Examination of Witnesses (Questions 20-39)
SIR CHRISTOPHER
FOSTER KT, SIR
NICHOLAS MONCK
KCB AND MR
PETER OWEN
CB
19 MARCH 2008
Q20 Paul Flynn: It was not before
my time, and I think I can name the members of the Cabinet in
1945-1951 with more accuracy than I can name then now! One of
the features of that time is that we had a Prime Minister who
consulted the papers only to read the cricket scores and the Cabinet
had 340 papers put to it, there was genuine Cabinet discussion,
and yet in 1998 the Cabinet had one cabinet paper before it. Do
you think that the change that has come in now, where the prime
ministers of all parties seem to check, they seem to need a drip-feed
of adulation from the press 24 hours a day and are excessively
influenced by the press, is one of the reasons why the decisions
are not as good as they were in 1945-1951?
Sir Christopher Foster: Yes, just
one. We have been hearing recently about Iraq. Papers were produced,
excellent papers—I have not seen them— were produced
but they did not go to cabinet. Cabinet was conducted on the basis
of oral briefings. Whatever the outcome might have been—even
if brilliant—that is not a sensible way to take very important
decisions.
Q21 Paul Flynn: You mentioned a nuclear
policy. Just to give one item of dozens I could give, in 2000
there was a passionate campaign run by environmental groups and
Members here against the MOX (mixed oxide) plant at Sellafield,
and we now know, we have known for about two weeks now, that that
plant was built at the cost of £470 million to produce 20,000
tonnes of mixed oxide every year. In five years of operation it
has produced five tonnes—an utter and disastrous failure.
If we look at the way that went through Parliament, it went through
on the basis of evidence-free arguments and prejudice and decisions
by scientifically illiterate ministers and possibly civil servants
as well, but if you look at the arguments on the other side, what
Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth were saying was exactly right
and what they were warning about was that you were creating the
fuel for the terrorists of the future and, as a result of it,
plutonium is now going to be shipped from Sellafield to France.
If we look at this and say things about civil servants, I am sure
there were civil servants who were there who were battling against
this and saying this is a stupid decision, it is going to cost
the country a fortune, but those civil servants, I presume, did
not end up with knighthoods because of the old rule about civil
servants about the unimportance of being right. Is that fair?
What would you think of that decision now, the MOX decision?
Sir Nicholas Monck: No, I do not
want to talk about that decision, because I do not know anything
about it, but I was going to make a different point. You may want
to press other people for a reply, but can I make a different
point?
Paul Flynn: It was a specific example
of a government behaving in a way that was not rational.
Q22 Chairman: Make your point.
Sir Nicholas Monck: You raised
the question of a good select committee report on rail privatisation.
I was thinking about that. Of course, in the end, as Peter said,
procedural process reforms do not guarantee that sense prevails.
On the other hand, nowadays rebellions are rather more frequent
than they were, as has been pointed out, and you hope that some
of the rebellions would be fuelled by serious argument. The sort
of novel change which I think might make a difference, which we
mention, is this idea that select committees could be given the
power to not only own a slot to introduce their reports regularly,
but also the power to put down substantive motions, and that would
be the sort of occasion on which a rebellion could occur if the
select committee had produced good enough arguments to persuade
enough people. I think it is a good example of the sort of change,
which is not restoring anything but is a new thing which could
help to restore the reputation of Parliament, as Mr Walker has
mentioned.
Q23 Paul Flynn: You seem to believe
in outsourcing. What do you think of insourcing? As civil servants,
why are you convinced that everyone can do things better than
the Civil Service can do, and the second part of the question,
if I can give an example, is the Patent Office, where there is
a whole range of private bodies, outside private bodies who are
patenting agents, who do work which depends entirely on the work
of the civil servants in the Patent Office. Yet the money is made
outside, the work is done by the civil servants and if they were
to change the Treasury rules, that work that was done by patent
agents and trademark agents could be insourced to the Patent Office.
