Examination of Witnesses (Questions 40-59)
RT HON
JOHN MCFALL
MP AND MS
JANET GAYMER
CBE
6 DECEMBER 2007
Q40 Mr Prentice: David has just told
me that we are covered, but you are not.
Ms Gaymer: Well, there you are.
That gives you an example.
Chairman: But whether David can be relied
upon, we do not actually know!
Q41 Mr Prentice: He is just another
lawyer! This place is infested with lawyers! You said that you
would not apply for the job that you currently hold if a pre-appointment
hearing was part of the process?
Ms Gaymer: In the particular circumstances
that I was in.
Q42 Mr Prentice: Yes, but you are
an unusual person in that you were the guardian of probity in
your law firm. There are not many other people out there in a
kind of comparable position, are there? Would a pre-appointment
hearing put off, and I am just asking for your hunch, the first
Civil Service Commissioner or put off the Parliamentary Ombudsman?
It would not, so you are kind of unique here.
Ms Gaymer: Well, yes, and you
are making a very good point. I have been asked about my own individual
case and I would not wish there to be a generalisation that everyone
is going to have the issues that I had.
Q43 Mr Prentice: I understand that,
but the very first thing you said to us this morning was that
this new system may put off people, and I am just trying to get
it clear in my own mind. If we moved to the pre-appointment hearings
before select committees, what is your hunch about the number
of people who would, for whatever reason, be put off and say,
"I don't want to go there"?
Ms Gaymer: Probably the person
you need to ask that question of who would have a better answer
is an executive search consultant or a group of executive search
consultants because I am really articulating to you what I am
hearing from them. One other interesting aspect of this which
has come up very recently, and, I must admit, I had not made the
connection, is that there is a view, and indeed I think I am right
in saying that it is supported by some recent research, that women
tend not to apply for jobs unless they can fulfil the requirements
for them 100%, whereas men will apply if they can fulfil about
60% of the requirements.
Chairman: That sounds plausible!
Q44 Mr Prentice: So you want to make
us feel guilty! I know, it is an old tactic!
Ms Gaymer: It is just an interesting
observation, and women, therefore, tend to be very risk-averse
when applying for positions. It had only occurred to me actually
last night that, if that research is correct and there is a pre-appointment
hearing in the mix, query whether that actually might even have
some sort of gender-related effect. Now, that is just me fantasising,
but I have to say to you that my concern about reducing the pool
primarily, because I am conscious that Mr McFall is about to say
something, really does come from what I am hearing from recruitment
consultants and I am hearing what they are telling me.
John McFall: I think Janet has
eloquently made the case for further parliamentary scrutiny because
then we can catch out the dodgy men!
Q45 Chairman: Is that not true, the
men who are over-claiming?
Ms Gaymer: Prepared to take the
risk, I think, is the finding of the research in a job application.
I do not know if it is true.
Q46 Chairman: Gordon's point is that,
if you look at the person who is the Parliamentary Ombudsman now,
look at the person who is the first Civil Service Commissioner,
women both, these are not women who are going to be deterred by
the fact that they have got to come in front of a committee.
Ms Gaymer: That is the danger
of generalisations.
John McFall: In terms of the MPC,
we have got Rachel Lomax coming before the Committee and I think
you would have to be on your guard to start arguing with her!
Q47 Kelvin Hopkins: If I could be
devil's advocate and take a different tack, I do remember, when
we recently visited Washington, that the rigour of the scrutiny
of the hearing process was such that all of us gasped. In fact,
my colleague here was one of those amongst us who said, "We
just won't go there", and I do understand. Nine months sometimes
it takes the FBI to pull the personal background and whatever
indiscretions one might have had in one's youth at university
or whatever, everything comes out. We thought that that was just
beyond the pale and impossible in our circumstances. John said
at the beginning, and I will ask John this question, that it is
the Chair's discretion, but even asking a difficult question,
if you take a mischief-maker like myself, I might say to somebody,
"Are you, or have you ever been, a member of the Conservative
Party?" for a politically neutral position. Then the Chair
might say, "Well, you can't ask that question", but
I have dropped a hint and already we are starting to dig, I would
certainly have preferences if I knew about these people, and I
could start to undermine a candidate. What I am really saying,
John, and you were suggesting the Chair's discretion, but should
there not be some parliamentary ground rules about all of this?
John McFall: I think I mentioned
earlier on that you need criteria and that is really important.
Q48 Kelvin Hopkins: It can be quite
prescribed, what you can ask, about professional competence and
not about the personal life, for example.
