Examination of Witnesses (Questions 20-34)
MR DIGBY
JONES AND
MS SUSANNAH
HAAN
20 OCTOBER 2004
Q20 Jim Dobbin: I just
wanted to clarify your position.
Mr Jones: We are
tooled up for it.
Q21 Jim Dobbin: That brings
me to my next question. If that is the situation—and you
look as if you have got ample support there—it tells me
that as legislation is going through the European Parliament there
may well be opportunities for the CBI to come to us at an early
stage. The follow-on to that is that you said in your press release
that the CBI "has few opportunities to lobby Westminster
at a stage that might influence the outcome", and the point
I am making is that your set-up seems to contradict that. I am
a simple Member of Parliament but my pensioners know when there
are issues coming through here because they come and see me; my
disabled people know when there is legislation coming through
and my farmers know when to come down here. I am just wondering
why—
Mr Jones: Good
point. Did you want to say something?
Ms Haan: Yes, I
think the problem for us is that it is difficult to find out what
this Committee is doing when and, therefore, the appropriate times
for when you are scrutinising particular documents and, therefore,
when we should come and talk to you specifically. In general,
yes, of course, we have a list of issues—current concerns
and future concerns—on what is going on in Europe, and we
are dealing with it constantly, and sending off, for example,
briefing notes to MEPs or whatever. The briefing notes to MEPs
are pretty much on dossiers that are already going through. If
you are talking about some of the earlier documentation or getting
an earlier idea of the programme coming up, I think it is harder
for us and for the business community from the outside to know
what you are doing and when, and whether we—
Q22 Mr Cash: I do not
think so—
Mr Jones: Could
I just ask you for some advice, please? We got round members,
knowing I was appearing here today—those people I talked
about—and said, "What is your view?" so that I
do not just talk about what Digby thinks I talk about what the
CBI thinks. I had one reaction which I do not know is true, so
I would like you to tell me whether this is true. "Under
normal circumstances the European Scrutiny Committee meets in
private and does not circulate a programme of the documents it
will be discussing to outside interest groups. As such, it makes
it hard to keep a track of up-coming business and to work out
when and if any papers need to be sent in." I do not know
whether that is true or not. If it is, I would say "Help
me."
Chairman: (a) we meet
in private and (b) we just cannot circulate interest groups. I
would imagine that the CBI, as a group, has an interest in representing
a lot of those interest groups in watching what is happening here.
How we can improve that flow of information we will certainly
be prepared to look at.
Q23 Mr Cash: Chairman,
if I may, there is a procedural problem, here, and that is this:
the procedures are there, they are made out and they go according
to a strict chronology: they go from the Commission and there
is circulation of documents and then they come to us. The point
I wanted to get across to Mr Jones and Ms Haan is that if you
were to have studied the procedures in a manner which enabled—and
you can do this by dialogue—you to dovetail with us at the
right time, that could be solved.
Mr Jones: I would
welcome that
Mr Cash: It is not our
fault; the procedures are there as a matter of public record,
it is just that you have not made them available to yourselves.
Q24 Mr David: Could I
just add on this point, because I think it is a very important
point, I am sure the Chair would be open to representations on
issues of concern, frankly, at any time, if you had simply an
inkling of something being put forward in Brussels. You could
make representations in one form or another and flag the issue
up at the earliest possible stage. The other point I would make
is that we do scrutinise every year the European Commission work
programme. In fact, that is due to happen in the next few weeks.
Obviously, by its very definition, that is the programme of the
Commission's work over the next 12 months. That is available and
you could make representations to us on that.
Mr Jones: I think
we could do more there and I am happy to work on that. Could I
say that does not solve the other point I raised in my introduction
about the fact that too many MPs will still, therefore, think
"Well, it's all your job. We will leave it with you."
How do we assure ourselves that the average MP in Westminster
as opposed to the Members of this Committee have those European
issues at the front of their minds? What do you do to make it
happen? I do not know the answer to that.
Q25 Chairman: That is
a fair point to make. I have to tell you that we are constantly
discussing how we do that, not just inside Parliament, because
the reason we are here today is to respond to perceptions outside
of parliament as well. How MPs inside the House react to European
issues is an issue. I have been on this Committee for 17 years
and it used to be, by the way—and I know I am giving evidence
on the record—that to be on this Committee you had to be
Shanghaied on to it. You would wake up in the morning and they
would say, "You must have had a pint last night, you are
on the European Legislation Committee", because it was not,
and still is not, sexy. Thankfully, Europe is now fairly well
up the agenda and hopefully the political process and the political
classes, instead of throwing brickbats at one another, are trying
to grapple with the real issue, and the real issue is how do you
deal with legislation, and open it up to the people affected by
it? How are we, the legislators, consulting with and representing
the people we are here to represent? It is how we dovetail that
in. I will not get too carried away by this because I went to
the Brussels Chamber of Commerce to speak at a lunch just a few
weeks ago, and it is not that industry is not willing to get involved
it is about the facilities and, on occasion, it is how we do that.
