Rejection of complaint against Eluned Morgan prompts call for revision of Ministerial Code

Martin Shipton

Campaigners who believe Eluned Morgan may have broken the Ministerial Code when she was Health Minister say her refusal to get their complaint investigated by someone outside the Welsh Government shows that the code is not fit for purpose and should be changed.

The decision to build the new Velindre Cancer Centre on a standalone site in north Cardiff has been hugely controversial, with many doctors saying it should have been co-located with an existing general hospital.

Retired GP Dr Penny Owen and non-medical Dr Roy Kearsley, of the group Colocate Velindre lodged a formal complaint about Baroness Morgan, who until her elevation as First Minister was Health Minister and then Cabinet Secretary for Health.

Crucial document

The group argues that a crucial document submitted to the NHS Infrastructure Investment Board (IIB) in 2020 should not have included the sentence: “Nuffield [the independent Nuffield Health think tank] had confirmed that the Velindre model of a stand-alone non-acute cancer hospital rather than co-location on an acute hospital site was an appropriate clinical model.”

Instead, says Colocate Velindre, the Nuffield Advice actually confirmed colocation as the usual and preferable UK-wide NHS model, but noted that a lengthy timetable for any new Heath Hospital in Cardiff impeded ‘full colocation’ in south east Wales.

“We can safely say the words of the claim appear nowhere in the Nuffield advice,” says the group.

In their letter of complaint, Drs Owen and Kearsley stated: “At first, our correspondence with you from September to December 2023 merely pressed you as Health Minister to correct false information issuing from you and other ministers. We just sought a full, official, public retraction of a false narrative regarding the new Velindre Centre’s legitimacy. Unfortunately you went no further than a partial, and even contradictory, response, and added what we perceived as further breaches.”

The complaint went on to argue in detail how statements made by Baroness Morgan were not true.

Director of Propriety and Ethics

In her new capacity as First Minister, Baroness Morgan referred the complaint to David Richards, the Welsh Government’s Director of Propriety and Ethics. He has decided there was no breach of the Ministerial Code, stating in a letter to the two complainants: “I am sorry that the original statements made in relation to the involvement of the Nuffield Trust, although made in good faith, were in fact incorrect. But I note that an apology has been given and a correction has been made.

“I appreciate that you remain dissatisfied with the revised statements from the Welsh Government, but I think that this arises from a differing interpretation from that which was intended by the Welsh Government. I note that the Welsh Government has said in its correspondence with you that the proposed clinical model has been subject to independent advice from the Nuffield Trust. As far as I can see, that statement is correct.

“It appears to me from your correspondence that you have taken that statement as intending to convey that the overall proposal had been endorsed by the Nuffield Trust. But I do not think that the statement bears this interpretation, and I am quite sure that it was not intended to convey that impression, but rather that the advice from the Nuffield Trust had been taken into account as part of the decision-making process. I appreciate that the exact wording used could perhaps have been better expressed to put any risk of misunderstanding beyond doubt. But I do not see that the statement in question is false, and certainly not that it was intended to deliberately mislead.”

Mr Richards goes on to state that the First Minister had asked him to convey the outcome to Dr Kearsley and Dr Owen.

‘Ducked’

A spokesperson for Colocate Velindre said: “The First Minister ducked the option of an independent external investigation over her possible infringement of the Ministerial Code. The complaint, going back to her time as health minister, was referred by her instead to an internal investigator.

The findings also came back to her for approval and directions on the next step. That step transformed an ‘advice’ into an investigatory ‘not guilty’ verdict sent to the complainants. Critics may be forgiven for seeing a First Minister’s finger on the scales at both start and end of this investigation.

“The investigator was the Director of the Propriety and Ethics Team (PET), directly answerable to none other than the First Minister’s own Permanent Secretary there to support the First Minister. No special propriety or ethical considerations appear to have impeded this internal route.

“The then Health Minister had been forced to withdraw public statements that gave misleading information about the scheme being endorsed by the Nuffield Trust. which had shaped professional and general opinion on the project. But then it adopted rewordings implying only an ‘honest mistake’. However, a four-year promotional strategy seems not to fit such adaptations.

“The PET Director’s verdict follows an October, all-party Senedd committee’s robust scrutiny of current Welsh Ministerial Code-enforcement practice. It brought the Permanent Secretary under sustained pressure because the expert witness papers powerfully underscored external referral as best practice. A further meeting of the same Public Accounts and Public Administration Committee (PAPAC) has hardened its criticism of the code.

“Remorseless PAPAC questioning finally exposed that since 2017 the new option of referral to an external independent investigator had not been used once. PAPAC’s expert witnesses have advocated for a long-term external investigator.”

Adam Price

At the November meeting of PAPAC, Plaid Cymru MS Adam Price said: it’s obvious to me that the Ministerial Code, in its current form, is not fit for purpose, and it is necessary to have a new framework. Even compared with the code in Westminster, which has major weaknesses—there is an intention in the Government there to strengthen it—in terms of transparency and clarity and objectivity, to an extent, but even so it is stronger than the one that we have in Wales.

So, there is a problem in terms of how the ministerial code operates, or doesn’t operate or doesn’t work, rather, at present. If the intent is to boost public trust, I don’t think that the Ministerial Code delivers that purpose at present.

“And the risk as far as the responsibilities of this committee are concerned is that the reputation of the civil service is also going to be eroded because they are tied into implementing the Ministerial Code … and there is a risk not only that the public trust in the government, in terms of Ministers, will suffer, but also that their trust in the civil service and its independence and impartiality will suffer as well, and that will have far-reaching implications.

“So, I do think that we need a process of review regarding how the Ministerial Code operates, and we need some suggestions as regards a new system.”

Welsh Conservative committee chair Mark Isherwood said he thought there was a consensus around Mr Price’s view.

The whole correspondence behind the complaint may be found on the website https://colocate-velindre.co.uk/