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5.19 pm
Mr. Alan Duncan (Rutland and Melton): I apologise to you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and to the House for arriving after my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster had begun his speech. Unfortunately, I was caught in traffic. However, I heard most of his comments and I followed closely his remarks about the Government's proposals regarding recruitment and career development in the civil service. I shall add very little to his comments except to respond to the observations of the hon. Member for North Durham (Mr. Radice).
The hon. Gentleman described the civil service as being in a state of permanent revolution. I do not see it that way. We are beyond the extensive and far-reaching reforms that were made to the civil service some 100 years ago. As the nature of the Government changes in order to perform different tasks, it is inevitable that the nature of the civil service should change also. I believe that most of those changes have been for the better and that they take into account the needs, desires, qualities and career prospects of civil servants.
We are extremely fortunate that people of the highest calibre seek careers in the civil service. The civil service is not bereft of talent: the selection boards can choose from a wide range of candidates. Many civil servants serve for decades with great distinction. We are also enormously fortunate--if only we knew all the facts--that our civil service is not tainted by corruption. Civil
servants all over the world are in it on the sly for money. That is not the case in Britain: over the years, few civil servants have been caught taking bribes or engaging in other illegal activities. Our civil service is of the highest standard and I think that civil servants should be more widely appreciated. Their good instincts should be nurtured--we must not take high standards for granted.
I wish to make several observations that have become more pertinent over the four years of this Parliament. My first concern is leaks. When I was a boy and a student of the workings of Government and of the civil service, leaks were a rare event and they were big news when they occurred. It is in the nature of politics that it sometimes serves politicians' interests to slip information into the public domain in some way. They do so in order to advance their cause or to gain some advantage in an argument.
We can usually tell when information is leaked for party political purposes. However, in the past few years, there has been an increase in the number of leaks that can originate only from within the civil service. They are easy to recognise because they do not advantage a politician from the Government party who is in dispute with another. Such leaks are becoming too prevalent. Civil servants--it may be only a few who are at fault--should adhere to the code of conduct which states that they must respect the secrecy of the information with which they are entrusted.
The media have an insatiable appetite for leaked information. As soon as the word "leak" is attached to a story, it becomes sensational. It adds an exciting ingredient to otherwise ordinary and mundane information. As the spin doctors would say, it gives a story legs.
Mr. Couchman:
Does my hon. Friend agree that it is remarkable how often Labour Front-Bench spokesmen purport to quote from internal memorandums between Departments and between Ministers?
Mr. Duncan:
My hon. Friend makes a valid point. Two parties are involved in leaking information: the giver of the information and its recipient. We often find that documents or information are not leaked directly to the BBC: they are usually leaked to the Opposition, who then give that information to the BBC. I think that the Labour party should examine its conduct and the way in which it uses the information that comes into its hands in that manner.
If there are leaks and if there is no measure of secrecy and confidentiality in Government, policy making becomes impossible. The Opposition have charged some of their Front-Bench spokesmen with the task of thinking the unthinkable. The Opposition do that already to a certain extent--although not very well--and the Government must do that as well. The thinking does not stop when a party gains office: policy making must continue. One cannot think the unthinkable, discuss, debate and throw ideas around to be digested and honed into policy if the discussion process takes place in public.
The argument for open government has become simplistic. We cannot have open government when it comes to policy formulation if we also want good, effective and decisive presentation of that policy. One cannot arrive at a coherent decision from a mess of
argument. The increasing habit of leaking documents mid-stream in the policy-making process is making the conduct of Government and the presentation of policy almost impossible. As the Opposition approve of whistleblowing--that is a popular new term--perhaps from time to time Labour Members will blow the whistle on those who leak documents to them which they then use for underhand purposes. We must be able to discuss policy, to argue and to differ about policy, and then to decide when policy will be made public. That is impossible if information may be leaked to a newspaper or to the BBC halfway through the process.
My second concern relates to the question of how some Government policies and legislation are implemented. The legislation that is passed in the House and becomes law is written in language that we consider to be appropriate to the circumstances. If we are honest, we must admit that our law-making process is not perfect. The process of examining legislation line by line in Committee is far from perfect. Many ill-thought-out turns of phrase remain in Bills which become Acts and are then implemented--quite properly in many respects--to the letter.
We have an exact culture of law making and implementation of that law. We do not express wishes in legislation: we detail the rules that should be followed. However, we cannot foresee all the circumstances in which the rules may be applied. For example, European Community directives are the product of a law-making culture that is very different from our own. The literal interpretation of the tiny details of law is becoming increasingly intolerable for many who must bear the consequences. There is growing exasperation about the overly literal implementation of regulation at all levels.
The courts may now assess legislation according to Parliament's express intention when it passed that law. In other words, judges may take account of the words used by Ministers at the Dispatch Box or in Committee. I believe that that is a pretty iffy process because it is liable to reduce the inclination to make legislation exact and black and white. We would be pegging our hopes on judges realising that remarks made in this Chamber might be taken into account. It is absurd to imagine that judges would read through Hansard and implement what was said.
The application of rules at an administrative level is becoming too rigid, particularly with EC directives, business regulations and the Health and Safety Executive. The man from the Ministry is not required to suspend all initiative when applying rules defined by the House. Initiative can still be deployed, so that the official can pass back up the line the express concerns of the people affected by the rules and regulations in question. The same applies to Ministers. An autobiography by a Minister whose name I have forgotten is entitled "Ministers Decide". Ministers decide less and less because more and more they are bound by rules, many of them from the European Union, and they no longer have the discretion to decide.
One example of the petty detail that is applied when implementing rules is export licences. Setting aside post-Scott paranoia, constituents of mine have produced examples of export licences that have taken six months to authorise. How can anyone export when a civil servant
takes six months to process a licence? That is a self-created brake on our export potential. I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister will consider whether the citizens charter standards cannot be applied to that function of the Department of Trade and Industry, to ensure that export licences can--for the benefit of productive British companies that want to sell overseas--be processed more efficiently. Many companies feel that they do not have an effective right of appeal against that inordinate delay.
Dr. Spink:
Will my hon. Friend contrast the way in which we apply rules with French practice? Does he agree with the axiom that rules are for the blind obedience of fools and for the careful guidance of managers and officials?
Mr. Duncan:
My hon. Friend is right, because in many cases the French ignore or avoid the rules altogether.
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