Examination of Witness (Questions 900-915)
12 JANUARY 2005
SIR JOHN
GIEVE, KCB
Q900 Chairman: Is that "yes"?
Sir John Gieve: Yes, obviously.
Ministers—like other senior executives I imagine—rely
on their offices to spot things and make sure they are getting
round to the things they do need to do.
Q901 Chairman: In this case that was
needed, was it not?
Sir John Gieve: This is a point
that Alan has been unable to reach a final conclusion on, which
is: did David raise this as a case in which he had a personal
interest? Did the private secretaries think, "I know who
this is"? If so, I hope and I believe that if they had realised
that this was someone he knows they would have said, "Hold
on a minute, we have to deal with this very carefully because
you know this person." It is also possible that he did not
say that, that actually he was known to be very concerned about
backlogs. He raised this a number of times and he brought this
case in and said, "Here's another example of someone who
is being asked to wait twelve months and it is outrageous".
If this had been the case it would have been dealt with—as
I think Alan describes it—as just another case. Someone
had complained to him that they had to wait for twelve months
and they were keeping their passport for twelve months; he did
not like it and thought we should be doing better so we followed
it up. In future I have made it very clear to private offices
that there needs to be an exchange around that: Where did this
come from? Who is this person? Do you know them? Then this can
all be made explicit and I am sure ministers in the Home Office
and elsewhere will be very careful about that in the light of
this occasion. I have no reason to suppose in this case that the
officials concerned knew this was a case in which he had a personal
interest.
Q902 Chairman: If it had been identified
as a case touching on private interests either because the then
Home Secretary had identified it as such or because the private
office knew it to be so, they would, exercising their proper responsibilities,
have sought to ensure that it was handled properly and to protect
the minister. If it was not identified as a private case but as
a case which he routinely introduced into the system as an example
of the backlog problem, he was entitled to feel that it had not
been given special treatment. It has to be one or the other, does
it not?
Sir John Gieve: What was on the
fax that was sent down? The fax was presumably a copy of this
letter which IND themselves had sent out so there was nothing
new there and I imagine something was scribbled on it to the effect
of: "Can you give me an update on this case?" or "Why
are we making these people wait twelve months?" or something
like that. We do not know exactly what the nature of the question
was. I think that what Alan goes on to say is that in a way it
did not matter quite what the form of the question was because
once it was sent down to IND—like the many thousands of
other cases that come to MPs and ministers and whatever—they
would dig out the papers and have a look at it and that is what
happened in this case. I think what should have happened, even
if as I believe is likely that David was raising this as an example
of unacceptable delays, he should nonetheless have made plain
that it was someone he knew. I am sure he would accept that now.
Q903 Chairman: But if the private office
did not know that it was someone with whom he had a personal connection
why would the faxes and e-mails have been made in the way that
they were? Or did that happen routinely with every case that was
brought to their attention in that way?
Sir John Gieve: We have a large
number of cases brought to ministers' attention. There are many
thousands of cases raised each year one way or another, many of
which come in through MPs' correspondence to ministers or because
ministers bring them in because they have met people or people
have raised them with them. All of that is perfectly proper. In
terms of the e-mails, what Alan says in his report—and he
has carried out these discussions with the people concerned, I
have not done that so I have to rely on his report—is that
there will be a number of cases which David's office would have
been dealing with at any one time and this could have been dealt
with as just one of those cases, in which case in some way they
had drawn the attention of IND to the case and asked why it was
happening or could they be given an update. At a later point,
maybe because the private secretary kept a note, they e-mailed
the people asking if they had followed it up. That seems to be
what happened here. On the broader point you are making—which
is the point you were making to Alan at the end—of was this
very serious because she would have got her leave to remain anyway
if someone else had raised it for her, I think it is an unusual
feature of this case that so far as I know no-one thinks that
she should not have got her leave to remain. Alan suggests that
she would have got it if it had been raised by a local MP or possibly
even by Ms Casalme herself ringing in and saying that she needed
her passport and asking them to be quicker. Nonetheless, ministers
do have to be very careful that they do not mix the personal,
the political and the official and in this case the added fact
was that David Blunkett said that that is not what had happened;
he did not remember that he had done that, so we had the denial.
Q904 Mr Hopkins: Just pursuing this a
little further, I have a suspicion this might be related to the
increased blurring between the politician's role and the role
of civil servants, and the increasing role of special advisors.
