---

Mr. White: Does the hon. Gentleman accept that a perennial criticism of the civil service is that it has not been aware of what happens in industry, and secondments are a way of dealing with that fundamental criticism, which has endured for a long time?

Mr. Tyler: That question remains open. Is there a hotline or an inner track from those companies to Minister's decision-making roles? Giving advice is one thing; being in on the decision-making process is another. At the very least, guidelines should be publicly available, be seen by this House and be considered by the Public Administration Committee to ensure that the position is clear and does not involve a conflict of interest.

3 Jul 2000 : Column 111

In an article in The Observer on 25 June, under the heading "'Staff for Favours' row hits Treasury", Anthony Barnett wrote:

Financial consultants Price Waterhouse Coopers, Ernst & Young and Pannell Kerr Forster have all donated staff to Brown since the election. All have won lucrative consultancy contracts from the Treasury, at least one without a competitive tender. These firms have also had success in forcing Brown to backtrack on plans to stop their multinational clients avoiding tax by channelling profits through offshore companies.

That is the answer to the hon. Member for Milton Keynes, North-East (Mr. White). If it was absolutely clear that there was not just a Chinese wall, but an iron curtain between the responsibilities of those advisers or consultants and the decision-making process, we would all be more confident that the proper procedures were being followed. Whereas the civil service is subject to proper controls, that type of taskforce and those types of adviser are subjected to no such guidelines. We need them urgently.

I come to the issue of propaganda, which again has featured in the debate. The Liberal Democrats are concerned about the extent to which civil servants are under pressure to politicise their work. It is an old story; it did not start on 1 May 1997. There was evidence enough under the previous Government, but sadly there is plenty of new evidence that there is a new problem.

The Government information and communication service, headed by the chief press secretary Mr. Alastair Campbell, spent £126 million in 1998-99 alone publicising the Government. It issues press releases and maintains Government departmental websites. Since 1997, it has spent £634,000 on press releases and £4.8 million a year on websites. Again, the rules that are supposed to prevent such activities from being "polemical" have clearly failed. They are simply impossible to police.

The increase in press releases since the Labour Government came to power is huge. There are 40 per cent. more than in 1996, and 80 per cent. more than in the previous mid-term year: 1995. The working guide for government information officers says that all Government publicity should be

relevant . . . objective and explanatory, not tendentious or polemical

and should not

be or be liable to misrepresentation as being, party political.

Mr. Kemp: The hon. Gentleman has made the point about press releases and what they should and should not do. Can he give one example where a press release has breached those guidelines?

Mr. Tyler: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. If I did not know him better, I would think that that was a planted question. I am just coming to that. He must have seen my text--another leak.

Press releases issued by the Government do not always abide by that code. For example, a press release about the new deal, which was numbered DFEE 550/98 and issued on 26 November 1998, attacked political opponents. It was headlined "Smith Slams Cynical Fabrication of New Deal Figures." That was specifically about the Opposition. It was not about Government policy. Some press releases

3 Jul 2000 : Column 112

deal with re-announcements, rather than news. Repetition is a propagandist tool, not a neutral representation of Government policy.

Perhaps the prime example of party having undue influence is the No. 10 website. I do not know whether you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, are a frequent visitor, but I can tell you that it has a number of "manifesto commitments" under the heading, "Facts." My colleagues have researched some of those "facts" and found them to be misleading.

The first fact is about education spending and is belied by the figures that we can obtain from the House of Commons Library. The pledge on the website is as follows:

Over the course of a five-year parliament we will raise the proportion of national income spent on education.

Underneath, it says:

The proportion spent on education will rise by 0.1 per cent. in 2000/01 and 0.2 per cent. in 2001/02.

As we all know, that is a selective statistic. Between the financial years 1992-93 and 1996-97, 4.98 per cent. of gross domestic product was spent on education. The forecast is that, between 1997-98 and 2001-02, 4.67 per cent of GDP will be. It is a drop--lies, damned lies and statistics.

No one who visits the Prime Minister's website can be under any illusion about its primary purpose. It exists to build the image of the Prime Minister, but what do the rules state? They state that it is okay to build the image of a Minister so long as that is a by-product of the Government's publicity operation.

The civil service code states that Ministers have a duty to use public resources for party political purposes. [Interruption.] I am sorry; that is an extra spin on the meaning. It states:

duty not to use public resources for party political purposes.

In addition, there is no accountability over the use of sponsorship and advertising on Government websites. I could quote several such examples, but I want to be brief. The Neill report hardly examines websites, and reaches no great conclusion. However, it acknowledges that such sponsorship needs to be properly monitored.

The new GICS handbook states:

Sponsorship should not be sought or accepted from firms which are involved in significant commercial negotiation with the host Department (whether or not linked to the event), or which may be affected by the exercise of that Department's regulatory or licensing work.

There is no effective monitoring or policing of that particular requirement.

I turn to partisan research. In the past, civil servants would vet parliamentary questions and refuse to handle any that seemed to be simply about Opposition policies, and rightly so. The Labour party has its own resources and researchers to carry out such research. However, in October 1999, Richard Foster, chief executive of the Employment Service, costed the Tory policy of making the jobless sign on once a day for his Labour ministerial masters. That seems to be in gross conflict with all the indications that we have been given, not only by the Cabinet Secretary, but throughout the history of the civil service. Today, it seems that civil servants are expected not only to evaluate Government policies, but to help the Government to attack Opposition policies and discredit them.

3 Jul 2000 : Column 113

Such politicisation is compounded by the increasing number of gagging clauses that Departments place on the research that they commission. During this Session, my hon. Friend the Member for Oxford, West and Abingdon (Dr. Harris) has asked Ministers a series questions about research. He found that 12 out of 15 Ministers included the power to veto publication in their contracts with academics and that 13 out of 16 required academics to ask the civil service for permission to discuss the research with the media, often in perpetuity and not merely at the time of publication--a gagging clause if ever there was one. The implication is that, although the taxpayer foots the bill, if the research outcome is disagreeable to the party in power, it may be indefinitely suppressed.

The same is true of the opinion polls carried out by the Government. Two thirds of the poll results paid for from the public purse, for which the House gives appropriate funding, never see the light of day. My hon. Friend the Member for Bath has questioned the Government on that issue over many months and has exposed the extent to which the results are simply kept secret. The Cabinet Office has produced guidelines requiring Departments to make the results publicly available, but so far very few have done so. However, we live in hope, and it will be interesting to see the results of the polling that has taken place since the general election. That shows how important it is to have a really comprehensive freedom of information Act.

At all levels, there is a worrying elevation of the party good over the public good and a problem with accountability, neutrality and transparency. The Library research paper makes it clear that

there are three features of the British senior civil service which set it apart from American and European models. These are


Accountability through Ministers to Parliament


Selection and promotion on merit, and


Political neutrality.

Traditionally, the purpose of the senior civil service has been to serve the Government of the day, and thus the electorate. It is alarming to find that the Government are not only indirectly withdrawing power from the electorate, through the use of extra-civil service bodies and political appointees, but politicising their work and using research commissioned by them by the back door. It is no excuse to say that the process started under a previous Government. This Government came to office with a mandate to clean up the Augean stables, and we want them to do just that.

---