John McFall: I have never had
any bother on the Committee on that. We have just defined it generally
and there has never been any bother. The only thing, as Chairman,
that I would stop is if a member is being rude to a witness and
it is obvious that they are going overboard, then you can stop
it. I think there was one case in the annals of history of the
Treasury Select Committee where members were rude in pre-appointment
hearings, and I think it is infamous and people have learnt from
that, so the criteria are important and I have never had any problem
with that. In the Sir Michael Scholar case— mention was
made of America— from start to finish, from when the announcement
was made by the Government to the appointment confirmation on
the floor of the House, I think it took 10 days.
Q49 Kelvin Hopkins: You have mentioned
Sir Michael Scholar quite a lot, but you would concede that there
might be other people who, knowing the process and how rigorous
it might be, might choose not to put themselves forward?
John McFall: I do not see why
they would not. The only reason I mentioned Sir Michael Scholar
is because he is the only case since this has come before Parliament,
but, given that his is an important position, that he has to be
in the press, he has to ensure that the concept of statistics
is respected in the country and that he has a huge building job
to do, then I think it is a more daunting task for Sir Michael,
to take his example, to convince society that the statistics are
independent than it is to come before a number of MPs, and I think
people should welcome that. I do not think there is anything we
should fear at all.
Q50 Kelvin Hopkins: Just going on
to the MPC, which I have a great interest in, we all know that
it is a balance between doves and hawks on the MPC and the Treasury
keeps a very close watch on that balance, as indeed no doubt the
Treasury Select Committee keeps a close watch on that balance
as well. If I were, though I am unlikely to be, but if I were
to be a member of the Treasury Select Committee, I would look
into their record on economic forecasting. Economic forecasting,
as we were told on television last night, was invented to make
weather forecasting look good! To go back to Mrs Thatcher, the
sort of people that would have probably put themselves forward
for the MPC, they might have come from the London Business School,
which is the sort of institution that is favoured by successive
governments, yet a few years ago the London Business School was
given nought out of 10 for its forecasting skills. By contrast,
at the same time, the Cambridge Economic Policy Group was given
six out of 10, which was the highest score of all the forecasters,
but it was a left-wing Keynsian organisation which was detested
by Mrs Thatcher and she took away their grant. Now, even with
economists that come before you, you can start to undermine them
like that, especially if they are post-appointment, and you can
damage their reputation by drawing attention to their failures
in their previous life as a forecaster, a perfectly legitimate
question, and I am happy to do all of that, but can you not see
that it could be quite controversial?
John McFall: I think the reputation
matters and I think it should matter from day one and I think
the views of the individual matter, so at the pre-appointment
hearing they should see it and Parliament should see that as the
start of the process of accountability. When members of the MPC
come before us, yes, indeed we ask them about their economic forecast
record. They were before us last week and the general question
to everyone was, "Why did you vote the way you did last time?"
To take one example, Danny Blanchflower, he is quite a personality
on the MPC and he demonstrated his independence of thought when
he came before our Committee for his pre-appointment hearing and
last week he was, I think, the only one that was out of step,
saying that all the risks were downward and he had voted for a
cut last time. Now, he was so clear in that that I would assume
that in today's decision by the MPC, coming out at twelve noon,
Mr Danny Blanchflower will vote for a cut; how the other members
go is a different matter, but they have given their views to the
Committee both at the pre-appointment hearing time and subsequently
that informs the debate for Parliament and, dare I say, the debate
for the country because one of the issues for the MPC coming before
us is that everyone in the City is looking at the Select Committee
hearing to get a feel for how the members of the MPC are going
to vote and, therefore, how the markets will adjust to that. That
is crucial, so they do have a very important position, but Parliament
is right there at the forefront, offering the MPC the opportunity
to put their views forward to educate the public and to be right
there. Every time in my chairmanship, I think, that the MPC have
come before us, that was followed by a spate of news stories,
so Parliament is performing a very, very useful function there.
This week we saw that after the MPC came before us when the Governor,
Mervyn King, made probably the gloomiest opening statement that
he has made since he has been coming before the Committee, and
that was reflected in the press.
Q51 Kelvin Hopkins: At this very
moment the MPC is making a decision, we think, which could be
very significant and we saw on Newsnight last night people
taking diametrically opposed views. Some want no change, the hawks,
if you like, they are opposed to a cut, and there are the doves.
Now, I would look forward very much to a situation where Parliament
had a real say in who is appointed to the MPC, but one suspects
that the Chancellor and the Treasury would be less keen on that.
