Labour chief whip in new cronyism row over her damehood
She’s on the panel that put her forward for the honour!
LABOUR chief whip Rosie Winterton was a member of the committee which recommended she receive a damehood, it can be revealed today.
The MP’s position on the same committee which considered her nomination raised further worrying questions about cronyism within the honours system, following anger over awards to party officials and donors.
Anti-sleaze campaigners said the entire system was ‘ripe for reform’ and questioned why earlier calls for it to be scrapped and replaced by an independent commission had been rejected.
Dame Rosie, Labour MP for Doncaster Central, was given the honour for political and parliamentary service during her 18-year career in Westminster.
She would not have been involved in discussions about her own honour and her spokesman insisted she had not known about her nomination.
Nominations for honours go to committees for each area of public life, including the parliamentary and political service committee. This would have considered the Winterton nomination
‘Restore integrity
of the system’
and also the controversial knighthoods to David Cameron’s election guru Lynton Crosby and Lib Dem politician Ed Davey.
This nine-strong committee is made up of five ‘independent’ members and the chief whips from the three main political parties, and is chaired by Lord Spicer, a former Tory MP. Recommendations for awards are then sent to the main honours committee, made up of senior civil servants and the chairs of the lower committees.
Analysis of this year’s main honours committee revealed that all 14 members had received honours or peerages.
Previous reviews of the committee system have warned the public perceive it to be a closed shop.
The Commons Public Administration Select Committee recommended it be replaced by an independent commission ‘to restore the character and integrity of the honours system’.
It warned: ‘It is a serious concern that many members of the public do not view the honours system as open or fair.’
The select committee said it was particularly concerned about party whips being involved in considering nominations, which it said ‘opens the committee to the charge of political manipulation in the interest of party leaders’.
Its conclusions were rejected by the Government, which defended the current system.
Sir Alistair Graham, the former chairman of the committee on standards in public life, said the entire system was ‘ripe for reform’.
He told the Mail: ‘There are serious questions about why chief whips sit on this committee because inevitably political considerations will dominate rather than who the public would have wanted.
‘The entire system is ripe for reform and it still seems like a closed process from which the public are excluded.’
Pete Wishart, the Scottish National Party’s shadow leader of the Commons, said: ‘Labour are very good at making a fuss about all the Tories getting honours, when at the same time they make sure their friends and cronies are showered with awards.’
Dame Rosie’s spokesman said: ‘Rosie did not know anything about her honour.
‘She did not know anything about that process at all. These decisions were mostly taken in the summer.’
A spokesman from the Cabinet Office said: ‘Serving committee members are not precluded from receiving honours but to make sure the process remains confidential, robust and transparent, candidates will be considered to be outside the committee, via correspondence.’
He said anyone could apply to become a member of an honours committee. Members of the current main honours committee include Lord Coe, recently accused of failing to tackle alleged corruption at the International Association of Athletics Federations, and Lord Spicer, who was shown to have claimed £7,000 for gardening, including hedge trimming for a ‘helipad’, during the MPs’ expenses scandal.
Other members include chief of the defence staff General Sir Nick Houghton, who was recently accused of unacceptable political interference by Jeremy Corbyn, after he said the Labour leader’s stance on nuclear weapons made him unfit to be Prime Minister.