Examination of Witnesses (Questions 80-99)
RT HON
JOHN HUTTON
MP
1 NOVEMBER 2005
Q80 Paul Flynn: I am a bit curious
about the way you treat a manifesto. You have mentioned it several
times, as though it has the authority of holy writ and it should
remain immutable, when it is not something that has any major
influence, if any influence at all, on the way that voters cast
their votes.
Mr Hutton: I think it would be
a bad thing in politics if governments who got elected on the
manifesto —and it does not matter how many people have read—
Q81 Paul Flynn: Can you tell me when
you read the manifesto of your party before the last election?
Mr Hutton: Let me answer the first
question before you ask me another one. I think it would be a
very bad thing for politics if governments, having got elected
on a clear set of commitments, then decided they were free simply
to disregard them and to do a totally different set of things.
Do you think that will not itself become a newsworthy issue? Oh,
yes, it will. I think it would not support what I would like to
see in politics, which is honesty and consistency in the way that
we are governed. Have I read the manifesto? Yes, of course.
Q82 Paul Flynn: But at what point
before the last election did you read your party/my party/our
party manifesto?
Mr Hutton: Several weeks before
the election.
Q83 Paul Flynn: Did you really?
Mr Hutton: Yes. Have you not read
it?
Paul Flynn: I have read it, but it was
five days before the election.
Q84 Chairman: I am not sure we need
to start testing each other on our knowledge of manifestos.
Mr Hutton: No. I do not really
want to do that.
Q85 Paul Flynn: I read it with astonishment
and not the enthusiasm with which you read it perhaps. But there
is not much one can do about it five days before the election
to amend it. That is the reality. When Labour came to power in
1997, was it a problem that the Civil Service had been politicised,
because of allegations that the previous government had had 18
years of choosing civil servants who "fitted in", who
were "one of us"? Was that a difficulty?
Mr Hutton: I never experienced
that. I never experienced a politicised Civil Service that were
determined to thwart a Labour Government agenda and somehow make
it into a Conservative agenda. I never experienced that.
Q86 Paul Flynn: The Cabinet Office
annual report includes a survey of senior civil servants which
I understand is used for performance measures. One of the questions
is: to what extent do you support the Government's public service
reform strategy overall? What is the point of that question? What
does that matter?
Mr Hutton: I do not know. I did
not ask it. It is a question someone else decided to ask.
Q87 Paul Flynn: Do you not think
the Government would work more smoothly if there were enthusiasm
from the civil servants for what the Government is trying to do?
Mr Hutton: Probably, yes.
Q88 Paul Flynn: Why do we not come
out and say so? Would you regard this as a positive thing or not?
Mr Hutton: I think what matters
is that the Civil Service support ministers in delivering the
policies that they are trying to implement. All I can say in my
experience is that I have not come across any official who has
not been other than completely supportive for what I have been
trying to do.
Q89 Paul Flynn: The experience in
1997 was that civil servants underwent some kind of metamorphosis
for being enthusiastic about one policy and then enthusiastic
about another policy. That is the way to do it, is it?
Mr Hutton: The Civil Service is
a professional organisation. That is my overwhelming experience
of it. It sees its job as being to support the government of the
day. Yes, that can involve very significant changes of policy.
I work very closely with an official in the Department who had
set up for the Conservative administration the former GP fundholding
scheme. He was a civil servant who then dismantled the GP fundholding
scheme. There was no problem for him, there was no problem for
me, and the policy was done effectively and well.
Paul Flynn: I am very grateful to you.
Q90 Mr Prentice: You said that the
Government was elected on a clear set of commitments. Do you think
we were clear enough in our manifesto in spelling out the implications
of our policies?
Mr Hutton: I think it was a very
detailed manifesto. It was certainly the most detailed manifesto
of any of the major political parties. I think we did set out
the details, yes, quite clearly in many, many areas: health, education.
Q91 Mr Prentice: Did we? Did we say
we were thinking of moving up to 250,000 people from the NHS into
other providers: private, not-for-profit and voluntary providers?
Did we actually spell that out?
Mr Hutton: No. But that was not
what was being proposed. We were not proposing to shift 250,000
people into the private sector.
Q92 Mr Prentice: Kelvin asked you
about the Primary Care Trusts. At the moment the Primary Care
Trusts employ frontline medical staff.
Mr Hutton: Yes.
Q93 Mr Prentice: They are the chiropodists,
the health visitors and so on. We have had a letter from Nigel
Crisp advising Primary Care Trusts that they should divest themselves
of their provider responsibilities. We read in the press that
the Royal College of Nursing is applying for a judicial review
of the decision. I am just interested in clear English, plain
English. Is it the case that you would like to see Primary Care
Trusts divest themselves of their provider responsibilities?—which
was the question I think that Kelvin was trying to get from you.
Mr Hutton: Yes, that is the policy
of the Government.
Q94 Mr Prentice: That means NHS staff
will be moving into the private and other sectors.
Mr Hutton: It is not clear. I
think a very large number of them could potentially move to other
parts of the National Health Service.
Q95 Mr Prentice: There was a suggestion,
out of three meetings with Patricia Hewitt, that the brakes were
going to be put on this part of the policy. Are you telling us
that the Government is as committed as it ever was to see frontline
medical staff move away from employment in Primary Care Trusts?
Is that what you are telling us?
Mr Hutton: I think we have set
ourselves a long-term objective, yes, but I think what was clarified
was the removal of the 2008 timetable for that. It is essentially
a policy that will be taken forward locally, by agreement, with
Primary Care Trusts, about the sensible way forward, and will
not be imposed against a deadline.
Q96 Mr Prentice: So there is no 2008
deadline?
Mr Hutton: No.
Q97 Mr Prentice: But PCTs will still
be expected to divest themselves?
Mr Hutton: Again, that will be
a matter for local negotiation.
Q98 Mr Prentice: When I say, they
will be expected, is there a Government policy? Is Nigel Crisp
saying, "The Government expects you, the PCTs, to divest
yourselves of your provider status"?
Mr Hutton: It is a long-term direction
of travel. It is not going to be implemented overnight.
Q99 Mr Prentice: It is kind of important,
is it not?
Mr Hutton: It is important. I
think the really important job for PCTs myself, is to get on and
make sure the commission process works well. That should be the
priority and I think it would be a distraction for them to get
involved in this other activity right now. I think the long-term
direction of travel is an important one, and it is the same logic,
for example, that says local education authorities should be commissioned.
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