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Mr. Ingram: Is there not a danger that, if the university sector takes over some of these research institutes, it will cherry-pick some of the best aspects of the work and other activities will be cut because they do not fit comfortably into the university sector? Does the hon. Gentleman agree that it is therefore not necessarily the best solution in every case, regardless of the circumstances?
Mr. Couchman: I understand what the hon. Gentleman says. Fragmentation of the HRI establishments would be a detriment to the integrity of the whole, and I hope that, if a consortium such as the one that took over the natural resources institute takes over the HRI, it will take it over completely and continue with the excellence of its work.
I hope that the consortium that took over NRI might pick up the HRI establishments, for that would be a very comfortable and excellent fit, especially as one of the major campuses that has been developed by the university of Greenwich is situated a very few miles away from the East Malling research establishment.
The final thing that worries me slightly about that proposal is that the East Malling establishment is on land that is not in the public sector. It is owned not by the Crown but by a trust, and there is no great security of tenure for the establishment at East Malling.
Mr. Giles Radice (North Durham):
I am a strong, unrepentant supporter of the idea of a permanent, politically impartial, honest, accountable civil service with selection and promotion on merit, and I believe that such a civil service is one of the hallmarks of an advanced democratic society. As the Treasury and Civil Service Select Committee said, the British civil service is a great national asset, whose commitment to the highest standards of performance and conduct is a guarantee of constitutional and financial propriety as well as of good government.
Throughout the 20th century, especially in two world wars, the British civil service, as reformed by Northcote-Trevelyan, has served the nation extremely well. It has been used as a model by many other countries and, as Ministers know well, very often people come to see how we run our civil service because they think that its example is worth following.
It is true that any civil service needs to adapt to changing conditions, and from the 1960s onwards, with the Fulton committee, to which my hon. Friend the Member for Norwich, South (Mr. Garrett) was a consultant, there has been a series of changes. In the 1980s there were the next steps agency changes, and two thirds of the civil service is now covered by those agencies. From 1992 onwards, there were the market testing, contracting out and privatisation reforms.
In my short contribution, I shall make three points. First, I believe that there is a danger of an excess of ideology. I strongly support efficiency changes; I oppose permanent revolution. I strongly supported the broad principle of agency status; I saw it as a natural conclusion, or extension, of the reforms suggested by Fulton and by my hon. Friend the Member for Norwich, South. The purpose of the agency change was to improve service to the customer and citizen, to ensure devolved decision making and to improve accountability. These are excellent aims.
We on the Treasury and Civil Service Select Committee gave the reforms our bipartisan support throughout the late 1980s. The 1992 changes have not been carried out based on a consensus. On the contrary, it seems to me that market testing and contracting out have been used in a doctrinaire way--and they should not be. It also seems to me that the principle of cutting the number of people in the civil service is the wrong way to approach matters. Therefore, it is not surprising that there is a morale crisis in the civil service.
It is not just me saying that--it is reflected in the survey of members of the First Division Association and in a recent poll in The Observer. Any Government have to take this issue seriously--and I would have thought that the Government would take it much more seriously than they are. When we in the Treasury Select Committee asked for a survey of the members, the Government refused--and we drew our own conclusions from that.
Things have gone too far and the Deputy Prime Minister's Department has moved too quickly. It would be unkind to say that it is an old man in a hurry. There have been four privatisations in a short time and we have only just managed to save the Civil Service College. This is overdoing it. Recruitment and Assessment Services is a privatisation too far.
No one says that Recruitment and Assessment Services is not efficient. In fact, the Minister said--as far as I could understand his argument--that it is so efficient it should be allowed to expand in the private sector. No one has said that it has any impact on the public sector borrowing requirement. Indeed, I understand that when Lord Bancroft asked that question in the House of Lords he was told that the impact would be negligible.
This seems to strike at the heart of one of the key principles of the civil service: fair and open competition. In principle, it is inherently dangerous and unstable not to have recruitment to the civil service run by the civil service. It is not surprising that that was rejected by the House of Lords. I believe that this reform has no consensus behind it at all. It should be delayed until after the general election.
I refer to politicisation. It is not a question of political appointees in the civil service or Ministers appointing Tories to posts. When a Government have been in power for so long--as Lord Callaghan put it to the Treasury Select Committee--civil servants pick up the scent and begin to present Ministers with what they want to hear rather than with impartial evidence. That is unprofessional, and it is against the civil service code. Of course, a change in Government would help and it is not surprising that many civil servants would like to see another Government in power--not necessarily because they support the Labour party. They believe that a new Government would be good for our democracy.
Mr. Robert G. Hughes:
This is a serious point and I recognise that the hon. Gentleman is characteristically putting it in a serious and logical way. However, is there not an inconsistency? With great respect to Lord Callaghan and to Labour Members, the Labour party has not been in a position to have received that advice. It is making it up--it does not know whether it is true. From personal experience and from the experience of my colleagues who have served in government, it is not true.
Mr. Radice:
No, I am quoting the First Division Association, the trade union of the civil service. It presented evidence to the Select Committee--it is not a question of hearsay; it is serious evidence. It is not good enough just to have a change of Government and to rely on that. Therefore, we should have a civil service code. I am glad to know that the Labour party believes that it should be put on a statutory basis. We need to protect civil servants by asserting the values of the civil service and by giving them an appeals system with an independent basis.
In the run-up to the election, I would like to hear the head of the civil service make it absolutely clear that it will not be used by the party in power in an unprofessional partisan way. I have heard of some incidents of this taking place, and I hope that it does not continue. I say this in all seriousness, as someone who wants to see the civil service remain impartial. I hope that Conservative Members take that point seriously, not in a partisan way--I do not mean to make it partisan.
The important issue of parliamentary accountability is raised by the managerial changes and we have not faced up to it. If we devolve powers, how do we ensure that the
agency heads and the agencies are responsible to Parliament? We are trying to grapple with that. As the Minister knows, the Treasury Select Committee suggested that agency chiefs should be able to account to Select Committees in their own right. This is already happening--although I accept that they consult their Ministers first.
As my right hon. Friend the Member for Bishop Auckland (Mr. Foster) pointed out, Scott has raised disturbing issues about accountability and civil servants not taking their duties and responsibilities seriously, particularly in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, in the Ministry of Defence and in the Department of Trade and Industry. They are not seeing it as their duty to inform Parliament about what is going on and they are conniving with Ministers to keep Parliament and the Select Committees in the dark. That is not good enough. We need to assert our position in Parliament.
I am glad that the Select Committee is looking at the issue of ministerial and civil service accountability. I hope that we will be able to report before the end of the summer on these issues and that we will come up with something that may be of use to the Government and to the Opposition. If the Conservative party is in opposition after the election, it will want a proper code of accountability--it will be useful to it, too. I hope that we get bipartisan support for some changes.
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