Proposals for an independent watchdog to determine whether Government ministers and prime ministers have broken parliamentary rules has been dismissed.
Cabinet Office minister Michael Ellis rejected Labour's call, saying such a move would “usurp” the power of the Prime Minister - who only narrowly survived a vote of confidence in his leadership last night.
The proposal comes in the wake of the damning Sue Gray report into breaches of Covid regulations in Number 10 and Whitehall during lockdown.
Both Boris Johnson and his Chancellor Rishi Sunak repeatedly denied they had attended such gatherings, but were later fined after a police investigation. Labour deputy leader Angela Rayner, speaking in a Commons debate this afternoon, said: “I have heard ministers on the media in the last 24 hours talking about how we must draw a line, how we must move on.
“But many people in this country cannot draw a line, cannot move on whilst this Prime Minister is in office, because it triggers them and what they experienced and the trauma that their family faced during the crisis.”
She later added: “There is nothing decent about the way that he has acted. And what example does he set?
“This Prime Minister’s example of leadership: illegally proroguing parliament, breeding a Downing Street culture where his staff felt able to break lockdown rules including himself, putting the very standards that underpin our democracy to the shredder.”
Ms Rayner said Labour would establish an independent Ethics Commission which would have powers to launch investigations without ministerial approval, collect evidence and decide sanctions.
"“No more ministers breaking the rules and getting away with it. No more revolving door between ministerial office and lobbying jobs, no more corruption and waste of taxpayers’ money and no more members of Parliament paid to lobby their own government", she said.
But Mr Ellis rejected the idea, saying: "Authority and accountability derives from the Prime Minister’s ability to command the confidence of this House. That derives from the members of this House, including those who hold office, all of us, at the behest of the electorate.
“If we usurp that and hand that authority to someone who doesn’t have electoral accountability, that would be a constitutional irregularity."
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