Overhaul UK ministers’ ethics system, cross-party commission urges

Group draws up 100 proposals, including that ministers swear oath to uphold a new code of standards

Ministers should have to swear an oath to uphold ethical standards in public life after years of scandals and declining trust in the government, a new cross-party commission has found.

The group, whose members include the former Tory attorney general Dominic Grieve, the Labour MP Margaret Hodge, and Helen MacNamara, a former government ethics chief, set out 100 recommendations aimed at fixing problems with the standards system.