nolan principles. They include enforcement mechanisms should breaches occur, which generally rest upon soft rather than hard-law remedies. The Cabinet Manual followed on from the publication of the codes. Initiated by the right honourable Gordon Brown and concluded by the right honourable David Cameron, it was inspired in part by the New Zealand Cabinet Manual.
The coalition Government published a draft edition in December 2010 for public consultation, including engagement with Select Committees in both Houses. The manual was endorsed by the Cabinet. It reaches across a wide ground: issues such as the monarchy, elections and government formation, the Cabinet, Ministers, the Civil Service, devolved Administrations, the EU, finances and public information, and more.
As to its status, the manual is intended to provide authoritative guidance to Ministers and officials by recording, rather than being the source of, rules and practice on the operation of government, and therein lies its value. It is a work of reference, recording, rather than prescribing, constitutional rules, including conventions and practices set out in official documents. It does not require behavioural standards beyond what is required by the codes or by law. Accordingly, it does not include enforcement mechanisms, although it broke some new ground with the content regarding elections and government formation.
My Lords, I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Drake, on what she has just said and on securing a slot debating this issue. That we are debating it as the last item on a Friday afternoon before Christmas has some message in it, given that it is a key constitutional issue, but I leave noble Lords to deduce that for themselves.
I view this debate and the whole issue as a replacement exercise: we are searching for how to replace the standards, conventions and moral behaviour patterns of a past age with something new and more effective. The fundamental point, of course, is that the rule of law must apply to both rulers and ruled at all levels. That is why we know Soviet communism failed eventually and why Chinese Communist Party rule will eventually fail despite the brilliance of the Chinese people and their economy. The question for us is how to deal with this problem in an age of hypercomplexity and hyperconnectivity.
This search began in modern times back in the 1930s with Lord Keynes and his belief that his kind of modern economy and society would be run smoothly by educated administrators and enlightened governors all sharing the same principles and duties—a marvellously civilised and unprejudiced elite, mostly, by implication, from the middle class and public schools. I tried to expand on this in my book Freedom and Capital in the early 1980s, but we are told that Clive Priestley in the Cabinet Office first called it in 1985 “the good chaps theory of government”. More recently, that expression has been given wings brilliantly by that 21st century Bagehot, my noble friend Lord Hennessy, whom we are going to hear from shortly.
What it all boils down to is that there was assumed to be a certain unwritten exemplar of behaviour and decency in the way that government was conducted which there was no need to write down, but now, in this very different day, age and context, that no longer works. Hence the intensified calls to fall back on up-to-date written codes and guidance telling us how constitutional government works and what rules should be observed—and so enter the Cabinet Manual that we are now discussing, the Ministerial Code, the Civil Service Code and a whole host of other rulebooks.
My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lady Drake for introducing the debate in such a masterly way. The work of the Constitution Committee is largely unsung, but it provides a vital service to the House, and it reminds us, among other things, of the seriousness of our constitutional role. I will open my contribution as she ended hers. She concluded with a quote from the Cabinet Secretary on culture and referred to the role of the manual in the proper conduct of public and political life and to the public’s trust in government. I come to the report through the prism of culture to ask: what can the public expect from us as parliamentarians, and what behaviours are they entitled to expect? What are the cultural norms that generate trust in the public and the electorate?
I was a member of the Nolan committee, the first Committee on Standards in Public Life. I was invited to serve by the then Prime Minister, John Major, in the wake of the exposure of a number of dubious activities by Members of Parliament, culminating in the so-called cash-for-questions scandal that was perceived to threaten the stability of the then Government. My contact with parliamentarians until that point had largely been as an advocate, but I knew only a small number of MPs and committees, and I was definitely in awe of Parliament and its responsibilities. I remember the huge responsibility I felt, and how difficult but important the task ahead seemed. Nevertheless, the seven principles of public life which the committee produced have subsequently been embedded in the standards landscape across the public sector and elsewhere. In Parliament, they have required Ministers, parliamentarians and officials to adhere to certain standards of behaviour articulated in different codes and all brought together in the Cabinet Manual. As such, I feel a certain proprietary interest in how the manual is used and developed.