I want to open that debate up, and I do not want to score points
to and fro—
Mr Jones: We are
in violent agreement on that.
Q26 Mr Heathcoat-Amory: One
of your case studies about what has gone wrong to the Modernisation
Committee is about the European Court of Justice, which was debated
during the Convention on the Future of Europe and is entrenched
now in the Constitution. You complained that this was not properly
debated and you had no input. I have to point out that I wrote
to you (I was a Member of the Convention) on 9 May 2002, pointing
out that I was on it and was very willing to, at least, listen
to the CBI, and I did not think you were properly represented
by UNICE which is your European body, which gave a very general
speech saying it, basically, welcomed everything. I have to say
that you did reply and you said I would be contacted by the CBI,
but nothing ever happened, either in Brussels or here; I received
no documentation and no suggestions. So, frankly, I think the
CBI were asleep on the job during that whole Convention exercise.
I must just finish this, because I tried to contact you, you never
came back to me, except in a written form, and that did not include
any information which I had requested in my letter. I just felt
that the CBI was uninterested, so I think it is a little bit curious
that you should now say that we are "asleep on the job".
I think it is better if we declare a draw on this, and my question
to you is a slightly different one.
Mr Jones: Before
you move on, I am not going to accept a draw until I have answered
that. I am not "asleep on the job"; if I get very active
with other members of the British representation on that committee
and choose not to talk to you that is not me being "asleep
on the job". I had detailed conversations with Peter Hain
about it, I had detailed conversations with Gisela Stuart about
it and I just chose not to talk to you about it. That is not being
"asleep on the job" that is just making a value judgment
of where I apply my time. If you wish to tell me I am asleep on
the job when I have been doing my job but choosing, actually,
who I talk to—I thought choosing was the hallmark of a free
society. I will call a draw.
The Committee suspended from 3.39 pm to
4.00 pm for a division in the House
Chairman: I understand
Mr Heathcoat-Amory wants to come back.
Mr Heathcoat-Amory: We
have established that Mr Jones makes whinging complaints about
not having MPs listen to him, but when one does write to him offering
to be briefed he writes a misleading letter saying that someone
will contact me when he had no intention of doing so. Is this
a professional or courteous way for the CBI to deal, even with
its critics, let alone its friends? I used to have considerable
regard for Mr Jones but that has entirely evaporated and I regard
his arrogance as absolutely unacceptable in front of a Select
Committee which is trying to do some good. In the interests of
good government, let us try and put these personal matters behind
us. I would like to press him on the Constitution, since it was
the Constitution that I was trying to influence. I was trying
to pursue a deregulatory agenda, which I took to be the CBI policy,
but I was obviously wrong about that. Would Mr Jones comment on
this: that under the Constitution which is about to be signed
the problem is bound to get worse because there are over 60 new
areas subject to majority voting, the powers of the Union will
go into new areas, many of which affect business, and so any problem
we have got now is going to escalate. How can we get a structured
relationship between the CBI and, perhaps, this Committee so that
we can avoid these problems in future? We have talked around that
but I would just like to get to the bottom of this, about how
we can actually get an agenda, perhaps, to the CBI and, on a regular
basis, get back comments so that we can try and help British business
in world markets?
Q27 Chairman: Before inviting
Mr Jones to respond can I say that once he responds I am moving
on to Mr Wayne David's question.
Mr Jones: In answer
to your first question, I do not think it is courteous of me to
not follow up on a reply to a letter that says "I will follow
up" and it is not the professional standard that I would
set in an office that we did not have the failsafe check system
in place that diarised it forward, or if we did—and I know
that we have actually—that that one slipped through the
net. So I would say I am very sorry to you for not complying with
the standards of the office administration system of which I would
normally be proud. So I do apologise to you for that. Secondly,
I have every right in the world to allocate very scarce resources
in the CBI to where I wish to converse and how I wish to lobby
and who I wish to discuss with. That is, I hope, part of a free
society. On the situation that you were discussing that you raised
with me, I obviously thought we were talking to that group through
other members and colleagues of yours. I would not personally
offend you on that, and if you took that as a personal affront
I do apologise because that is not true. If, on the other hand,
you took it as a fact that, for some reason, I should talk to
everybody on a committee, I have not got the time. But I should
not have written to you and said "I am going to". So
I am sorry for that. On the Constitution bit, you are absolutely
right, there are going to be loads and loads of situations where
we are going to have great frustrations with the Constitution
going forward—of course we are—because the Constitution
has got to work up for an electorate or a constituency of 450
million people, and we are just one vested interest. I would like
to suggest that, possibly, offline this group and my European
committee could have a regular standing meeting where we could
reveal on both sides where we have got our problems and where
we have not. It might actually, also, ensure that we do not have
this hiatus in future.