Are there not potentially quite serious political consequences
and constitutional changes arising from it? I would like it, but—
John McFall: I would not like
it because it drags us right into the political process in that.
As I mentioned, we are there to demonstrate the competence of
the person. If you think about the Treasury Select Committee responsible
for appointing people to the Monetary Policy Committee, it depends
who is at the Committee meeting that day. Mr Chairman, I presume
that not every member of the Committee is here, so, if you have
it on a day when not everyone is here, they say, "The Conservatives
overwhelmed Labour on that day and they got their inflation hawk
on it and their monetarist on it as a result", or "Labour
have dominated all the time and they have got their people on
it". Do I want Parliament involved in that? Absolutely not.
Do I want Parliament to hold people accountable for their stance?
Absolutely, yes.
Chairman: So there is no pressure on
your part to take this process further.
Q52 Mr Burrowes: Your involvement
in looking at those who are appointed to the MPC, it may raise
press interest, but does it serve much point in terms of improving
public confidence?
John McFall: I think that is for
others to judge, but I think the question which I, as Chairman,
would address is: do the MPC take us seriously? They take us really
seriously, there is no doubt about that.
Q53 Mr Burrowes: They also ignore
you.
John McFall: In what way?
Q54 Mr Burrowes: They have ignored
you when you have had concerns over appointments in the past,
although it was not formally an appointment scrutiny, but you
have expressed concerns about appointments and they did not do
anything about it.
John McFall: What ones are you
referring to? Are you referring to Sir Andrew Large?
Q55 Chairman: Is Allsopp the case?
John McFall: I think, rather than
the MPC, you are talking about the Treasury, are you not?
Q56 Mr Burrowes: Yes.
John McFall: We have never, as
a select committee, said that no one should have been appointed.
Q57 Mr Burrowes: But, as a nominee
to the MPC, he was, was he not, the Christopher Allsopp case?
John McFall: Actually I did not
refer to it in person, that was before my time, but I think you
would find that following Chris Allsopp's appointment to the MPC,
he had a distinguished tenure on the MPC.
Q58 Mr Burrowes: I would not go against
that, but nevertheless, the issue still is that the Committee
expressed concerns there, it raised the whole issue of confidence
in that particular nominee and it was ignored and there were few
teeth to that process. If one then looks back, okay, he is now
doing a fine job, but maybe at the time it has not necessarily
improved people's confidence because questions were raised, but
there were not any answers in terms of any teeth to your process.
John McFall: To remember the context,
that was in the year 2000, so seven years later we have moved
on, Parliament has moved on, and we have now got this Green Paper,
so things have developed. I would suggest to you that, if the
Committee had had serious reservations about Sir Michael Scholar,
I would certainly have conveyed that to the floor of the House
of Commons, other Members would have been in and I think the Government
would have had to have taken that very, very seriously, so we
are talking about two different time-sets here.
Q59 Mr Burrowes: Let us move it on
then to July 2007 and the Science and Technology Committee and
there, they expressed concerns again. It was not a formal appointment
hearing or scrutiny, but nevertheless, they expressed serious
reservations concerning John Chisholm as Chairman of the MRC[4]
as to whether he was the right person to guide them through a
period of changes. The Government responded that they disagreed
and then he carried on. Obviously the Government is right to disagree,
but nevertheless, if there are no teeth in any of this process
of pre-appointment and it is not binding, it may well in certain
circumstances, where there are these questions about the credibility
and competence of a particular nominee, be left hanging there
and that left hanging could be damaging, so is it not important
that we look carefully at what point we are getting to? We may
all get very concerned and steamed up about particular issues,
we may raise concerns, but, if there are not going to be those
teeth at the end of the day, we may just end up, in hindsight,
diminishing public confidence and trust.
John McFall: My experience of
Parliament in 20 years is that it moves very gingerly indeed,
so you do not get any radical movement in Parliament, and I think
the Chairman and myself, as members of the Liaison Committee,
would agree on that point. In terms of select committees, I think
what we are doing is we are chipping away at the process to ensure
a greater role for select committees in terms of public accountability,
so I think there is a process there and we have quite a long way
to go. I would say to you that, if the Government disagrees with
select committees and keeps disagreeing, then it is the reputation
of the Government that is going to suffer. I would suggest to
you that with the MPC, when Gordon Brown came before us at the
time to announce the different proposals for appointments, it
was as a result of our Select Committee which kept hammering away
at that, so whilst it maybe will not get changed instantly, at
the end of the day we do get change. As the Chairman of a committee,
if you asked me the question, "Does the Government listen
to select committees?", yes, they have to listen, at their
peril.
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