How many times have you been in favour of insourcing rather than
your faith in outsourcing, which I do not understand because there
have been so many failures in outsourcing?
Sir Christopher Foster: Could
I try, and I hope that Peter or Nick might come in. We actually
say "Do not stop outsourcing", because there is a great
deal to be said for using the private sector, the voluntary sector
and all sorts of local authorities. In general terms, we believe
that service delivery, except in the most confidential of cases—you
would not outsource the Army—is best done by separate, distinct
bodies working within a good policy framework. To my mind rather
a good framework that is developing, although complicated, is
the PSA.[6]
This is a good model. We are not trying to retrieve for the Civil
Service jobs which could perfectly well be done by other people.
Nevertheless, we do believe that running the public sector is
different from the private sector: there are different values
of considerable importance; there are important democratic values;
we have got to be more open and transparent in various ways—all
those things we believe—but we are not taking a stand on
the notion that more delivery work should be entrusted to the
Civil Service; we think that is an open question to decide in
each case on its merits.
Q24 Paul Flynn: Should you not be taking
a stand for the Civil Service as former civil servants, and are
you concerned about the fact that in the Civil Service now, unlike
the Civil Service in the past—they had a clear idea of their
values, and they were not about making a lot of money, they were
not commercial in any way—we see the Civil Service is adding
to political jobs as well that there is the feeling with the revolving
door that many civil servants are not satisfied with receiving
a high career in the Civil Service itself but will have half an
eye on a retirement job in the commercial sector, in lobbying
or in firms outside, which is far more rewarding to them financially
than their job in the Civil Service? Is that not something that
is going to take away from the whole of the Civil Service ethic
that is so important?
Mr Owen: It is a bit hard to comment
on that specifically. There is a risk, I think increasingly, if
you get into a situation where high-flying policy jobs are taken
on by politically appointed special advisers and civil servants
are not involved in the development of socially important areas.
I for one would not have joined the Civil Service if I had not
felt that I was going to be able to do something that was of value
to the community. I would not have done it. And I was not driven
by receiving large sums of money: if you want evidence of that,
come and have a look at my house. I think there is a risk there.
The other strand, that the Civil Service should be doing jobs
that other people can be doing, I do not think is right. Chris
talked about the pressures of work on ministers and the pressures
of the press on ministers. There is no doubt that ministers have
a very, very busy time indeed. Back in 1945, it was possible for
ministers to say that they did not want to comment on something
and that was the end of the discussion. It is no longer true,
and so, in a sense, to have detailed delivery in the hands of
civil servants reporting to ministers is only going to increase
the pressures on ministers to get involved in the details of operations
in a way that is not productive and not helpful. We do say that
the drive to identify areas of government that do not need to
be performed by the Civil Service and hive them off should continue.
We think that is healthy. That is a process that should carry
on.
Q25 Paul Flynn: Final question. I
do not wish to examine your house, but I am distressed to see
you are a very rare senior civil servant that does not have a
knighthood! Can I make one final point. When we were in America
I think we were impressed to find people there who were doing
jobs with derisory pay, very low pay, but they were saying, "We
do it because it is in the public service." There was this
feeling that if you were serving your country, this was something
that was of more value than pay. Has this gone?
Mr Owen: I do not know. That is
why I did not want to comment on it. I have been out of the Civil
Service for some time now. I do not know. That was still the case
10 years ago in any event.
Chairman: Thank you. Can I bring some
more voices in? Kelvin.
Q26 Kelvin Hopkins: I am thinking
of going to our "pairing" whip to tell him that we have
been advised this afternoon by three retired civil servants to
rebel more frequently. I am sure he will be very pleased! Is not
the reality that the problem has occurred because the centre,
not the centre in a broad sense but Downing Street, the prime
ministers, have now drawn to themselves much more power than they
ever had in the past and they have made the Cabinet into a cipher.