Q28 Mr David: Could I
say I think that is a very positive suggestion. I am sure our
Committee will consider that favourably. My question is, to take
us on a little bit, about your relationship with the European
Commission. People often say to us that they have found the Commission
quite an open organisation and quite perceptive. How do you find
it and how do you try to put the collective view of British business
to the European Commission?
Mr Jones: I, personally,
have very regular meetings with individual commissioners, usually,
I would say, the same half-dozen on a regular basis rather than
all of them not so regularly. They are the ones that you would
imagine would be the ones that have subjects which affect wealth-creation
in Britain. I have found them very accessible and I have found
them very well informed. If there has been a problem in the past
it is that they do not like criticism very much—clearly
not everybody does anyway. They also have a bureaucracy behind
them which I know is necessary and it filters through a lot of
stuff, but it does mean that sometimes it is very difficult to
get the message in the same form to them. I am very hopeful of
the new Commission being far more reformist-minded in Europe;
I am very hopeful that we will get a Brussels that stops marching
valiantly towards 1970 and that it does understand that 450 million
people living in peace—which is a fabulous achievement for
this group of nations—really have got to take on India,
China, America and Japan and not just each other. I am very hopeful
that we can have a very meaningful conversation and dialogue with
them going forward. I guess it will be with the same half-dozen
departments, of course it will, because they are the ones that
matter, but we have always had very good relations with the top
of the Commission. Something Mr Heathcoat-Amory said will link
into this and that is the reference to UNICE. One of the problems
with UNICE, and it is a huge frustration for us, is that we of
course have a different workplace environment with a small "g"
governance to any other country in Europe; we do not have a statutorily
recognised social partnership—thank heavens for that. I
am a fierce opponent of any form of social partnership that would
have any place in the law making of a country. However, it does
mean, because we do not, that UNICE is trying very hard to accommodate
one sort of way of achieving resolution of law-making with one
of its biggest members—in fact, I think we nearly are its
biggest member—working down a completely different system
back home. Similarly, we have a culture, in lobbying, where I
hope we are polite and I hope we are constructive but we are not
inside any tent; we are fiercely independent of any party politics
and we are fiercely independent of any other lobby group. That
is not the same with some of the other employer organisations
in UNICE where, even if they are not statutorily inside the tent,
they would not dream of lobbying in the same upfront way that
we would. So UNICE often has its message diluted because it is
trying to achieve something with 25 going in the same direction.
I share your concern, actually, Mr Heathcoat-Amory, on how you
make a business voice effective when you are being asked to consult
on issues where there are such disparate systems in place for
getting to an answer. We could be far more punchy in UNICE than
we are. I have often heard this in Brussels from UNICE, "We
can't say this, it might upset the Commission." Again, if
you are polite and constructive why should you not? If somebody
ever said to me, "You can't say this because it upsets politicians
in Britain", I would say, again, "As long as you are
doing it the right way that is part of what we are here for."
We are not here to say yes to politicians, and I think society
understands that of the CBI, whereas in UNICE that is a bit of
a problem because that is not the way they do it. The Commission,
then, to follow your question, Mr David, does not actually like
that criticism very much because it is not used to it, whereas
here we have that environment every day.
Q29 Mr Connarty: Getting
down to business—we have got our grievances and we have
aired them—it is clearly in our interests and yours that
we put out the right information that can be used by businesses.
What we need to find out is how we could produce different material
if the material which is available now is not giving the signals
that you require. Does somebody in the CBI actually read this
Committee's reports? That is where the material, for example,
that you talked about goes into the public domain signalling up:
"There is an issue on the agenda and it is going to come
back in a more structured fashion when, maybe, we will take it
into our debate." Does somebody read it? Are businesses made
aware? When I have spoken to the Industry Parliament Trust it
appears that businesses do not seem to realise they should be
going down to their MP, as Mr Dobbin said, to their office and
to their surgery to say, "I have just read this report from
the CBI saying this matter has been discussed, coming from Europe.
I think you should raise it within the House and stop it, slow
it, or change it." Does anybody do that?