Perhaps I was naive in those early days, but I still feel the same awe at the importance of the concept of parliamentary democracy, have the same belief that parliamentarians must earn the public’s trust, and have the same respect for the many honourable, hard-working and inspirational parliamentarians I have known in both Houses. However, there is no doubt that, over the last few years, we have again seen an upsurge in dubious behaviour by Ministers and others— particularly during the crisis of the pandemic—which has been covered extensively in the press and is clearly causing concern among the public, potentially undermining their trust in the honesty and integrity of Parliament. An up-to-date and transparent Cabinet Manual is a key instrument in addressing that.
My Lords, I declare my membership of your Lordships’ Constitution Committee. In addition, I must declare an eccentricity, for I am one of a tiny number of people in the kingdom who experience a spasm of excitement when I hear the words Cabinet Manual. I do not wish to exaggerate, but a dash of curiosity laced with concern really does flash across my little grey cells. I am sure your Lordships think I should get out more, but it is the truth.
Why concern? The manual, after all, is not a written constitution in disguise; it is merely an Ordnance Survey map of proper expectations and decent behavioural norms for those set in authority over us. Yet this piece of cartography, this dully written collection of the codes—ministerial, Civil Service and special adviser—plus the Nolan principles of public life, is a crucial defence against any overmighty Prime Minister who is tone-deaf to the niceties of conventions and the self-restraint which lies at the heart of what an old Cabinet Office friend of mine, the late Clive Priestley, used to call the “good chaps theory of government”, as the noble Lord, Lord Howell of Guildford, reminded us. The core of Clive’s theory, which of course embraced chaps of both sexes, ministerial and official alike. is that they knew where the unwritten boundaries of decent behaviour were drawn and made sure they never came near, let alone crossed, them.
To avoid the Cabinet Manual being allowed to wither, decay and die through inattention or disdain is, in my judgment, a first-order matter. I am deeply grateful to the noble Lord, Lord True, who has a great knowledge of the constitution, for reassuring your Lordships’ Constitution Committee that this fate does not await the manual.
As one of nature’s herbivores rather than a political carnivore—to borrow Michael Frayn’s celebrated distinction in his essay on the Festival of Britain—I live in optimistic expectation that an enduring consensus can be built from the sturdy masonry of the concluding paragraph of the Revision of the Cabinet Manual report produced by your Lordships’ committee. Other noble Lords have quoted from it already, but it bears repetition:
My Lords, I am delighted to take part in this debate and have looked forward to it with the same sense of excitement that has just been expressed. I commend the Select Committee for its excellent report and my noble friend Lady Drake for the clear and comprehensive way in which she outlined its contents.
I hope the House will allow me to start with a personal tribute. In the short time since I was elected to this House, this is the first time I have had the pleasure of seeing the noble Lord, Lord Hennessy of Nympsfield, in his place. I hope I might call him my noble friend because, over many years, he has been one of the astute observers of what we might call the Westminster village, and his expertise and analysis has been universally acknowledged. His books and writings have made a tremendous contribution to our understanding of the constitution. I find, after the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Howell, that I am not the only person in the Chamber who feels that the noble Lord, Lord Hennessy, and Walter Bagehot would have found in each other the same sense of expertise in analysing the political world in which they lived. The way in which the noble Lord has promoted the “good chaps” theory of government is so important, particularly when we have lived through a period when that has been so severely breached, and we are still living with the consequences today.
I am not a member of the Constitution Committee, nor a former Cabinet Secretary or Minister. I am a Back-Bench Member of this House, but I am taking part in this debate because I have an interest in how this country is governed—this debate, if nothing else, is about how the country is governed.
I went to talk to a sixth form not all that long ago. I brought along a copy of the Cabinet Manual and said, “Here you are: you might like to look at this because it explains, in ways you may not realise, how this country works—or is supposed to.” I regret to say that they had never heard of it. Yet I feel that the document, and the updated document we all hope will result from this debate, should be available in schools, because it is part of our constitution.
My Lords, we cannot hear the noble Lord, Lord Howarth. I suggest that we move on to the noble Lord, Lord O’Donnell, and come back to the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, when the technical problems have been resolved.
