Reflections and concluding remarks on public service, the public interest, accountability and liberal democracy in the UK
There remain many areas of concern about whether accountability mechanisms in the UK need to be tightened up to protect and promote the public interest and public service principles: currently, for instance, the regulation of lobbying of ministers by powerful interest groups is under consideration.71 No doubt new areas of concern will open up from time to time: the sleaze and expenses scandals of the 1990s and 2000s were surprises, but they will not have been the last ones.
The present web of accountability in the UK system, then, is not perfect. But let us reflect on what the position would be if inappropriate accountability mechanisms were to develop or not be constrained in the UK system. Reminding ourselves of some of the scandals and cases discussed above, MPs would not be acting unlawfully, and nor would their sponsors be doing so, if they were bound to vote and act in Parliament in compliance with instructions from outside. The same is
The Politics of Antagonism: UndersLanding Northern Ireland (Atlantic Highlands:NJ, Athlone Press 1992); J Whyte Inierpreiing^ Northern Ireland (Oxford: Clarendon Press,1990); D Birrell and A Murie Policy and Government in Northern Ireland: Lessons of Devolution (Dublin: Gill and Macmillan,1980); D Oliver ‘Psychological Constitutionalism' CLJ (2010) 69: 669—74.
71 See Second Report of the House of Commons Political and Constitutional Reform Committee, Inirod.ucinga Siaiuiory Register of Lobbyists, HC 153, 2012—13, 11 July 2012/Government Response,/ HC 593, 13 July 2013; Lobbyists (Registration of Code of Conduct) Bill, 2013. true of relationships between MPs and elected councillors on the one hand and extra-parliamentary party organizations and caucuses on the other hand. But for the rules of parliamentary privilege and contempt, it may well not be a crime for MPs to take bribes in return for favours.[1097] Nor would it be unlawful for ministers or civil servants or other public bodies to do so.
It would not be unlawful for local authorities to manage public property and exercise their powers to as to maximize support in their areas for their party—or to maximize opposition to their political rivals. Ministers and councillors would be free to impose their moral or religious views on private bodies or individuals with whom they have contractual or property-based relationships. Each of these ‘not unlawful' activities would be contrary to the public service or public interest principles. And this is the point: the standards that current accountability mechanisms are designed to uphold have not always been observed in public life—and of course, despite current arrangements, such standards are still breached from time to time—and if they were repealed or regularly disregarded it is obvious that the public service and public interest principles themselves would be at risk.[1098]I suggest therefore that it is essential to the public interest and public service principles not only that officials are committed to them, but that the general population too is committed to them and confident that they are generally observed. If the population or the majority were not so committed it would not be contrary to generally accepted norms, standards or codes for Parliament, ministers and local authorities to discriminate against sections of the population and to give preferential treatment to those they consider to be members of their own groups, or to grant special access to representatives of sectional interests so as to put themselves in a position which calls their commitment to the general interest into question; it would not be considered inappropriate for ministers or civil servants to go straight from their elected positions into employment by bodies with whom their departments were connected on leaving the service, though this would put a question mark over their commitment to the public service and public interest during their period of office. The particular importance of these examples is that such conduct would undermine the general public respect for and confidence in officials, on which the public interest and public service principles are based; and if it did not do so we would know that in fact there is little sense of shared interests in the population.
This may appear self-evident. But the reason I am highlighting the importance of these obvious principles and the lessons of past experience is that it supports my argument that the two public interest and public service principles are in fact foundational to the operation of the UK system—and no doubt of other liberal democratic states.
F.