Mr Jones: The first
point is that more than one would read it at the CBI. Firstly,
everything would be read by the people involved in that European
system that I mentioned—not the members so much but the
staff. Secondly, if it was a subject matter on a particular sector
then the specialist there would read it too; so with financial
services Susannah herself would probably read it and if it was
on the labour market then somebody else would. So those two people,
experts in their field, in the CBI would definitely read it. Where
we would not do it in the same way as you might expect—and
maybe we should look at this differently—is that I would
then, in my weekly "What we have been up to in the week"
which goes to every single member, not be putting that in detail
in that. The European committee would get it and if one of us
was making a speech or talking to members or on a visit we would
be briefed and we would mention it. So it would get to a limited
business audience, I can promise you that. Would it get to a general
business audience? No, and maybe it should. I think Susannah wanted
to say something.
Ms Haan: I think
you have probably said what I was going to say, in the sense that
on specific policy areas it will go down to the relevant person.
Q30 Mr Connarty: Does
anybody actually go through the reports and say "We looked
at that business last week or the week before . . . "?
Mr Jones: They
go through the reports, but internally.
Q31 Mr Cash: Could I ask
a procedural question? Perhaps I should address this to Susannah
but, maybe, Mr Digby Jones would like to answer this. Do you know
what I mean by "scrutiny reserve"?
Mr Jones: I do
not.
Ms Haan: I half
do.
Chairman: Ministers half
do, as well. "Scrutiny reserve" means we are holding
something back and we do not want the Minister to vote on it before
we have scrutinised it properly. Ministers ignore it sometimes.
Q32 Mr Cash: May I say,
with great respect to you, as Chairman, it is not a question of
whether they want to, they are not allowed to agree in the Council
of Ministers to proposals once our Committee has said that this
matter should be debated. I think this is, in many respects, the
centre of gravity of the problem which has arisen between the
CBI and us. If you had presented evidence to us or alerted us
to the fact that there was a serious problem in relation to a
particular directive or regulation, or whatever, or piece of legislation,
then we would be alerted to it and we would be able to call on
evidence from you and it could be written evidence which would
then be in the system, and you would know that according to the
Standing Orders of this sovereign Parliament the Minister is not
allowed—even though very occasionally they dare to go beyond
it—to agree to that in the Council of Ministers. So you
would effectively be coming in on the slipstream of a blocking
process within which you would be able to sort out matters in
Whitehall. Just going off to see a Minister or seeing a member
of the Commission, having a chat and saying "We don't like
this" will get you nowhere unless there is a threat. That
is what it boils down to. So I would suggest that you might improve
your knowledge of the procedures in order to be able to be sure
that you get in on the act at the right time, which is what you
were accusing us of.
Mr Jones: Yes.
Chairman: Whilst Mr Cash
is almost right he is not right when he says a Minister is absolutely
obliged and cannot override a scrutiny reserve. The rules tells
them that if they do so they are in trouble with the Committee,
which is fair enough, but to say they cannot is not quite right.
Mr Cash: Fair enough.
Q33 Chairman: In fairness,
can I just say, in closing this session, thank you for coming.
I have to tell you I have found it very useful. Indeed, dare I
say, I have enjoyed it, and it is not often we say that. I hope
you have found it useful if not enjoyable as well. I think something
positive has come from it, as maybe even you can have discussions
with our staff about how we can improve on getting information
to-ing and fro-ing. If there is anything that we can do to get
you involved at early stages or get your representations in we
would be delighted, and we would welcome it. In fact, wherever
we can we are encouraging it, so you are pushing at an open door.
We see our role—and I must underline this, coming from a
Labour Member of Parliament who is Chair of this Scrutiny Committee—as
not to represent our Government but to scrutinise the Government
and its executive in what it does in the name of Parliament. We
are very much representing Parliament in this Committee, and that
is so important. We very rarely, if ever, go down party lines
when we are talking about scrutiny. It is made easier for us because
we do not make decisions on the merits—ie, is it a good
thing or a bad thing—but if it is legally applicable and
important and we decide it needs further scrutiny, then that is
the decision we take. Does Parliament need to look at it more
and scrutinise it more and get to know more about it before a
decision is taken? That is where you would want to come in, as
part of our process.
Mr Jones: Can I
thank you very much, Chairman, and can I thank all of you for
giving us the time. I have learned a lot and I have also thoroughly
enjoyed it. I think we could definitely get a lot of our businesses
better engaged with you, and I will work hard to do that.
Q34 Chairman: Thank you
very much and I look forward to seeing you sometime in the not-too-distant
future.
Mr Jones: Certainly.
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