Examination of Witnesses (Questions 280-299)
RT HON
LORD THOMSON
OF MONIFIETH,
RT HON
BARONESS DEAN
OF THORNTON-LE-FYLDE
AND MRS
GAY CATTO
26 FEBRUARY 2004
Q280 Sir Sydney Chapman: I would like
to ask you a number of questions for confirmation or correction.
The first is this: I have a little briefing note in front of me
which says of your committee: "Conventionally, the Committee
has sought a certificate from the Prime Minister assuring them
that the granting of a political honour is not in any way related
to the donation." Does that still happen?
Lord Thomson of Monifieth: I think
that refers to what we have asked for in the present, new system,
not from the prime minister but from the chairman of the Central
Honours Committee who is dealing with the whole range of what
I have called the Whitehall honours, outside the prime minister's
personal recommendations. In order to clear the ground for us
to do our particular duty, we have asked for such a certificate,
that each of the people nominated on the general honours list
is entitled to these honours in the judgment of that committee
quite irrespective of anything we may discover about a political
donation or anything else about their public character that might
be relevant. I think that is a reference to that certificate from
the Chairman of the Central Honours Committee that we arranged
as a result of representations we made to both the secretary to
the cabinet and, if I remember rightly, also to the Chairman of
the Standards Committee in our discussions.
Baroness Dean of Thornton-le-Fylde:
Yes. But we also ask on the donations, of course, for a statement
from the Chief Whip of the party, and we have said that actually
we would like that to be from the Leader of each of the parties
who would have a much broader view of the people involved.
Q281 Sir Sydney Chapman: My second question
is for confirmation. You scrutinise all nominations for honours
of CBE or above, except peerages.
Lord Thomson of Monifieth: Yes.
We do not at the moment do CBEs for the practical reason that
until the full register of donations is operating on a five-year
cycle it was felt impractical administratively for us to take
on that added numerical burden. At the moment we do knights, dames
and companions of honour, but CBEs would come to us under the
present machinery in a year or two's time.
Q282 Sir Sydney Chapman: I see. How many
of these knights, dames and others in each honours list? How many
come before you twice a year?
Lord Thomson of Monifieth: Well,
the whole list is before us.
Mrs Catto: In each list there
are usually between 30 and 35 honours at that level.
Q283 Sir Sydney Chapman: There are also
some honours awarded between the two honours lists. Do you scrutinise
those?
Lord Thomson of Monifieth: No.
Mrs Catto: There was, for example,
last year a special honours list for people connected with the
Iraq war and that was published at the end of October. I do not
think actually there were any very high level honours on it but
the committee did not scrutinise those.
Q284 Sir Sydney Chapman: At the risk
of embarrassing myself, Mr Chairman, I would like to give an example.
When I left the government I found I had received an honour. I
am almost tempted to say that I was called to 10 Downing Street
and between walking from the House of Commons to 10 Downing Street
I was quite convinced that I might be going to be promoted as
a minister.
Lord Thomson of Monifieth: Some
of us have had that experience!
Q285 Sir Sydney Chapman: The reality
was somewhat different. The fact is that I was awarded a knighthood
immediately. This was on July the something 1995. That nomination
did not come before your committee presumably or your predecessor
committee.
Baroness Dean of Thornton-le-Fylde:
I do not know, I was not there then.
Lord Thomson of Monifieth: I think
that would have come before our predecessors because that was
a political honour, if I may say so—nonetheless creditable,
from my point, for that. You have heard my view about working
politicians.
Q286 Sir Sydney Chapman: Yes. Whatever
arrangements there are and whatever arrangements we may feel there
should be, is there still a discretion for the Prime Minister
to say, "I want to reward that person and I do not need to
come through the Scrutiny Committee"?
Lord Thomson of Monifieth: No,
in the present situation there is still the absolute discretion
of the Prime Minister to nominate whom he wishes for what he wishes
but it has to come before our committee if it is in the range
of knighthoods and dames. Even between honours lists, it would
come to us. One of the unsatisfactory features of these things
is that that kind of circumstance between honours lists for political
reasons is often done at very short notice. Our very small committee
has to jump to it as best we can, but it is not the most satisfactory
aspect of our operations. But it has to come before us if it is
a political honour.
