Examination of witnesses (Questions 40
- 47)
WEDNESDAY 12 JULY 2000
LORD LIPSEY
and PROFESSOR ANTHONY
KING
Mr Turner
40. I want to bring you back to something you
said earlier and see if I can tease out a little bit more from
you on that. You seemed to indicate that you thought there was
a difference between specialist policy advisers and political
advisers and you talked also about having a third shoe box. I
think we would all agree that the difference is shades of grey
and where one turns from black to white is very difficult. Can
you give us some thoughts on what you think a definition of a
specialist adviser would be as opposed to a definition of a special
adviser?
(Lord Lipsey) I do not know if I can give you a definition
because you rightly pointed out there are shades of grey. When
I arrived at the Department of the Environment in 1974 I had been
doing housing policy in Opposition for two years, which was longer
I think than the Deputy Secretary responsible for housing policy,
so I was somewhere between being an expert adviser and a pure
political adviser. When I got to the Foreign Office I had to get
a map put up on the wall pretty sharply, I did not have a deep
knowledge of those issues. It is a shades of grey situation. I
really think that the true specialist advisers, the Keith Hellawells
or the Chancellor's economic advisers, really do not belong in
this special adviser category for most of these purposes at all,
I think you need another category for them. What they are is people
who could be civil servants but who have not chosen to join the
Civil Service, there is not a particular line job to put them
into and, therefore, an ad hoc job has to be invented.
They have very little in common with and do not belong with the
rest of the clan. Indeed, they need not be of the same party.
I remember that John Selwyn-Gummer had an adviser who from memory
was first of all a Member of the Green Party and then joined the
Lib Dems. That seemed to me to be absolutely right. I am sure
there are many Conservatives who could give useful advice as specialists
to this Government. I really think that it should be much more
accepted, it is just a way round getting through the rigid procedures
for the appointments of civil servants and there should be a simpler
and less artificial device for doing that.
Mr Wright
41. Lord Lipsey, I was interested in your comments
earlier on when you were an adviser to Tony Crosland, when you
mentioned the fact that on occasion you had to speak on his behalf
or attend a certain function on his behalf. The model contract
itself says, "Advisers would not normally be asked to speak
on behalf of a minister". Do you think it is advisable to
continue along those lines or do you consider that would be an
important part of being an adviser, to stand in for a minister
on occasions?
(Lord Lipsey) I think I did stand in on occasions,
usually because he was ill. Going out to lunch, and trying to
keep one's voice down is not the same as delivering a speech.
I do not think the contract actually rules it out happening on
the odd occasion, it says "generally".
42. "Normally".
(Lord Lipsey) I would get worried if it got to the
stage where special and political advisers were themselves becoming
public personalities, because I think becoming a public personality
is something that should go ideally with election. Some of us
have to put up with a second rate legitimacy of being appointed,
but you should not become a public personality when you are working
in the role of special adviser. I am sure those who have, such
as Alastair Campbell, would rather prefer it if there were less
of it.
43. You also mentioned the question of Short
money. We are obviously looking at the question of Short money
in our future deliberations. What would your view be on that particular
area? You did briefly mention the fact that you would probably
consider the Government itself should have Short money which is
taken outside of their area. Could you expand on that?
(Lord Lipsey) Beyond saying that I am broadly in favour
of it and, as I have said, I would like the money spent by Government
on political special advisers to come through a similar mechanism,
I do not have any detailed knowledge or opinion on how it is actually
disbursed and what it is used for at the moment, I am afraid.
Chairman
44. Is that the main additional departure from
the Neill recommendations on special advisers, that category of
adviser or ought it to come out of a separate box or pot?
(Lord Lipsey) It is a departure. I am less than wholly
enthusiastic about a code, not because I think it would do any
particular harm—indeed, we have to have codes for everything
these days, it one of those things—but I do not think it
will have much effect on behaviour. It would be a more important
way of avoiding confusion and problems that we do run into from
time to time if, on an all party basis, that could be agreed as
a way forward. I think that would avoid a lot of fuss.
45. The cap?
(Lord Lipsey) The cap on numbers. I do not think that
too much faith should be put in caps either, because under the
Neill proposals they can be changed by affirmative resolution
to Parliament. There is a natural cap. A special adviser is completely
useless if he does not know his minister's mind and does not have
access to the minister. By definition, there is a limited number
of people who can constantly be with the minister, knowing his
mind and able to influence him. Ministers themselves impose a
natural cap. If in addition to that it is felt that there is an
advantage to having a numerical cap of 100, fine. If ministers
find they need more, they will raise the cap and that would be
duly debated. I would not expect miraculous results, indeed I
would be rather surprised if the cap recommended by Neill came
to be exceeded.
Mr Tyrie
46. Can I ask one brief question about your
personal experience as an adviser. When you were an adviser, I
hope you recognise the distinction, how much of your time was
devoted to what I would understand as policy work and how much
was devoted to party political work?
(Lord Lipsey) Let me confine myself to the Department
of Environment, which I just remember, and let me delete party
political and say political with a small "p" because
party political would be quite a small percentage. There would
be the odd writing of briefs for MPs, which were partisan briefs.
I would say probably ten to 15 per cent party
political, 35 per cent general political and 50 per cent policy
in my particular case in that department. At the Foreign Office
rather less policy because I did not know anything about it. At
No.10 in the early stages rather more policy, perhaps rather less
as the election approached. The exact figures do change depending
on the circumstances in the department your minister is in.
Chairman
47. Is there anything we have not asked you
about all of this that you would like to tell us before you leave
us?
(Lord Lipsey) No. I am not surprised that Tony wanted
to get off as quickly as possible to a gentler inquisition by
sixth formers. Thank you very much for your questions.
Chairman: We have not confessed either, David,
have we, that we both went for the same job in 1972 to be special
adviser to Tony Crosland and you got it and I was runner up. If
things had been different you could have been sitting here and
I could have been sitting there and I could have had what you
call second rate legitimacy, I could be a Lord. Gosh, how different
life would have been. Anyway, thank you very much indeed for coming
along and talking to us so interestingly. Thank you very much.
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