I start by joining the noble Viscount, Lord Stansgate, in paying tribute to my noble friend Lord Hennessey of Nympsfield, who, I should stress, was a collaborator on the first edition of the Cabinet Manual. He was one of the academic experts whom we consulted about various constitutional matters, and he provided great advice to us. Indeed, he is associated very much with the “good chaps” theory, and I cannot think of anyone who is more the ultimate good chap than the noble Lord, Lord Hennessy.
It is interesting: the evolution of the Cabinet Manual is important. People have referred to John Major, and I was his press secretary when we went through the period of real concern. This led to the Nolan principles, which led to the publication of—people have probably forgotten this—QPM: Questions of Procedure for Ministers. These are things that go back a long way. People around the Chamber are nodding; it is good to see the experience that is here. So he started this process off of thinking about how we improve trust in politics by laying down some codes about ethical standards.
This is truly a cross-party venture, which is why, as a Cross-Bencher, I really welcome this. I was tasked by Gordon Brown—a Labour Prime Minister—to start this process. It came to fruition in 2011 with David Cameron as Prime Minister, who signed it off with the full support of the Deputy Prime Minister, Nick Clegg of the Liberal Democrats. It has always brought parties together in trying to come up with something which basically codifies where we are, in the absence of a written constitution, and can be a guide as to what constitutes good behaviour. I think people are trying to get it to do a little bit too much, and I will come back to that.
On the production of it, as the noble Baroness, Lady Drake, said, this was stolen with pride from New Zealand, which had done it before us. I say to the noble Baroness that this is an excellent report and I very strongly agree with its recommendations. The New Zealanders have an approach to updating their Cabinet Manual which is in line with what the report suggests. It suggests that you have an online edition and as legislation changes—for example, the repeal of the Fixed-term Parliaments Act—you amend that immediately so that there is always an up-to-date edition online and then, periodically, you get to have a major revision.
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As a matter of constitutional principle, ensuring adherence to the Cabinet Manual will ultimately be a matter for the Prime Minister. In 2011, both the Constitution Committee and the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee recognised that, while Parliament has
“a role in scrutinising the draft Manual and future revisions”,
it was for
“executive use and so should not require Parliament’s approval.”
However, the Constitution Committee recommended that the Prime Minister should make clear in the foreword to the next edition the duty on all Ministers to adhere to the constitutional principles contained within it.
For the Cabinet Manual to remain useful, it needs to be regularly updated. If out of date, it will lack authority, cause confusion and risk becoming moribund. As the noble Lord, Lord, Lord O’Donnell, wrote in his preface to the first edition:
“The content of the Cabinet Manual is not static, and the passage of new legislation, the evolution of conventions or changes to the internal procedures of government will mean that the practices and processes it describes will evolve over time.”
He added in his evidence to us that the manual was a
“valuable document … having one, as long as it is up to date, is very, very important for the business of government.”
Much has happened since the manual was published in 2011, including further devolution of powers, the UK’s departure from the EU and changes to the way Parliament is dissolved. Simon Case in his evidence concurred that the main changes would concern Brexit, devolution and repeal of the Fixed-term Parliaments Act. Most of our witnesses agreed that an updated manual was overdue.
The committee recommended that a draft update be produced as soon as possible, and not later than 12 months from the date of our report, and thereafter that updates be considered at the beginning of each Parliament, endorsed by Parliament, with important revisions reflected immediately in the online version. As with the 2011 edition, we recommended that the process include consulting on the revised version. Regrettably, 18 months later, there is still no updated edition.
The Government responded to the committee’s report in a letter from the noble Lord, Lord True, dated 7 February 2022, in which he comments:
“There is a strong argument for revisiting the Cabinet Manual, and there has been work to identify the main areas that would require updating … I can confirm that the Government intends to publish an updated version … before the end of this Parliament.”
