Rishi Sunak has appointed his cabinet, and it largely marks continuity both with his direct predecessor Liz Truss and Boris Johnson before her. While key Truss allies like Braverman, Coffey and Cleverly have all kept their places, Johnsonites like Steve Barclay and Oliver Dowden have also returned to the fold.
Sunak’s cabinet of ministerial codebreakers
With this continuity, however, comes the remnants of the rule-breaking days of Johnson’s administration. Indeed, it turns out that 16 of the ministers attending cabinet have already acted in ways which could reasonably assumed to break the ministerial code, in current or previous roles.
This figure represents over half of the 31 ministers at the top table.
Rishi Sunak
While chancellor, Sunak broke the ministerial code on multiple occasions – we’ve counted at least eight. These range from failing to register his family’s wealth in the ministerial register of interests, to leaking details of his budgets, to actually breaking the law by participating in illegal lockdown parties (for which he was fined). Safe to say, he has certainly broken the ministerial code at least once.
Dominic Raab
As Theresa May’s Brexit secretary in 2018, Dominic Raab refused to give evidence to parliament on Brexit negotiations. This broke the ministerial code, which requires transparency to parliament on such matters.
Jeremy Hunt
When acting as Theresa May’s health secretary, Jeremy Hunt was told by then parliamentary standards commissioner Kathryn Stone that he had broken the ministerial code twice over issues with the purchase of luxury flats.
Hunt had registered his interest in seven flats bought by him and his wife a day late, and failed to report his purchase of the flats. These registered as separate breaches of the code, according to Stone.
In 2012, David Cameron stopped his adviser on the ministerial code, Sir Alex Allan, from investigating Hunt over a potential breach related to the Leveson Inquiry. Hunt’s chief adviser, Adam Smith, had resigned over having had contact with NewsCorp during their takeover of BSkyB, while Hunt himself was culture secretary. Leaked information suggested that Smith had provided inside information to NewsCorp during this period. It was not known whether Hunt himself had engaged in this behaviour as well.
James Cleverly
James Cleverly was accused last June, when serving as Middle East minister, of breaching the ministerial code in failing to answer parliamentary questions in relation to arms sales to Israel.
Reporting by Declassified UK revealed that Cleverly had obfuscated answers to 14 questions in a short span of time, falling short of the requirement for ministers to “be as open as possible with parliament”.
Suella Braverman
Suella Braverman’s return to the Home Office comes mere days after her resignation from the same post related to a self-admitted breach of the ministerial code. Six days before her reappointment, Braverman admitted to having used her official email to send government documents to another MP, also accidentally including a third MP in the correspondence.
Both the leaking of a ministerial statement (which the document contained) and the use of a personal email were considered breaches of the code and should have alone marked her as unsuited for high office.
Ben Wallace
Ben Wallace, was accused by the media organisation Tortoise of personally intervening as defence secretary to ensure that a £5bn National Cyber Force HQ was situated on the border of his constituency.
If true, then Wallace would have breached the code in failing to delineate his roles as local MP and minister.
Nadhim Zahawi
Nadhim Zahawi has been accused of breaking the ministerial code by Labour, over the £3.5mn ‘Chunnel Estate’. The estate, a collection of warehouses, was bought by Zahawi’s wife days before a Brexit trade deal was announced. Zahawi’s failure to declare his interest in his £100mn ‘property empire’ may well breach standards expected of ministers making serious decisions which could impact such property.
It was revealed that Zahawi used to be an executive director of SThree, a recruitment company that he still holds shares in it. In the last year, SThree has been contracted to provide services for UK Shared Businesses Services, owned by the Department for Business, of which Zahawi was a minister, as well as Public Health England, while Zahawi was vaccine minster. He has thus profited off contracts given by his own government, raising the potential for a conflict of interest.
Michael Gove
Michael Gove has been accused of failing to live up to ministerial transparency standards, particularly as regards the secretive ‘clearing house’ operation within the Cabinet Office, attempting to suppress freedom of information requests wherever possible. This clearing house has tried to avoid releasing information about events such as the contamination of NHS blood banks with HIV-positive samples. Gove is hardly being as open as possible.
Kemi Badenoch
Kemi Badenoch was accused last year of breaking the ministerial code while serving as equalities minister. Badenoch leaked private correspondence with journalist Nadine White, lashing out at the reporter on Twitter and describing her as “creepy”. In the process, she exposed White to online abuse, and the journalist had to lock their Twitter account to avoid further attacks.
Labour MP Marsha de Cordova accused Badenoch of acting in an unprofessional manner, and disclosing private information not in the public interest, thus breaching the code.
Mel Stride
In 2018, Conservative peer Lord Forsyth hinted that Mel Stride, then Theresa May’s financial secretary to the Treasury, was not following ministerial rules in failing to show up to Forsyth’s finance bill sub-committee. In a letter, Forsyth noted that he had invited Stride to speak on the basis of the code stating that “ministers have a duty to Parliament to account, and be held to account, for the policies, decisions and actions of their departments and agencies.” In total, Stride refused on four separate occasions to sit before the committee.
Chris Heaton-Harris
While acting as a junior Brexit minister, Chris Heaton-Harris was accused of breaching the ministerial code by former Liberal Democrat MP Tom Brake.
Brake alleged that, in meeting with representatives from Spanish far-right party Vox without reporting this through the proper channels, Heaton-Harris had failed to live up to the transparency standards set in the code.
Alister Jack
Jack used the gov.uk website to promote a Daily Mail article he’d written. The article praised Douglass Ross and criticised the Scottish National Party in government. Publishing this on a government website potentially broke the code, in using government property for party political purposes.
Robert Jenrick
As Johnson’s housing secretary, Robert Jenrick granted planning permission for a £1bn property development by Conservative donor Richard Desmond. In overruling a local planning inspector, Jenrick saved Desmond £40mn, which he would have had to pay in community levies, which are used to improve local infrastructure.
Jenrick helped a Conservative donor avoid paying tax that would have gone directly to local communities. This is a clear case of conflict of interests, which could normally be considered a breach of the ministerial code.
Johnny Mercer
Johnny Mercer is back in office for the third time as minister of state for veterans’ affairs. In his first stint in the role, he was accused of leaking information in order to pass the Overseas Operations Act, which provided legal protections for soldiers accused of committing war crimes overseas. If true, this would represent a serious breach of the code, which requires ministers to obtain permission from the prime minister before disclosing sensitive policy matters.
Gavin Williamson
When secretary of state for defence, Gavin Williamson allegedly broke the ministerial code in leaking details of Huawei in the UK’s 5G infrastructure. The information was disclosed in a meeting of the national security council, which are highly confidential.
Andrew Mitchell
While Cameron’s international development secretary, Andrew Mitchell was accused of breaking the ministerial code to get a ban lifted on a prominent cocoa dealer who had donated to Mitchell’s parliamentary office.
Mitchell had allegedly been asked for help by Anthony Ward, described as the ‘real-life Willy Wonka’, after his firm, Armajaro Holdings, was banned from trading after allegations that one of their contractors had been involved in illegal smuggling.
Armajaro donated £40,000 to Mitchell’s parliamentary office between August 2006 and December 2009. As a result, Mitchell can be credibly accused of having had a conflict of interest in the affair.
Yorkshire Bylines is maintaining a record of these breaches over on our Compendium of Cabinet Codebreakers. Please feel free to share this resource with friends and family so that we can continue to hold our leaders to account.
