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3.54 pm
Mr. Edward Garnier (Harborough): I shall speak as quickly as possible; indeed I shall gallop—something we do a lot in my part of Leicestershire.
The debate has been strange, not least for the remarks of the right hon. Member for Carrick, Cumnock and Doon Valley (Mr. Foulkes), with whom, to some extent, I agree. I do not take the apoplectic view that to have a Secretary of State for Health who happens to represent
a Scottish constituency is something to be ashamed of or worried about, any more than I complained, when the right hon. Member for Carrick, Cumnock and Doon Valley was Under-Secretary at the Department for International Development, that he did not represent overseas. Such arguments can be put on one side. I am more concerned about whether the Secretary of State for Health and his Government's policies are any good. I suspect that they will not be.I am also concerned about the way in which the changes have come about and the consequences that they may have for us all. One has only to look at the way in which the Government amendment to the Opposition motion is phrased to see how parlous the state of affairs is. I compare that with the way in which the military campaign was planned and executed in southern Iraq by the British armed forces. While the reshuffle was going on, I was visiting the British armed forces in Iraq, and I got back at the weekend to find the mess that the Government had dished up on the Thursday.
If the military campaign had been planned and executed in a fashion similar to the way in which the Government reshuffle was apparently planned and executed, the military mission would have been an unmitigated disaster. Thank goodness, it was not, for the obvious reason that the military planners had got their heads round the issues rather more carefully than the political planners at No. 10.
One goes on to look at the exact wording of the amendment and one sees all the usual new Labour-speak, which is no more than drivel, and it is supposed to be a defence of the Government position. One looks at expressions such as
- "welcomes the Government's continuing drive to modernise the constitution . . . focused on improving the criminal justice system"
- "consulting on establishing an independent Judicial Appointments Commission".
The problem with the Government is that they think that words such as "modernise", "focus" and "consult" are the answer to the issues that we face. On reading the amendment, one can smell the burning oil, the grinding gears and the binding brakes of the Government desperately trying to alter course, having been made such a fool of over the weekend.
I do not think that the relevant Secretary of State is here at the moment.
Sir Patrick Cormack: He has not been here at all.
The position is made yet worse by the Secretary of State promising consultation, while anticipating the outcome by already reaching a conclusion that will not be the subject of consultation. He says that a judicial appointments commission is a good idea and one will
come into being. It may or may not be a good idea, but what is the point of the consultation if he has already reached a conclusion?
Mr. Leslie: Will the hon. and learned Gentleman give way?
Mr. Garnier: I will not give way. The hon. Gentleman will have a chance to reply to the debate for 15 minutes; I have only about four minutes to get across a speech that could have taken half an hour, so he should consider himself lucky that I am confined to four minutes.
As I was suggesting, the Secretary of State has already reached a conclusion irrespective of the consultation that he promised, so we see yet again that the expression, "Government consultation" is no more than an inelegant oxymoron.
I suspect that the cheers from Government Members about the changes to the Lord Chancellor's office have nothing whatever to do with the constitutional good sense of the reforms, but everything to do with the personality of the previous Lord Chancellor. Probably from day one when the Government took office in 1997, the previous Lord Chancellor made a fool of himself through his inability to behave in a politically and diplomatically sensitive way. That is not his fault. He is a man of huge intellect and great legal experience and expertise, but he was wholly unsuited to the delicate role required of a Lord Chancellor.
Keith Vaz: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. The previous Lord Chancellor appointed the hon. and learned Gentleman as a silk—a Queen's counsel—so was his judgment wrong in that as well?
Mr. Deputy Speaker: That is not a matter for the Chair but a point of debate.
Mr. Garnier: It is not even a fact; I was appointed a silk by Lord Mackay.
All that lies behind the antagonism of Labour Back Benchers for the office of Lord Chancellor. I suspect that their complaint has more to do with the personality of the occupant of the Woolsack rather than the role itself. Subsequently, perfectly respectable arguments—on which the hon. Member for North Cornwall (Mr. Tyler) and my hon. Friend the Member for South Staffordshire (Sir Patrick Cormack) touched in outline—have been deployed for adjusting the role of the Lord Chancellor within the constitution. I suspect that a problem has arisen not only because of the character of the last Lord Chancellor but because of how his Department has grown from being simply that of the so-called Speaker of the House of Lords, the head of the judiciary and the judicial representative within the Executive to take on additional responsibilities way beyond those imagined possible or sensible by previous Lord Chancellors. The Department's budget is now measured in billions rather than the tens of millions that it used to be. All those factors, which I wish that I had further time to develop, have informed the way in which this debate has come about.
The short point that time allows me to make is that I am afraid that this is a cack-handed piece of reshuffling. It has constitutional implications about which the Government appear to be utterly careless. I am afraid that they will reap the whirlwind, and all of us will be disadvantaged by the way in which this matter has been handled.
4.1 pm
Mrs. Jacqui Lait (Beckenham): In starting to sum up one of these debates, it is traditional to congratulate those who have taken part in it. In the current circumstances, I wonder whether the use of the word "traditional" is correct. We have had a debate that started by pointing out the farce of the Prime Minister's reorganisation but that has descended into tragedy.
We started with the part-time shadow Secretary of State for Wales and shadow Leader of the House—[Hon. Members: "Shadow?"] The confusion created by the Prime Minister's reshuffle is such that we are not sure whether or not he is a shadow. The part-time Leader of the House and part-time Secretary of State for Wales started by desperately running out of the Chamber to try to find a list of Ministers, which he has promised will be in the Library by the end of this debate. We look forward to getting it. He could not answer when we pointed out that today's Order Paper makes it clear that Government Departments clearly believe that the Scotland Office is a shadow of its former self. Furthermore, we are wondering to which press release from No. 10 the part-time Leader of the House and Secretary of State for Wales was referring when he was trying to explain what happened last Thursday and Friday.
It is a great shame that the part-time Secretary of State for Transport and Secretary of State for Scotland has not been present for the debate at all—there were certainly circumstances to explain that, because we understand that he was at the Scottish Affairs Committee—but I am afraid that the said gentleman has added to the confusion about what happened last Thursday and Friday. As we understood it, the part-time Leader of the House said that the Scotland and Wales Offices would remain with the same staff and the same duties. Today, however, in the Scottish Affairs Committee, the part-time Secretary of State for Scotland said that there would be substantial changes in the staff in the Scotland Office, but that Ministers would talk to the staff first. He went on to say that the Scotland Office is to be a separate department within the Department for Constitutional Affairs. Nobody is any the wiser about the impact of all these changes.
In welcoming the former full-time Secretary of State for Scotland, the right hon. Member for Airdrie and Shotts (Mrs. Liddell) to the debate—we send her our commiserations on her retirement to the Back Benches—I note that it may be a sadness to her to learn that Friends of Scotland has been rapidly passed over to the Scottish Executive on the ground that there is a clear duplication.
Mr. James Gray (North Wiltshire): Is the confusion in the Government's mind not highlighted by the anecdote that the caretaker in Dover house went straight out of the front door last Thursday and unscrewed the sign
that said "Scotland Office"? He took it inside only to be told on Friday that he had done wrong and that he must put it back up again.
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