I subsequently wrote to the Prime Minister on behalf of the committee, re-emphasising four of our recommendations which we considered the Government had not given a view on, these being: first, that the Prime Minister make clear in the foreword to the next edition the duty on all Ministers to adhere to the constitutional principles recorded within it; secondly, noting the significant constitutional developments since 2011 and given that an updated manual will serve to guide Ministers as to the constitutional rules pertaining both to recent developments and longer-standing constitutional matters, that it would be prudent to secure a high level of consensus on its content—the Constitution Committee, along with the relevant committees in the House of Commons, should be meaningfully consulted; thirdly, that consultation should include sharing draft revisions to allow for sufficient scrutiny and feedback; and, fourthly, that the Government should consult the relevant committees in the devolved legislatures in line with the Prime Minister’s responsibility
“to ensure that all of government is acting on behalf of the entire United Kingdom: England, Northern Ireland, Scotland, and Wales.”
The noble Lord, Lord True, subsequently replied:
“Our process for updating the Cabinet Manual, including any engagement, will reflect the extent to which significant changes are required or whether the updates are more limited in nature … On ministerial duties, when the first edition was published it was endorsed by the Cabinet. The then Prime Minister made it clear that he would expect everyone working in Government to be mindful of the guidance it contains. This remains the case.”
I ask the Minister to take the opportunity of this debate to update the House on the Government’s timetable for publishing a revised copy of the Cabinet Manual, the approach taken to that revision, and any plans the Government may have for consulting relevant committees of the House of Commons and the Constitution Committee and the relevant committees in the devolved legislatures.
Finally, I shall bring my speech to an end on a more philosophical note. Simon Case in his evidence on to our inquiry on the manual and codes observed:
“They set out, in any given moment, the norms by which government operates, the standard expected of Ministers and the Civil Service … They are important and should be kept at the forefront of people’s minds.”
A “but” followed:
“If we end up in a system in which it is only the letter of the law, or of the codes or the guidance, that runs, we have missed something. It is about culture and people wanting to uphold those basic principles”.
We agree with him on that. In a recent report, Good Chaps No More? Safeguarding the Constitution in Stressful Times, the noble Lord, Lord Hennessy of Nympsfield, a member of the Constitution Committee similarly observes:
“If general standards of good behaviour among senior UK politicians can no longer be taken for granted, then neither can the sustenance of key constitutional principles”.
As to the Constitution Committee, I refer to the sentiment in our concluding paragraph.
“Documents such as the Cabinet Manual, Ministerial Code and Civil Service Code are an important part of the United Kingdom’s constitutional framework. Together with the Nolan Principles, respect for the Manual and Codes is essential for upholding principles of good governance, including adherence to constitutional conventions and the proper conduct of public and political life. They are crucial to the wider national wellbeing as well as to the public’s trust in government. They must never be treated as optional extras to be swept aside or ignored to suit the convenience of the executive.”
I beg to move.
The difficulty that comes, when you write everything down, is that it is full of subjective views and opinions. That is just where the present Cabinet Manual rests, with the Prime Minister’s deciding judgment about any transgressions, and it is why some people call for it to be put into statute law. If that is the next move, the trouble is that then come the judges, the judicial reviews and all the rest, bringing law into politics. That is where we are already, in fact, with judges facing impossible dilemmas: on the one hand, they have to implement the law as laid down not just by Parliament but by international norms, while on the other they face a body politic increasingly driven by populist instincts and inward-looking nationalist priorities and fragmented by identity politics and post-Brexit legal uncertainties.
Add to that the heaving sea of online connectivity, transparency, polarised opinion and the noise of argument about what is right and wrong, what are good and acceptable ways of carrying on and what are bad, with precious little prospect for common ground between the two. The uproar reaches a crescendo of accusations and rumours, with the rawest kind of partisan politics wading in. I think it was Jim Callaghan who once warned that a rumour can travel round the whole world before the truth can even get its boots on.
Small wonder, then, that with absolutely everything disputed—now even, heaven save us, gender—and everything up for grabs, demand grows for a better-codified order, revised and updated with renewed constitutional clarity. Incidentally, all this leads to a horrible atmosphere in and around politics in which people denounce each other as though in China, where the spy is watching at the end of the road, or recalling the French revolution’s chilling cry of “J’accuse” being enough to send someone to the scaffold—or at least, in modern terms, to suffer public pillorying in the media and banishment and dismissal, as recently occurred in the deplorable case of Conor Burns MP. Hence the understandable desperate impulse to write it all down.
