PRESSURE on ministers to legislate against political interference in the Civil Service increased yesterday as a committee of MPs published its own proposals for a ban.

MPs set out plans to give statutory force to the code enshrining the impartiality of government officials and the Civil Service Commission, the watchdog that upholds their independence. Special advisers, other than two in Downing Street, should be barred from giving orders to civil servants and from spending public money and Parliament should cap their number to prevent creeping politicisation of the Civil Service, they said.

The proposals were set out in a draft Bill published by the Select Committee on Public Administration, which had taken evidence from former Whitehall mandarins, civil service unions and others.

It was broadly welcomed by supporters of civil service legislation, although some questioned why two Downing Street special advisers should retain executive powers and why the Bill itself should not set a maximum number of special advisers. There are currently 75.

Executive powers have been granted to the Prime Minister’s chief of staff, Jonathan Powell, and to Mr Blair’s director of communications; unlike Alastair Campbell, David Hill, his successor in that post, has not taken them up.

Tony Wright, the Labour MP who chairs the committee, told The World At One on BBC Radio 4 yesterday that it had “sought to express what we take to be the prevailing consensus”. On the question of limiting the number of special advisers, Mr Wright said: “Now we are moving from a Civil Service controlled by (royal) prerogative to the Civil Service controlled by Parliament. That is a huge constitutional change which is behind all these particular proposals.”

Sir Nigel Wicks, chairman of the Committee on Standards in Public Life, which called last year for similar curbs on special advisers, applauded the move and urged ministers to respond by producing their own Bill. Sir Nigel told the same programme that this would allow the Government to seek consensus on the measure and pass a Civil Service Act soon after the next election if this could not be done beforehand.

Jonathan Baume, general secretary of the First Division Association, the union for senior civil servants, said that its preference would be for no special advisers to have executive powers, but that it would accept the committee’s proposals, if compromise were needed. Mr Baume said: “This is an opportunity for ministers to consolidate trust and integrity at the heart of government.”

One dissenting member of the committee, the Labour MP Brian White, published a minority report calling the proposals “minimalist” and proposing further discussion.

The six-page draft Bill published by the committee provides for an appeals system for any official who felt he or she was being asked to do something unlawful, improper, unethical or in breach of the Civil Service code. In such circumstances the official would be able to appeal, if necessary to the Civil Service Commission itself, if he or she reasonably believed that their career might otherwise be harmed.

The commission, whose members would be appointed with the Leader of the Opposition’s agreement, would continue to maintain the Civil Service principle of selection on merit by open competition, other than for special advisers appointed by ministers.

The Civil Service code, requiring officials to serve ministers honestly and with political impartiality, would also be subject to parliamentary approval. The Committee also recommended lifting the bar on foreign nationals from working in the home Civil Service, which is open only to British, Commonwealth and Irish-born citizens and, in some cases, those from the European Economic Area.

A Cabinet Office spokesman repeated the commitment made by the Government last year — after a report from Sir Nigel Wicks’s organisation — to publish its own draft Bill for consultation once Mr Wright’s committee had published its report, but gave no timetable for doing so.

The Government would now give careful consideration to the report by the Commons Public Administration Committee, the spokesman said.

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