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Mr. Alan Duncan (Rutland and Melton): On that point, will the right hon. Gentleman confirm categorically that it is Labour party policy not to politicise the civil service any further, either by appointing a political press secretary to No. 10 Downing street, should, by any
prospect, Labour occupy these Benches, or by adding more political appointees to the private offices of individual Ministers?
Mr. Foster: If I wanted to be unkind to the hon. Gentleman, I might say that it would be impossible to politicise the civil service any further, but I shall not be so unkind.
I now turn to the White Paper "The Civil Service: Taking Forward Continuity and Change". In that White Paper, the Government seemed, like Lord Callaghan, to be seeking consensus. They said that they recognised
If the Government genuinely want consensus, let them now halt the privatisation of HMSO, RAS, the Occupational Health and Safety Agency and the Government computer centre at Chessington. Let them abandon the market testing of the administration of the principal civil service pension scheme. Let them abandon the privatisation of the public sector research establishments, a matter that was recently raised by my hon. Friend the Member for East Kilbride (Mr. Ingram), because that would damage the continuity, independence and integrity of the science base as a provider of research information and advice in the public interest.
Labour believes that the Government have behaved with reckless irresponsibility in bequeathing two huge problems to their successor. First, the trust between the people and Government is badly fractured. For the first time since the great reforms of the mid-19th century, the probity of the British public service is in question.
I was glad that my right hon. Friend the Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Mr. Sheldon), the Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee, intervened earlier. In its eighth report, that Committee spoke of
The Public Accounts Committee also claimed that the fragmentation of the civil service makes its job of effective scrutiny far more difficult.
The former Prime Minister, Lord Callaghan, said that he was
The fact that the current Prime Minister was forced to set up the Nolan committee is eloquent enough comment that the public have lost confidence in Government and in Parliament to put their houses in order. Those who have read the 1,800 pages of the Scott report--which took three years to complete, at a cost of £3 million--will have had a disturbing picture of Whitehall's culture of secrecy and of the unhealthy relationship between Ministers and civil servants. Restoring trust between the people and Government is a formidable task, which will not be achieved quickly or easily.
New Labour has a very ambitious programme of constitutional and democratic renewal. It is based on four principles: first, a clearer definition and stronger protection of the public interest; secondly, greater decentralisation of Government; thirdly, greater transparency; and, fourthly, much more accountability. Our programme will, of course, include devolution to Scotland, Wales and the English regions, in time; a limited reform of the House of Lords; and a freedom of information Act to make central Government and their agencies and quangos more open.
Dr. Spink:
Will the hon. Gentleman inform me about a personal matter? Has he ever been approached by any of his constituents asking for an additional, regional layer of government?
Mr. Foster:
The hon. Gentleman totally misconceives the Labour party's proposals. We do not propose to impose an additional layer of administration at all.
Mr. James Couchman (Gillingham):
If the Labour party does not propose imposing an additional layer of government in forming regional government, which current layer of government would it do away with?
Mr. Foster:
I am completely surprised that Conservative Members do not see the virtue--in what is now the most centralised Government in Europe--of pushing power further down to the people. That objective strikes me as eminently sensible and very popular. I am surprised that the hon. Gentleman is not persuaded of its sense.
Mr. Foster:
No; I shall not give way again for the time being.
I was beginning to describe my party's proposals for dealing with the breakdown of trust between the people and the Government. It is horrifying that the Conservatives are quite unaware that that breakdown is what they have achieved in their 17 years of undistinguished rule. We want to put on a statutory basis the civil service code to which the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster referred; we want an effective register of all quango members and their financial, political and other interests; and we want new arrangements to ensure better accountability of quangos at each level on which they operate.
I deal now with the second problem that will face the new Government--the widespread demoralisation throughout the civil and public services. In an interview
with The Observer last November, Sir Robin Butler himself described the revolution sweeping Whitehall Departments as having sapped the morale of civil servants and created a climate of insecurity.
The recently published First Division Association MORI survey revealed that 40 per cent. of senior FDA members expected to leave the service shortly, and that morale was at a low ebb. The much more recent survey of civil servants conducted by The Observer, together with the Public Service, Tax and Commerce Union--known as the PTC--and the Institution of Professionals, Managers and Specialists found that 92 per cent. of those asked believed that civil service morale was quite or very bad, and that 73 per cent. would not advise the next generation to join the civil service.
The House will have seen the ICM poll published in The Observer on Sunday 5 May, which showed that insecurity has risen sharply in the 1990s and has spread to people of all ages, all regions and all social groups. A sense of insecurity pervades the whole of the civil service. Whenever and wherever I meet civil servants, that is uppermost in their minds.
What will Labour do to tackle low morale in the civil service? First, Labour will affirm its commitment to the public service and reassert the classic civil service values. Those values were once shared by one-nation Conservatives, who have now been elbowed aside by the right-wing ideologues who call the shots.
Mr. Bernard Jenkin:
Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Foster:
Not for the time being.
Secondly, we shall make it clear that the British civil service is a great national asset which, since the 1870s, has been a permanent and impartial instrument of all Administrations. The new Government will recognise their duty to preserve its efficiency and honesty for their successor.
Thirdly, we shall halt privatisation of the service. Fourthly, we shall place a moratorium on market testing while we institute a thorough independent review, but the drive for efficiency--[Interruption.] It is interesting that a party which has instituted so many reviews finds the notion of this review mildly amusing.
Mr. Radice:
Is not the Government's problem the fact that they have done a great deal without any testing, and without thinking through the implications of what they were doing? Is that not the reason why so many of their policies have failed?
Mr. Foster:
I am grateful for that intervention from my distinguished and hon. Friend the Member for North Durham (Mr. Radice), the Chairman of the Public Service Select Committee.
The drive for efficiency, value for money and high-quality service will continue under Labour. However, the motivation will not be the dogmatic wish to drive down public expenditure in order to fund tax handouts. Nor will we seek efficiency gains by driving down public servants' wages and conditions of service; nor will we regard downsizing as an end in itself.
"that the civil service is not the property of a single Administration."
However, in my view, there is little evidence of a bipartisan approach over the past 17 years, as the Government have imposed wave upon wave of change on the civil service, with no consideration for the views of staff or of the civil service trade unions.
"a departure from the standards of public conduct which have been established during the past 140 years."
I have an example of that. The Committee discovered, in the very citadel of Government--in the Treasury--that one arm of the Treasury had been defrauded of £250,000 by another of its arms, called Forward Catering. If that type of incompetence and fraud is occurring in the very citadel of Government, what hope have we of discovering it in the "sticks" of Government?
"more worried about the Civil Service than I have ever been in the 60-odd years since I first joined."
If Conservative Members do not like the words of a former Labour Prime Minister, let me remind them of the words spoken in the House by the right hon. Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (Sir E. Heath) in the debate on civil service pensions:
"In pursuing the privatisation path, particularly regarding civil service arrangements, my hon. Friend the Minister is making a grave mistake."--[Official Report, 7 May 1996; Vol. 277, c. 132.]
22 May 1996 : Column 310
Those are the words of a Conservative former Prime Minister.
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