They have seen to it to comb out from their own parties, from
the Civil Service, people who have different views and are driving
a particular political agenda using civil servants to do that?
Sir Christopher Foster: Yes, I
think that is right. We have been very careful about this one.
We believe that even if one continues with presidential government,
or however you like to call it, there is a strong case for all
these improvements, including improvements in Parliament. Indeed
you could argue that they are then more important: that there
should be a Parliament able to challenge a presidential sort of
prime minister. But we also argue, and I think quite strongly,
purely on efficiency grounds—forget about morality or political
theory or anything of that kind—to try and run absolutely
everything from the centre is a mistake. You have very diverse
people, whether Margaret Thatcher or John Major, or Tony Blair
or perhaps some might say even Gordon Brown, very different people
in every case. The sheer job of trying to run everything from
the centre is a sort of hell and I think it is almost bound to
lead to some decisions, at least, which are questionable.
Q27 Kelvin Hopkins: I think probably
when you were here before us previously I asked was it not a good
thing for civil servants sometimes to stand up to ministers and
say, "Minister (and Prime Minister), I think you are wrong".
Our pluralistic system used to work on that basis that there were
countervailing voices and forces within the broad sphere of government
which led to better decisions than are made by a dogma-driven
leader?
Sir Christopher Foster: I think
we are all in favour of civil servants speaking candidly about
their views on the basis of impartial and objective analysis.
I think we are, all of us, in favour of that and want it to continue,
and I think it probably does continue but possibly in a patchy
way. That is my bet, but I have been gone a long time.
Q28 Kelvin Hopkins: You have talked
about the battle in the seventies between the Keynesians and the
anti-Keynesians. Was that not healthier than having one ideology
driven from the centre squeezing out all countervailing forces,
all opposing voices?
Sir Christopher Foster: Nick Monck
was Denis Healey's private secretary perhaps during part of that.
I do not know, is that your experience? Was it healthy?
Sir Nicholas Monck: I think on
the whole people who---. I think it probably was healthy, yes,
but many of the people who did take the Keynesian view did ignore
the fact that we did not have any reserves. I did not feel that
in that sense Crossland was right, but then I was parti pris,
as I worked for Denis Healey.
Q29 Kelvin Hopkins: You suggest that
backbenchers like myself take a countervailing view—I loosely
call myself a Keynesian as well—but I do take a very critical
view of government on economic policy, on a whole range of things,
including privatisation. But backbench voices are tiny by comparison
with senior civil servants and ministers. Would it not be more
sensible for a prime minister to appoint strong people to his
cabinet, not nomenklatura from his own fraction of the party?
Sir Nicholas Monck: If I may give
a risky reply without commenting on the present holders of the
posts, I think it is a good idea to have strong secretaries of
state, but of course they do not always produce an ideal result.
There were pretty strong secretaries of state in the seventies
actually, very distinguished people, so none of these rules, unfortunately,
always hold good.
Q30 Kelvin Hopkins: It may have been
Robin Butler or one of your good selves who said that back in
the seventies, of the Labour Cabinet at that time, any one of
12 members of that cabinet would have made a first-class prime
minister, with different political views. Now we have figures,
as Paul has said, whom we barely remember. I cannot remember who
does which job they are so grey, so weak, and they are appointed
not because they are good but because they are loyal.
Mr Owen: There is a broader point
on this quite apart from the strength of the individual personalities:
the importance of what an auditor would describe as professional
scepticism in the process of government. It is important that
decisions should be subjected to clear-sighted objective analysis,
however that is done. Some of it is in the presentation of papers,
some of it is in the personalities of ministers, some of it is
in the freedom of civil servants to be able to say to ministers,
without fear of retribution, politely, "You are wrong".
There is a whole range of issues there, and there is a concern
that if you turn down the screws too tightly, if you suppress
dissent too far, you end up with poor decisions poorly implemented.
Q31 Kelvin Hopkins: Is that not precisely
what has happened?