This has been debated a lot in the press and it is something that
many of us are concerned about. One can imagine a scenario where
the Home Secretary or a minister was not even aware that something
was being done, when one of his political advisors might say,
"There is a minister's interest in this; sort it", to
a civil servant. At that point the civil servant has to decide
whether it is inappropriate to what they have been asked—to
come to you and tell you what he or she has been asked to do on
the grounds that it is not right, or just get on and do it without
telling anyone. If there is a clear distinction between civil
servants and politicians—the Sir Humphrey/Jim Hacker division—one
where Sir Humphrey runs what I call the jumbo jet. The machine
is entirely under the control of the civil servant and the minister's
job is to decide where it flies, how fast it flies, who the passengers
are and all of that. If that clear distinction is made there then
there is a kind of propriety. Is that starting to break down?
Sir John Gieve: No, I do not think
so. It is not as simple as that because ministerial accountability
means that ministers can be held to account not just for the strategy
and objectives but also for the execution and, indeed, particular
cases. No doubt MPs do hold ministers responsible for particular
cases. The general argument that the Civil Service has become
politicised I do not think is well-founded nor do I think there
has been a decline in standards of conduct or propriety over the
time I have been in the Civil Service. In many ways I think the
standards expected publicly have been raised over that time.
Q905 Mr Hopkins: Are the results of the
Alan Budd inquiry—and the previous accidents if one can
call them that—which have occurred in the Home Office leading
you at least to look at these issues rather more critically than
perhaps has been the case in recent years? Is there a case for
really looking again at the role of the Civil Service and politicians
and seeing if it can be defined more strongly?
Sir John Gieve: You are taking
me onto broad ground here. Before I get into answering that your
earlier question talked about what happens if special advisors
said, "Do this and do that". In this case there is no
suggestion that a special advisor was involved; Alan made that
clear. I just want to make it plain that this was not such a case.
Secondly, is there an issue about the role of civil servants,
special advisors and ministers? I think this is a constant issue
for discussion by this Committee. We have draft Civil Service
Acts and so on, all of which are addressing this and it is absolutely
something we should keep working away at. Addressing your earlier
point that suggested that something was going badly wrong, or
that early in my career—which has gone on quite a long time—standards
were much better and things were much clearer, I just do not believe
that is true.
Q906 Mr Hopkins: You have touched on
my next question which is, do you personally think there is a
need for a new Civil Service Act to re-establish these definitions
and to make clear how the Government and the Civil Service and
politicians should operate in future?
Sir John Gieve: It depends what
is in it. I do not think that a Civil Service Act would have made
the slightest difference in this case. That is the first point.
In general, yes, I do see some value in setting out more formally
the conventions which we operate but I do not think that is because
there is an urgent need because standards are declining.
Q907 Mr Hopkins: One final question,
a general question; the Home Office has proved to be rather accident
prone as shown by the Hindujas, Beverley Hughes, David Blunkett
events. Indeed I was personally involved in the Yarlswood issue,
the fire (it all happened before your time) where the Home Office
did not respond to a letter I raised about a fire risk at Yarlswood
for some six months afterwards, and only a few weeks later the
fire happened. That was all public knowledge—it is all on
record and in the press. You recently came in to the Home Office,
when it had something of a reputation, and especially the IND.
Did you feel that there was a need for you to shake things up
and get things working better or did you feel that the Department
was working well and there was no need to change very much? Do
you still have that feeling? I may say that I do not.
Sir John Gieve: I am not going
to pretend that I came in and when I arrived everything was dreadful
and I sorted it all out but clearly I have been trying to change
the Home Office to make it more effective over the last three
years. I think we have done that. I was saying earlier that three
years ago IND was in grave difficulties because of the surge in
asylum applications in particular and the difficulties in handling
that. I consider their work in getting on top of that problem
has been remarkable and is to be commended.
Q908 Mr Liddell-Grainger: We are talking
about vested interests and interests in all this. Can I ask about
your wife's involvement as a firm of solicitors with David Blunkett's
case? Do you think that you, as permanent secretary, should have
put your interests forward? You had to set up the inquiry, it
was very much your baby (for want of a better word) and do you
think you should have said to your wife's firm of solicitors that
you thought it was getting too complicated and maybe have moved
it on as well? Do you think you, personally, could have handled
that slightly better?
Sir John Gieve: The inquiry was
absolutely not into David's access dispute and there has been
no suggestion that the Home Office should play any role in that
or pay for it in any way. I think it is entirely up to David who
he chooses as his solicitor. I do not think there is a conflict
of interest in that respect.
Q909 Mr Liddell-Grainger: When this was
all set up you had no idea where this inquiry was going; you set
up an inquiry to get to the bottom of this and you did not know
the outcome. Do you think you could have found yourself in a potential
difficulty as a permanent secretary where you may have had a conflict?
You have a job to do and so does your wife; I am not castigating
either one of you but I think there is a potential conflict.
Sir John Gieve: I am not sure
what the potential conflict is on that point but taking a broader
point: could things have transpired which meant that it was awkward
for Alan still to be working for me? Yes I suppose they could
have done and he was at perfect liberty to say, "Hold on,
I think we need to reconstitute it" and so could I. I did
not think that was necessary and nor did he.