Baroness Dean of Thornton-le-Fylde:
May I comment, thinking about an area that I personally feel very
uncomfortable about, and that is the appointment of some peerages
that are not subject to the normal scrutiny. The prime minister
of the day putting someone into the House of Lords, for instance,
to become a minister is not subject to the normal scrutiny. I
think if you have a system of scrutiny it should be for everyone
who is awarded. If it is for peerages, all the peerages awarded
should be subject to scrutiny. I personally feel uncomfortable
about that. It is not within our remit at the moment. It was not,
I do not think, on the political honours. I do not think it was.
It certainly is not at the moment under the Stevenson arrangements.
Lord Thomson of Monifieth: The
appointment of ministers in the Lords still rests entirely at
the moment with the Prime Minister. It does not come to the Scrutiny
Committee.
Q287 Sir Sydney Chapman: Thank you. My
final question: on the £5,000 threshold for donations—and
I am asking for obviously a personal view you would want to give—it
seems to me an extraordinarily low amount. I gather it is any
time during the last five years, so one is talking about somebody
who gives £1,000 to one's party for five years would meet
the threshold. I just wondered if you felt in this day and age,
notwithstanding inflation, that figure ought to be more realistic
and ought to be much higher.
Mrs Catto: I think the threshold
is actually over £5,000 in any one year.
Q288 Sir Sydney Chapman: It is. That
is helpful.
Mrs Catto: That is the one the
Electoral Commission uses and the committee uses the same threshold.
Q289 Sir Sydney Chapman: The reason I
mention that is because the Neill Committee's recommendation said
that the committee should scrutinise every case where a nominee
for a CBE and above has directly or indirectly donated £5,000
or more to a political party at any time in the past five years.
So that is not the case.
Lord Thomson of Monifieth: I am
afraid the language is ambiguous. It meant at any one time. It
is single donations of £5,000 and upwards that are regarded
as the threshold for consideration in terms of an honour.
Sir Sydney Chapman: Thank you.
Chairman: We note what you say about
being able to put someone into the Lords without any scrutiny
at all as long as they make them a minister, which is an interesting
idea.
Q290 Brian White: My concern is that
the whole system, including your committee, is very much made
up of one small strata of our society and very much around the
great and the good. To use a topical example, if Catherine Gunn
was nominated for an award, I very much doubt if she would get
through the system, as I am quite sure Clive Pontin in previous
cases would not get through the system. What are you doing in
your part of this field to look for greater diversity, to look
at making sure that the honours system does not reflect that small
narrow band of the great and the good?
Lord Thomson of Monifieth: The
immediate factual answer, and not in any way discourteous answer,
is that we do nothing in that field because it is quite outside
our remit. But since we are here because of our connection with
the honours system to express our views about the generality of
the honours system, I personally am very happy to say that I believe
rather strongly that we need to modernise the central machinery
of the honours system and ensure that the people who do the initial
selection of the honours that come up are a wider mixture of people
than at present. I think the civil service is in an ambiguous
position, in the sense that traditionally, partly because of the
history of civil servants being in lifelong careers, honours were
a compensation for some of the other opportunities that civil
servants gave up during their lives and they have a very substantial
share of the honours system. I think it is quite right that in
modern times that should be looked at. But I think the composition
of the committee that surveys these matters should be looked at
very carefully indeed, so that a more radical view, if you wish
to put it that way, might be taken of those who be nominated for
honours. But I am bound to say, again speaking entirely for myself,
that at the end of the day you come back to the question as to
who is ultimately accountable if you retain an honours system.
If you abolish an honours system, then the landscape is clear,
but if you retain an honours system, who is ultimately accountable?
I cannot myself see any circumstances in which the government
and prime minister of the day will not ultimately have to bear
a residual responsibility for whatever selection emerges from
whatever machinery, however modernised, is put in. I do think—again,
speaking quite independently of party politics—the present
Prime Minister, it is due to him for having made a serious attempt,
setting up the Appointments Commission for cross-benchers in the
Lords, for example, and in other ways setting up the whole register
of political donations, in making the system that lies behind
the honours system a good deal more transparent than it was when
he arrived in office.
Q291 Brian White: When Colin Blakemore
came before us he talked about people in his position normally
would expect to get a certain honour, knighthood. Given that Baroness
Dean has talked about automaticity, how do you go about removing
that expectation from certain posts, of expecting to get an honour,
and, therefore, if they do not get it, it being seen as some kind
of slight?
Lord Thomson of Monifieth: I do
not wish to comment in any detail on the particular case.
Q292 Brian White: No. I merely used it
as an example.