However, one has to ask: will this desire to have the matter written down in letters of gold have any impact on standards of behaviour? Frankly, I doubt it, without huge changes of attitude and a perception of common purpose, which would make it all unnecessary anyway. We have enough rules and procedures written down already—codes of a sort.
By far the best course would be for pressure everywhere, in the media and Parliament, to ensure more honest presentation of the dilemmas and complexities of public life and governance. Leaders there must be, with impeccable standards—that is essential—but where we allow gigantic half-truths to prevail in public debate, that is where the dodging, weaving, dissembling and deviating begin and the arguments about rule-breaking in high places take centre stage. Examples are most vivid in the role of Parliament and its relations with the Executive and the judiciary; in what is guidance and what is law; in half-baked economic theories about how to stop inflation, where I think the public are being very badly misled; in how to stop the UK from falling apart—the devolution issue; in distorted ideas about levelling up; and in many more areas besides.
More honest debate over major issues, presented and explained, would produce the conditions in which little dishonesties and deceits were more rapidly exposed and discouraged, and honest government conducted strictly under the rule of law was delivered in a constitutional framework. Lord Denning reminded us:
“Be ye never so high, the law is above you.”
We should need no further codes or manuals to remind us constantly of that.
In its report, the Select Committee quotes the current Cabinet Secretary, Simon Case, and, like my noble friend Lady Drake, I will quote what he said, because it seems to be the essence of the Select Committee’s report. He said that the manual and codes
“set out … the norms by which government operates, the standard expected of ministers and the civil service … They are important and should be kept in the forefront of people’s minds … It is about culture and people wanting to uphold those basic principles”.
The Constitution Committee agreed, as my noble friend said in her introduction to the debate; as did two former Cabinet Secretaries, the noble Lords, Lord O’Donnell and Lord Sedwill. Simon Case added that it
“has to belong to the Prime Minister and Cabinet of the day, to articulate their view of how government should, and can, work”.
To my mind, it is important that the Prime Minister and the Cabinet have a contemporary understanding and agreement on how they are required to behave to generate public confidence, and that this is also widely understood. So, when I read the Constitution Committee’s report, I was forcefully struck by the stark fact that the Cabinet Manual has not been updated for 11 years. That is nothing less than irresponsible, given what seems like a tsunami of recent allegations of misconduct in public life, the kind of misconduct which the codes—which the manual embodies—are intended to address. The committee, with understandable constraint, merely cites a few in a footnote, but every newspaper reader is familiar with recent cases. They include: the finding by the independent adviser on ministerial interests that the then Home Secretary, Priti Patel, broke the Ministerial Code, but was exonerated by the Prime Minister; that there were investigations into the refurbishment of the former Prime Minister’s residence in Downing Street; that the same former Prime Minister nominated a life Peer, the noble Lord, Lord Cruddas, contrary to the advice of the independent House of Lords Appointments Commission; and that Ministers made misleading statements and relied on inaccurate statistics, and are not held to book. All that undermines public trust, and suggests, to paraphrase “Hamlet”, that the Cabinet Manual is less honoured in the observance than in the breach.
I am therefore pleased that the Government have accepted the recommendation of the Constitution Committee that the manual be updated before the end of this Parliament. However, I hope the Minister will go further today and agree that, in the interests of improving public confidence and reinforcing adherence to proper standards in public life, the manual will be updated at the beginning of each Parliament and endorsed by the then Cabinet. That will give some confidence that the manual and codes will not be, as the Constitution Committee warns,
“swept aside or ignored to suit the convenience of the executive.”
“Documents such as the Cabinet Manual, Ministerial Code and Civil Service Code are an important part of the United Kingdom’s constitutional framework. Together with the Nolan Principles, respect for the Manual and Codes is essential for upholding principles of good governance, including adherence to constitutional conventions and the proper conduct of public and political life. They are crucial to the wider national wellbeing as well as to the public’s trust in government. They must never be treated as optional extras to be swept aside or ignored to suit the convenience of the executive.”