Q910 Mr Liddell-Grainger: Do you think
the permanent secretaries should have a register of interests
as well? You obviously cannot register your wife's interest, but
do you think there ought to be a register for people like yourself
as well in case if there is an inquiry like this, which you had
to set up, and there was a possibility that it may have got a
lot wider?
Sir John Gieve: I do not think
it could go a lot wider. You were complaining earlier that it
was too narrow and it was rather focussed. I think civil servants
are also under an absolute obligation to declare their personal
interests and make sure they do not conflict. That is true of
permanent secretaries and it is also true of individual officials.
We do have rules about what an official should do if he is pursuing
his nanny's application.
Q911 Mr Liddell-Grainger: When you came
before us before you said there were three criteria for a successful
inquiry: did it reach the right conclusion; did it satisfy the
public; did it do it cheaply and quickly? Certainly this one was
done quickly because Sir Alan was going to Cuba. Did it reach
the right conclusions and did it satisfy the public?
Sir John Gieve: I think it did
reach the key conclusion. The allegation in this case was that
David Blunkett had intervened in Ms Casalme's case and as a result
it was dealt with quicker than it would otherwise have been done.
That was denied; Alan concluded that it was true. As a result
David felt he had to resign. He did not discover every detail
of what had happened and there remained one uncertainty as to
the exact course of events, but that course of events was clear.
We set up an inquiry to establish the facts because someone had
alleged a minister had done something he should not do. It does
establish the facts; the minister resigns and yet the implication
is that somehow it pulled its punches and I cannot think of another
inquiry which has had this effect.
Q912 Mr Liddell-Grainger: So basically
it did not satisfy the public.
Sir John Gieve: If you mean did
it satisfy the press, no; they want to raise more questions about
it. Would any inquiry have satisfied the press? You heard Alan;
he thinks he got as far as he could have done even if he had had
statutory powers, if he had been a judge or whatever. I observe
that inquiries by judges and other people with different constitutions
have also reported in the last year and they have not satisfied
the press either. In this case there is a sort of sense that he
may be dead but have we really buried him. There are always further
questions.
Q913 Mr Liddell-Grainger: I think the
question of whether it then changes things is the ultimate test.
Forgetting David for the moment because he has resigned, has it
actually changed things in the Home Office? Are you tightening
up procedures?
Sir John Gieve: Yes.
Q914 Mr Liddell-Grainger: You say "yes"
absolutely firmly, but how do we know that you as permanent secretary
have tightened things up?
Sir John Gieve: You can ask me
questions; you can ask ministers questions; you can have access
to huge amounts of information under the Freedom of Information
Act; you have the National Audit Office which comes in and inspects
us. Going back to Mr Prentice's question, we do have an independent
inspectorate which does spend quite a large amount of time inspecting
whether IND is dealing with different aspects of its business
effectively. There are actually quite a large number of ways in
which you can get information on this but a common sense point
is that this was emblazoned all over the news, it was a point
of obsessive interest for three weeks. I cannot imagine a minister
anywhere in government or a private office anywhere in government
which is not being extremely careful on these points.
Q915 Chairman: I would like to ask one
final question. I asked Sir Alan but I would like your view on
it. Having read your note to staff on how to do things differently
because something went wrong, you say that in these exceptional
cases where a minister may have a private interest they should
give it to a fellow minister and flag up the private interest.
If that had been done, if David Blunkett had sent the letter with
a note or a word to a fellow minister saying, "I've got an
interest in this, could you have a look at it?" we are pretty
sure that the outcome would have been the same because an MP intervention
would have produced the same outcome we are told. However, the
politics of it would have been just as bad for him because the
charge would still have been made that he had intervened in a
case in which he had a private interest. The intervention would
have been passing it to another minister whose own office would
then have done the things that David Blunkett's office did and
the outcome would have been the same.
Sir John Gieve: This is all hypothesis
but I do not think the politics would have been the same and,
indeed, a number of journalists have written speculating about
what would have happened if initially David Blunkett had responded,
"Yes, now you mention it, I did ask why this was taking so
long and I now see that I should have handled it differently".
You are better placed to judge the political mood than I am, but
it seems to me that if he had been able to say on day one—or
indeed day two, three, four—that he had reminded himself
about it and Mrs Quinn did raise this with him and he did raise
it with the department on her behalf but he did it in an absolutely
proper way, I think the politics would have been different.
Chairman: I think with you telling us
about the politics that should be where we end. Thank you very
much indeed. I do hope we are not going to see you again on our
Inquiry inquiry but it has been very useful hearing from you today,
along with Sir Alan. We are very grateful to you for coming along.
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