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The rules around behaviour of senior civil servants and politicians must be tougher, according to recommendations from the Committee on Standards in Public Life. The committee’s full review, which began in September last year and reported interim findings this summer, said that risks to public standards had increased and rules must be strengthened in response. Chairman Lord Jonathan Evans said that social media, increasingly polarised politics and the “coarsening of public debate”, as well as the challenges of Brexit and the pandemic, had left public standards at risk. The past two years has seen increased scrutiny into the behaviour of ministers and their civil servants, including allegations of bullying against home secretary Priti Patel, which were settled without reaching a tribunal. The CSPL is an independent committee that advises the Prime Minister on ways to uphold ethical standards of conduct among senior civil servants and MPs. Its report found that ethics regulators in Whitehall had “not kept pace with wider changes” and that there needed to be tougher restrictions around lobbying. The committee has asked for a code that would include a list of all the sanctions that could be imposed on those who break it, such as apologies, fines or even being asked to resign. It also recommends that ministerial conduct rules are written into law. It would also like to see a strengthening of the advisory committee on business appointments, which advises ministers on how to conduct themselves if lobbying with the private sector. Earlier this year, former prime minister David Cameron was found to have made £3.3 million from shares in a collapsed finance company,
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