Standards Commissioner: ‘MPs should social distance from business community'

Commissioner for Standards in Public Life George Hyzler speaks to Jacob Borg about his new proposals to regulate gifts, lobbying and a three-year ban on revolving door jobs for cabinet members. 

The nascent office of the Standards Commissioner, established in October 2018, has already created waves with a proposal to ban backbench MPs from holding government jobs as well as a series of reports about bad behaviour by cabinet members.

Hyzler says the current code of ethics governing MPs’ conduct, drawn up in 1995, is in need of a revamp.

“What I found when I took office was that a lot of rules are very vague and needed to be either tightened or made clear. And in a lot of instances, there were no rules to cover situations that we were coming across.”

The revamped rules, which includes changes to the ministerial code of ethics and a separate Lobbying Act, seek to address recommendations made by the Council of Europe’s Group of States Against Corruption (GRECO) and the Venice Commission.

Logging all ‘relevant communication’

Hyzler is pushing for ministers to record all relevant communications, including meetings, with the business community and other lobbyists, in a transparency...