Source · Select Committees · Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee
Recommendation 17
17
Deferred
Publication process for major policy documents consistently breaches Ministerial Code principles
Conclusion
It is our assessment that in none of these examples can we be satisfied that the general principle has been met by the publication of relevant documents associated with major policy announcements. It is not clear how Members of the House were meant to be aware that the documents were available, and the use of imprecise terminology further exacerbated that situation. In all cases, there were no accompanying written ministerial statements, which 36 could have been used to provide helpful information about the process around the announcement and the availability of relevant documents. Furthermore, the timing and extent of trailing and pre-briefing of the substance of statements examined by the committee, in our view, could reasonably be concluded to constitute a breach of the general principle set out in the Ministerial Code, regardless of whether the document was properly laid or not. (Conclusion, Paragraph 54)
Government response summary AI-generated
The government acknowledges the importance of timely publication but raises issues with current procedural requirements for written ministerial statements, inviting the Procedure Committee to review whether notice arrangements are optimal.
Summary of the government's response below — read the verbatim text to verify.
Government Response
Deferred
HM Government · verbatim extract
Deferred
The Government welcomes the Committee’s recognition that the timely publication of documents and the use of written ministerial statements are an important means for keeping the House updated. However, as noted above, it is not always possible to notify the House of the most important announcements first, for example where the Government is responding to events during recess. On such occasions the Government remains committed to ensuring that the details of announcements are made available to the House at the earliest opportunity, including through written ministerial statements.
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