Ex-minister calls for quangos to face MPs’ scrutiny amid Sentencing Council row

Organisations such as NHS England and the Sentencing Council should face direct scrutiny from MPs, a Conservative former minister has urged.

Sir Christopher Chope said arm’s-length bodies (ALBs) had gone “rogue”, including National Highways when it rolled out smart motorways, and the Sentencing Council, whose recent guidance has prompted fears of “two-tier justice”.

Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has this week vowed to tackle a “weaker than it’s ever been” state as he promised to abolish NHS England and bring its oversight responsibilities into the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC).

MPs ran out of time to vote on the proposed new law, which would enable them to debate as part of Parliament’s day-to-day business the accounts and annual reports of ALBs with a budget of £5 million or more.

The MP for Christchurch warned that ALBs and quangos had “often been favoured by ministers as a way of distancing themselves from contentious issues”, adding: “The result is often a duplication of effort, resulting in turf wars between Whitehall ministries and ALBs over policy.

“Free of the need to answer to voters, ALBs can go rogue as Highways England (now National Highways) did over its promotion in the face of public opposition of so-called smart motorways.”

Sir Christopher turned to the Sentencing Council, which produces guidelines to help courts set the type and length of offenders’ sentences and last week recommended that a pre-sentence report will usually be necessary before handing out punishment for someone of an ethnic, cultural or faith minority, alongside other groups such as young adults aged 18 to 25, women and pregnant women.

Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood met the council’s chairman Lord Justice William Davis this week to discuss the new guidance, after she said access to pre-sentence reports should not be determined by ethnicity, culture or religion.

Sir Christopher told the Commons that Lord Justice Davis should have “conceded” defeat.

He asked: “Why have we set up a system whereby the Sentencing Council is able to dictate this type of policy, overriding the will of ministers and of elected members of Parliament?”

The Labour MP for Stafford, Leigh Ingham, later intervened in his speech, and asked if Sir Christopher would “welcome the announcement that the largest of these organisations is to be moved within ministerial oversight”.

Sir Christopher replied: “I’m absolutely delighted. I’m not ambivalent about that. I think it’s really good news.”

He said he had contacted NHS services in Dorset about a constituency matter with “no response forthcoming”, and suggested that this could be “properly addressed” once NHS England is brought under ministers’ direct control.

“It means that I, for example, would be able to put down questions about this, I’d be able to try and get an urgent question of the minister,” Sir Christopher said.

He added that Lord Lansley, who was the health secretary when NHS England was set up, might have been “trying to avoid” accountability.

He said: “It was an embarrassment, I think, to the Conservative governments and to the coalition government that they could be asked questions by MPs on the sort of subjects I’ve just raised.

“Yet what more important role is there for an MP to try and drive through those bureaucratic blocks and get delivery of what our constituents are expecting?”

His private member’s bill will next be listed for debate on March 28.