Sir Christopher Foster: May I
make two points on this? One is that Robin Butler apologises for
not being able to be here today. He would be very happy to appear
if the committee has time to hear him on these issues, and also
Andrew Foster, who was Chairman of the Audit Commission and the
Deputy Chief Executive of the National Health Service, also one
of our group, again could not manage to be here today but, on
service delivery or whatever, would be very happy to speak to
you. The other point I would make is slightly different. You may
or may not remember, Mr Hopkins, that I interviewed you among
quite a number of others when I wrote a book a couple of years
ago. These things are very, very difficult indeed. I have met
a great many ministers over my life, a great many MPs. I simply
do not believe that the intrinsic quality of these people is very
different today. The idea that somehow the standard has declined,
I do not think. There were some impossible people in every era.
There were some excellent people. There were some people who were
jolly useful, without being outstanding. Moreover one can have
too many outstanding people in the Cabinet. There is no question
about that, but I do believe very strongly that the disappearance
of almost an apprenticeship system by which, as junior ministers,
people learnt the ropes, gradually moved onward and upward, has
been a great loss. The recruitment of ministers because—perhaps
above all—they are good at handling the media rather than
possessing other qualities, such factors have stopped a great
many people of considerable talent perhaps doing as well as they
might otherwise have done. That is my belief. It is based on the
judgment I have of the characters of the people I have met. I
think there are great dangers in assuming—perhaps I could
echo some of the Chairman's thoughts on this—that somehow
or other the decline is because the people are worse. I am sure
that Parliament, MPs, ministers are as inherently capable as they
ever were in holding the Executive to account or running the Executive.
Q32 Kelvin Hopkins: A final question.
There are all sorts of bodies in Parliament, in government, select
committees included. When New Labour got into power the first
thing they did was to try to make sure (certainly Peter Mandelson
did) they did not have trouble-makers on select committees. They
tried, even at the level of the select committees, to stop trouble
arising. On your body, your committee, would it not have been
wise to have a range of people with very different views rather
than people within a particular range, people who might even be
described as being from the left, if we can use that term?
Sir Christopher Foster: We did,
you see. We had this group, and there is more of a range of opinions
in that group than you might suppose. We have just recruited one
or two more recent parties. We also subjected ourselves to working
in parties in which politicians of all generations and parties
took part. We also had conferences at which politicians and others
were present. So we did subject our views to criticism. You may
say should we subject ourselves to people who are more different
from that? I think what we did worked. I believe we can demonstrate
(and, as I say, we have the report of our last conference on our
website) that among people of all three political parties, or
who have other experience of government—people who were
brought in by the Major Government or by the Blair Government—there
is a fairly strong consensus that the sort of things we are recommending
are what are needed.
Q33 Julie Morgan: To go back to the
issue of the independence of MPs and the strong committee that
can lead rebellions, how far do you think that the powers of the
whip should be reduced?
Sir Christopher Foster: I think
this is incredibly difficult, because I notice this is where people
say, "Can you imagine the Executive behaving in such a way?"
We believe that the disregard of Parliament that is beginning
to be held, which you have mentioned, is at least in part because
people are over-whipped, because of select committees not having
the independence we believe is desirable. We do not imagine that
any sensible MP, certainly any sensible government MP, would endlessly
try and destroy the Government. We imagine that they would like
to be able to challenge and have independent views, but in the
end they will, for the most part, want their party to prevail
if they are in power or to succeed if they are not. So we would
like a situation in which the whole House chose the chairmen of
committees and that there was much more independence in the choosing
of people appointed to the committees. I am sure that there should
survive methods by which some committee that went too far or was
too extreme could be hauled back a bit but in general terms we
believe that what the Government needs and what the nation needs—what
people need—is committees that are prepared to challenge
pretty rigorously, examine evidence carefully and come out with
an honest opinion. I do not know if you want to add to that.
