David Davis

Conservative Party chairman David Davis has called for action to stop the government "compromising" the neutrality of the civil service.

In a speech to the Newspaper Society in London on Thursday, Davis said that a new Civil Service Act was needed to stop Labour's obsession with "spin" undermining the traditional impartiality of Whitehall mandarins.

He also called for an end to the role of the prime minister in judging whether ministers had infringed the code of conduct and for political appointees to lose the right to issue instructions to civil servants.

"Serious questions now have to be asked about the health of our political culture. Our civil service has been compromised. Our public servants are being drawn day-by-day into a culture of deceit," Davis warned.

The Conservative chairman blamed Labour's manipulation of the media and focus on newspaper headlines for creating the need for reform.

"New Labour recognised that you get almost as big a headline for 'government spends £10 million' as you do for 'government spends £10 billion'," he said.

And an obsession with launching new initiatives to create favourable headlines had created a barrage of paperwork for public sector staff.

"The gain for government was a weekly headline and a perception of action. The danger was that ministers confused activity with achievement, mere change with real progress."

And Davis said the "obsession with perception" was having other damaging effects, such as "the willingness to fiddle figures, deceitful management of news, pressurising of civil servants, twisting of policy priorities to win a headline and intoxication with propaganda to a point that corrupts the entire operation of the government machine."

"We need to slim down the swelling apparat of advisers, spin doctors, envoys and czars - and subject them to scrutiny by parliament. And I am becoming convinced we need a new Civil Service Act to lay down ground rules for political appointees in government, set out the rights and duties of civil servants, and introduce safeguards against coercion," said Davis.

He said that while the government had promised such an act, it could go the same way as Labour's Freedom of Information Act - "campaigned for in '97, castrated in 2000, the sorry remains to be delivered in 2005".

The new act should remove control and arbitration of the ministerial code of conduct from the prime minister and put it under the control of a parliamentary tribunal consisting solely of senior privy councillors, and on which no political party has a majority, said Davis.

To prevent "institutionalised influence peddling", the code of conduct for special advisers should also be tightened up and put under the supervision of the tribunal, while political appointees should be banned from being able to command independent civil servants.

And, in the wake of the row over Lord Birt's refusal to appear before the Commons transport committee, Davis said the new act should end the ability of officials - including those appointed by politicians at the public expense - to decline to appear before parliamentary committees.

"We will not restore confidence in our political process unless we also restore confidence in the way political power is exercised."

"Governments in office may find accountability inconvenient. But accountability is a proper test of their policies and their actions. This government has failed the test."