I finish with a thought on how our constitutional defences could be strengthened in future. In a short study I published a few weeks ago with my co-author and former student, Professor Andrew Blick of King’s College London, which we have titled The Bonfire of the Decencies: Repairing and Restoring the British Constitution, we press the case for a Prime Minister’s oath, which every new occupant of No. 10 would swear before the Speaker and the House of Commons. We would probably vary over what ingredients should make up a PM’s oath. Several would not be keen on the idea at all. It may strike others as an example of “good chappery”—a piece of political archaeology reflecting an era long past and kept going by a small number of elderly and nostalgic romantics—but I believe the idea has both timeliness and utility.
Professor Blick and I therefore suggested the following context: to uphold the principle and practices of collective Cabinet government; to uphold and respect the conventions and expectations contained in the Ministerial Code, the Cabinet Manual and Nolan’s Seven Principles of Public Life; to sustain the impartiality of the Civil and Diplomatic Services, the intelligence and security services and the Armed Forces; to have constant regard for the Civil Service Code and the special advisers’ code; to account personally to Parliament and its Select Committees for all of the above; and to uphold the rule of law in all circumstances. Such an oath would fit with our country’s instinct for incremental evolution when it comes to constitutional reform. It would strengthen our constitutional defences through its very existence. It is, in my judgment, both aspirational and practical, and a signal of good intent. I live in hope.
I pay tribute to Gordon Brown for having been the one who, as Prime Minister, triggered this and to the noble Lord, Lord O’Donnell, for having drafted, written and produced it. The then Prime Minister of course continues to have an interest in the architecture of our constitution, and we will hear more about that in the future. I note that it is the view of the noble Lord, Lord O’Donnell, that the lack of an effective enforcement mechanism means that contravention may be merely political—there is no sense in which there is anything more formal than that. Of course, “merely” political can encompass a great deal of things. I am taken back almost 50 years to when I first came across a then secret document, Questions of Procedure for Ministers, which was a precursor to the Ministerial Code. I can report that it of course caused a great deal of tension between the then Prime Minister and a member of the Cabinet. Noble Lords do not have to listen to my account of it; they can read all about it in someone’s diaries.
I congratulate the committee on its report. It is not very long, but it encapsulates all the major issues arising. I hope that today’s debate will help to shape the way in which the Cabinet Manual can be updated and retain its role as a valuable document.
I hope that the House will not mind my regretting that it has taken a year and a half for this debate to come forward. I know that that is the fate of many Select Committee reports. Nevertheless, you could argue that the delay has enabled us to have an even more rounded view of the areas in which the Cabinet Manual needs to be updated. After all, since the Select Committee report was originally published, we have had three Prime Ministers and countless other examples of Ministers changing, with the greatest number of Ministers in a department in a single year. We have, I think uniquely, two resignation honours lists pending, and in an updated manual a place might be found for what you would do about that.
However, there is a broad consensus, which I endorse, that the most appropriate time to bring to a conclusion a review of the Cabinet Manual is in the gap between one Parliament and the next. That is certainly more sensible than doing it over the Summer Recess. Can you imagine someone trying to do it in the Summer Recess of 2019 or 2022? They would have found that most of their work was outdated by the time they had finished it.
I note that the Leader of the House, in his then capacity of Minister of State in the Cabinet Office, has said that the Government intend to publish an updated manual before the end of this Parliament. I wonder whether it will be sneaked out on Christmas Eve in 2024—we shall have to wait and see. There are a range of issues that the committee has identified as important enough to be included. A prime example is the repeal of the Fixed-term Parliaments Act, which I never liked or supported, and the way in which we have restored the essential flexibility to our parliamentary democracy. There are other examples as well. I cannot be the only Member of this House to take the view that the attempt of the then Prime Minister to prorogue Parliament for six weeks in 2019 was an astonishing breach of every convention encapsulated in the Cabinet Manual. There was nothing remotely “good chaps” about that.
