Corruption and integrity

Amid cronyism allegations, a new legal textbook could not be more timely

Congratulations to Colin Nicholls KC, who celebrates his 92nd birthday today by publishing the fourth edition of his magisterial textbook Corruption and Misuse of Public Office (Oxford University Press, 1100 pages, £320, co-authors Alan Baracese, James Maton, Rachel Scott and John Hatchard).

Colin Nicholls KC

These issues could hardly be more topical, as Lord Phillips of Worth Matravers KG, a former president of the UK Supreme Court, writes in the book’s foreword:

The first edition was published at the end of a period when most, including its inhabitants, considered that corruption was not a significant problem within the United Kingdom. In the field of legal practice, restrictions designed to ensure probity — the laws of champerty and maintenance, the prohibition of contingency fees and professional rules against touting — had been swept away as no longer necessary. The major problems were seen to arise in relation to dealings with parties in other jurisdictions where corruption was endemic, often at the highest level.

Recent public inquiries are painting a different picture. One, relating to the use of contaminated blood by the health service, has just been reported. Another, the Grenfell Tower inquiry, is about to be reported. A third, the Post Office inquiry, is still in progress. All three inquiries appear to have disclosed long-standing breaches of duties, both public and private, that have been deliberately concealed for years.

Financial compensation for victims is likely to be provided, or extracted from the corporate bodies responsible. But what of the individuals responsible for the misconduct or for covering up the misconduct?

There is a demand that they should be prosecuted, but for what? What is the position of managers of privatised public utilities who, before privatisation, would have been susceptible to prosecution for misconduct in public office?

These questions would seem to fall within the scope of chapter 5 of this edition on misconduct in public office. We read there of the proposals by the Law Commission for reform of this area of law that were placed before parliament in December 2020.

The government is yet to respond.

Urgent

Nicholls himself says that corruption remains one of the world’s most urgent problems — if not the most urgent — despite measures that have been adopted since the first edition of his book nearly 20 years ago.

“The activities of corrupt individuals and governments continue to damage economies, threaten the survival of our democratic values and increase the risk of a world war,” he tells me. “The need to take decisive action against criminal networks and those who protect them has never been so pressing.”

Between 2020 and 2023, as he and his co-authors write,

the UK’s reputation was damaged by a string of political scandals arising from Brexit and the Covid 19 pandemic leading to a sharp fall in the UK’s rank in Transparency International’s corruption perceptions index, from 11th to 18th in the global rankings.

The fall was, said Daniel Bruce, Transparency International UK’s chief executive, “the strongest signal yet that slipping standards are being noticed on the world stage and that business and other experts were concerned about insufficient controls on the abuse of public office and increasingly view corruption and bribery as a real issue in Britain.”

A fall of two places in the UK’s ranking to 20th in the index for 2023 was confirmation of his view.

Ethics and integrity commission

In its recent election manifesto, the Labour Party said it would “restore confidence in government and ensure ministers are held to the highest standards”. It promised “a new independent ethics and integrity commission, with its own independent chair, to ensure probity in government”.

Asked for a progress update three weeks after the election, the Cabinet Office minister Pat McFadden told MPs:

This was an important manifesto commitment. We will establish a new independent ethics and integrity commission, with its own independent chair, to ensure the highest possible standards. Work has begun on that, and I will keep the house up to date as it develops.

Pressed further, McFadden said it was always going to be about “show, not tell”.

While welcoming the government’s proposals, Nicholls told me this week that the idea of a commission was not new: it was first mooted 12 years ago by the House of Commons public administration select committee. And, as Sir Peter Riddell had pointed out just before the general election, there was still considerable uncertainty about how it would work.

Legislation

An ethics and integrity commission would not require legislation, Nicholls acknowledged, but there was some support for putting it on a statutory basis. He observed:

The establishment of an ethics and integrity commission is a complex process, intertwined with other reforms, requiring the cooperation of the many experts in the field. It will also involve the training of politicians, which remains a pressing issue.

There is naturally concern about the capacity of the government to respond as swiftly as it suggests. It took successive UK governments 40 years from the Poulson scandal to bring in the Bribery Act 2010.

The prime minister’s response to the recent rioting would appear to demonstrate the leadership lacking in the previous government. His legal training will impress on him the need to honour the promises he made in his party’s manifesto. But the government has a heavy burden to bear and experience shows that reforms tend to be delayed and are sometimes forgotten.

Nicholls, whose identical twin and fellow silk Clive sadly died in 2017, is a keen amateur painter who claims that his legal texts have now been replaced by oil colours. But he still takes a close interest in the subject of his magnum opus.

He noted that Sir Keir Starmer, in seeking to defend himself against allegations of cronyism over the appointment of senior civil servants, had said on Tuesday:

We are going to fix the foundations. We’ve got to do it at speed, and I’m determined to have the right people in the right places to allow us to get on with that job.

How confident is Nicholls that ministers will be able to restore public trust in government? His reply is suitably judicious.

It remains to be seen whether the establishment of a new independent integrity and ethics commission — and the strengthening of the existing bodies — will take place as speedily as promised.

Maybe that’s something we’ll all be able to celebrate by the time of his next birthday.