Lord Thomson of Monifieth: I do
not think you could ever in any human system remove the fact that
some people will feel aggrieved that they have not been amongst
the chosen as well as the other people feeling extremely content
that they have been so honoured. My impression of the honours
system, from a reasonably sceptical point of view, involved in
it, is that it gives pretty general satisfaction to those who
are honoured without undue resentment elsewhere. But automaticity,
as Baroness Dean has said, is one of the issues with regard to
the operation that ought to be looked at very carefully. I would
make what again is a personal comment on what I read about the
Blakemore case—and I understand the background to it—that,
I think, curiously enough, if that case had been dealt with by
accountable ministers rather than very conscientious and concerned
civil servants anxious not to cause too much difficulty, there
might have been a bolder view taken of it, which for my part I
would much have welcomed.
Q293 Brian White: You do not question
a recommendation that has come forward to you for a high honour
simply because of the post of that person. You do not yourself
challenge that as a committee?
Baroness Dean of Thornton-le-Fylde:
That is not within our remit.
Lord Thomson of Monifieth: It
is not within our remit at all, but it is within your remit, if
I may say so.
Q294 Brian White: I just wanted to be
clear exactly where the boundary was, that is all.
Baroness Dean of Thornton-le-Fylde:
If I may, Chairman, commenting on your first question, it is not
within our remit to try, if you like, to get much more a mirror
of Britain in the honours. But that does not prevent us having
individual views. I agree with the view that Lord Thomson has
put across, and it is not surprising, having worked together on
a committee and seeing things come through and reading in the
media. The disproportionate number, going back some years, of
men as opposed to women at CBE level, for instance, always made
me feel very uncomfortable. I think certainly the work of this
Committee in trying to get the honours system to bring forward
more people of a wider diversity in Britain than we have seen
must be a very valuable contribution to public life. Going back
to the earlier point about shall we have an honours system at
all, I am sure MPs will know better than I know that when their
constituents get an honour it is a great deal of pride to them
and their families that they have been recognised, and it is great
that more of them are coming forward, but it would be even better
if we could get more diversity in the general run of honours across
the board.
Q295 Brian White: My final question:
In this era of devolution, what relationship do you have to the
First Minister in Scotland and in Wales, if any? Or is it purely
through the Prime Minister that you deal?
Lord Thomson of Monifieth: In
our case, when I am talking about our committee and its terms
of reference, we have no direct links there at all, but I think
Mrs Catto could give you some information about that.
Mrs Catto: Honours is not a devolved
matter in any of the devolved administrations, but obviously in
the devolved administrations their civil servants do a lot of
the work in identifying people to recommend.
Q296 Kevin Brennan: Have you ever considered,
Lord Thomson, instead of abolishing your committee, of perhaps
abolishing the Stevenson Committee and you taking over their responsibilities
as an alternative?
Lord Thomson of Monifieth: I am
beyond temptations like that!
Q297 Kevin Brennan: It just seems that
you have a fairly tight, small operation here that could do the
job probably just as well, if not better, at less expense and
so on.
Lord Thomson of Monifieth: Baroness
Dean is a member of both our committees, so she is in a very good
position to give you a balanced view about this.
Q298 Kevin Brennan: What would your view
be of that suggestion?
Baroness Dean of Thornton-le-Fylde:
We have not even considered that because our role has been so
reduced in size that it seems to make to us eminent sense (i)
to have one body doing it rather than duplication and (ii) as
in fact the government have now accepted that there is going to
be a statutory Appointments Commission, then it is appropriate,
we think, that it comes under that commission. For us to start
to fight, if you like, a turf war I do not think is going to achieve
anything. So, no, it has not occurred to us that we should do
that.
Kevin Brennan: You could give it some
thought.
Q299 Chairman: The real oddity of what
you propose is that not only does it just take care of peerages
but it would seem odd to have a committee that is concerned with
cross-bench peerages to be given the whole range of honours responsibility.
And is it not doubly odd, when there is a feeling that we need
to be separating out honours from service in the second chamber,
to muddle it all up even further? We would compound our difficulties,
would we not?
Baroness Dean of Thornton-le-Fylde:
Of course, our opinion is reached against the background that
the decision has been taken, in that what you call the Stevenson
Commission actually scrutinises the political peerages now. That
decision was taken and that job transferred from our committee
over there. That has been done now, so we are left, if you like,
almost with the tail end of the bit to do. If that is the way
the tide is running, then it seems silly that we are out on a
limb, if you like, as a small body. It should be centralised.
The government have decided it goes to the Appointments Commission—that
is something you may choose to comment on—but that is why
we reached the decision.
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