Another example—there are several, and some have been mentioned in other speeches—obviously, is the effect of devolution in the 10 or 11 years since it took place. There is the fact that, in triggering Article 50, Parliament in the end needed to be involved; that needs to be reflected in the manual, too. Parliament’s role in agreeing military conflict and treaties needs to be updated. There are the obvious changes as a result of our leaving the European Union, some of which we do not yet know. I might add a couple of extra vignettes for the House. One was the need to update paragraph 1.8 of the Cabinet Manual, relating to counsellors of state, which, as the House knows, had to be updated because it was realised that the definition of “counsellors of state” as the next four people in line to the throne had become unworkable in the current circumstances. Anyway, we have now changed that and put it right. It might even refer to efforts to influence the size of the House and reduce it.
I know that it has been the opinion of many distinguished Cabinet Secretaries that this is an executive document and ultimately the preserve of the Prime Minister, but that should not preclude Parliament—and I mean both Houses—from playing a meaningful role in updating it. It is essential that Parliament updates it; the appropriate committees should have the right to be consulted and should reach a view on what the proposed update should be. I hope that the Leader of the House in his reply will at least convey an assurance that that will be undertaken.
Finally, I personally hope that one result of this debate will be to inject the Cabinet Manual with a renewed lease of life. I do not want it to be a polaroid snapshot; I want it to be a valuable document that continues to play a useful part in our efficient constitution, and not let it decay into becoming part of our dignified constitution.
In the preface of my first edition, I wrote that
“it will need to be updated periodically”.
What terrible drafting—“periodically”—how vague can you be? I look back on that and I think that it could possibly be amended in 2024, which would be 13 years on. I remember being posted to the British embassy in Washington and waking up one morning surrounded by cicadas. These creatures burrow down and 13 years later they come up and they are refreshed; they run around, they have their lives, they mate and then they die. Their whole lives are six to eight weeks. If they can do it in six to eight weeks, I am sure the Minister can produce a new volume in good time.
The Cabinet Manual does need to be updated and there are key areas that people have talked about. There are obvious ones, such as Brexit and devolution. There are others that are not quite so obvious but are very important. During the coalition, we learned a lot about the way it operated. I had this brilliant idea of a coalition committee that would meet weekly—a complete waste of time. That was not the way it operated; we had bilaterals and a thing called the quad, which worked much more efficiently than the rather bureaucratic thing I had come up with, which was discarded and rightly so.
We need to think about the caretaker convention, which a lot of people have talked about. The devolution settlement has gone through some big changes. Big exogenous shocks—as we economists like to call them—such as Covid and the war in Ukraine have created all sorts of issues for the way in which government operates in crises. We need to learn from the experience of those.
On the point that a number of previous speakers have made, ethics more generally, of course, are absolutely crucial. It must be remembered that the Cabinet Manual brings together those codes and all those important things which are agreed. It is there as a work of reference. By creating a new one, you are given a stimulus to ask: are those existing codes right? Are the enforcement mechanisms correct? All those things are very important. The Cabinet Manual should be bringing all of those together.
Whose is it? That is very important. It is the Cabinet Manual, but it is also the Cabinet’s manual. It is owned by the Executive, but of course there should be extensive consultation with Parliament and Select Committees, as there was with the draft chapter on hung Parliaments, which we did before the 2010 election. That was really valuable.
There are trickier problems, which no one really wants to get into, but which I found very difficult when I did the first one. An example is conventions. When do precedents become conventions? When does someone breaking a convention mean that the convention no longer exists? We have had examples of all those things. I could not solve that, so good luck to all those trying to. It is tough, but there are important things that need to be highlighted there.
There has been great work from the Constitution Unit at University College London. I hope we can disseminate this. I am really disappointed by what the noble Viscount said about the school he visited. I went to Richard Challoner School in Merton, a good state Catholic school, where A-level politics students were learning about the Cabinet Manual. Taking a guess, maybe the school he went to was just taking parts of the curriculum.
We need to think about dissemination to a broader public. We have heard already that the word used was “dull”. It was indeed written very carefully and legalistically. I hope we can think about putting in some examples to make it come alive, and help a new generation understand it and feel encouraged about trust. The point is that we want to increase trust.
Again, I strongly recommend the report and thank the committee for it. A new version of the Cabinet Manual is essential. It is necessary, but not sufficient, for improving trust in our politics.