Five UK NGOs have expressed fears about proposals quietly announced yesterday [20 December] to remove long-standing anti-sleaze rules, and to abolish the Government’s anti-sleaze watchdog, the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments. In a highly critical statement the organisations argue that the proposals will make it easier for influential business sectors like the arms and oil industries to wield political influence at the expense of human rights and environmental protection.
In a prime ministerial statement late yesterday afternoon [Tuesday], Tony Blair announced the findings of a report by Sir Patrick Brown, commissioned by Number 10 explicitly to make it easier for civil servants to move into the private sector and back again
[1]. The report
- proposes removing restrictions on senior public servants from lobbying their former Departments on behalf of new private employers;
- recommends abolishing the Business Appointments Committee, to be replaced by a panel drawn from the Civil Service Commissioners. The Committee currently regulates conflicts of interest when ministers and senior civil servants move into private employment, and clashed with the government in October when its chairman triggered David Blunkett’s resignation by revealing his failure to consult the committee over a series of directorships;
- proposes to replace existing anti-sleaze restrictions with a single delay on appointments, to be imposed only when public officials have had a
material influence
on their specific future employers.
The proposals would dramatically reduce regulation of personal and institutional links between particular industries and government departments. For example, in 2004 the Business Appointments Committee reported critically in 2004 that senior executives of Britain’s arms companies participate in a traffic between the [Ministry of Defence] and the contractors which supply it
.[2] As well as raising questions about the transparency of British military procurement, major arms companies have enjoyed personal lobbying from defence ministers and even royalty to pursue recent arms deals with India and Saudi Arabia, to the detriment of human rights, conflict resolution and poverty reduction. Similarly, the Committee recently imposed a delay on the controversial appointment of Sir Jeremy Greenstock, the UK’s former Ambassador to Iraq, to oil giant BP, currently pursuing lucrative Iraqi oil contracts which will reduce Iraq’s oil revenues.[3]
A response issued by War on Want (anti-poverty campaign), Corner House (environment and corruption research organisation), Speak (social justice network), Platform (environmental justice organisation), and the Campaign Against Arms Trade, said today:
The rules governing public servants’ conflicts of interest are already token at best. They have allowed a
revolving doorto operate between advisorships and directorships in influential business sectors, and the ministries which regulate them. At best this provides incentives for public officials to act in the interests of future employment rather than public interest. At worst therevolving doorblurs the institutional boundaries between business interests and government, giving powerful companies disproportionate influence over policy-making. At stake is not simply the probity of individual ministers or civil servants, but the political influence wielded by entire business sectors.We are organisations which deal daily with abuses of political power, public money, human rights and environmental protection, deriving in many cases from disproportionate and unaccountable access to government decision-making. We call upon the Government to submit its relationships with business interests to proper public scrutiny; to strengthen the lobbying rules governing former civil servants; and to allow a proper delay on appointments to public officials compromised by
material influenceover business sectors as well as specific companies.
For information or interview, contact:
Press Office, Campaign Against Arms Trade, 020 7281 0297, media(at)caat·org·uk
Greg Muttitt, Co-Director, CarbonWeb Project, Platform, 07970 589611
Nick Dearden, Senior Campaigner, War on Want, ndearden(at)waronwant·org
Notes
- [1] Tony Blair, speech, 24 Feb 2004. Sir Patrick Brown has himself benefited from the
revolving door
between government and business, having spearheaded bus and rail privatisation as Permanent Secretary at the Department of Transport, before becoming chairman of the new Go Ahead bus and rail company. - [2] Advisory Committee on Business Appointments, 6th Report 2002-4, para. 18
- [3] See the recent report
Crude Designs: The Rip-off of Iraq’s Oil Wealth