Sir Nicholas Monck: I think one
example would be if we had the Resolution on Standards of Preparation,
if that was passed by Parliament, and if, as we propose, the Bills
were then looked at by departmental select committees, or other
parliamentary committees, to see, to check, that the Bill did
comply with the elements of preparation which are in the draft
resolution. We would certainly hope that the members of the select
committees would be free to express their opinions about that
if things came to Parliament without being properly prepared.
I think that is one test, even though we hope that if the resolution
did succeed in getting government to explain how they, the Government,
were going to comply with it, probably that would not happen too
often. Probably the Government then would comply with it and that
would improve the quality of things which reached Parliament and,
in the end, save parliamentary time.
Q34 Julie Morgan: Do you support
a general loosening of the whipping system or are you concentrating
it on the proclivity of the select committee?
Sir Christopher Foster: I think
that is a very difficult question. I think that most of us say,
we imply in the report, that the committees are tremendously important
for the future. We do have a number of thoughts, and Sir Nicholas
Monck has mentioned one about debate, how one can make debates
more meaningful. There are lots of arguments for saying that only
a committee can really get down to the sort of thoroughness which
is needed so much. Of course there were important debates on the
Iraq war, but an awful lot of what is really needed can only be
done in committees. We are not saying banish the general debate,
but we are saying something about the importance of committees.
Q35 Julie Morgan: You say you would
get rid of the usual channels.
Sir Christopher Foster: You will
be a much better judge than we are of that, but in so far as we
understand that they tend to perpetuate effective dominance in
certain regards, we have made a number of suggestions—Nick
will be in a much better position to comment on this than I am—which
would lead to a slightly more modern and open approach.
Sir Nicholas Monck: We have not
actually presumed to say how this desirable result of having more
independent members of select committees—and maybe in some
cases chairmen—should be brought about, because this is
a very intricate procedural point which really requires parliamentary
knowledge and anyway probably differs between one party and another.
I think there are different arrangements within the parties for
selecting the members who eventually do get voted on. I do not
want to put forward a nostrum on how to do it, the method, but
I do think some reduction in the power of the usual channels,
which is the whips, is desirable for the selection of select committee
people.
Q36 Julie Morgan: Sir Christopher,
I think it was in response to Charles' question—you said
a lot of bad things could have been avoided if there had not been
the way that we are working now, with the pressure, being so busy
and all those sorts of issues. What did you mean? What were the
big mistakes that have happened because of the way we operate?
Sir Christopher Foster: We have
mentioned rail privatisation; I could have mentioned the Poll
Tax. I think energy policy over a great many years, stretching
back again into Conservative times, of which we had one example
mentioned earlier. But there is the 2003 Energy White Paper, marvellous
stuff in the background, superb analysis, but an utter failure
to reach a conclusion about the role of nuclear energy. That should
have been unearthed by somebody. The problem we are in now, desperately
trying to construct new coal stations because we have not the
time to get nuclear, is arguably due to pussyfooting around some
years ago. A very different example, is a report which I think
is excellent: the Stern Report.[7]
In my opinion it is a superb report. But, it has one overwhelming
shortcoming, which, indeed, is that it is unintelligible except
to professional economists. It also, I think, arrived in Parliament
several days late. Reports need to be intelligible. I am not quite
sure how these things work. It requires some procedure by which
somebody saw this report and thought, "God, what are you
assuming about the expert knowledge of MPs? Send it back and give
us a version which we can understand." The famous Gordon
Brown report on the Euro, which ministers were only allowed to
read over the weekend and were not allowed to be briefed on, equally
could only be penetrated by professional economists—I could
go on for quite a long time about the very various reports where
it has not been made easy for you to do a proper job. I do not
know if anybody wishes to add to that.
Q37 Chairman: Someone listening to your
replies to Julie, though, might just think there is a touch of
political naivety about some of this. What you say about the whips;
that is such conventional stuff to say. The fact is whipping has
a role in giving coherence to government, coherence you are in
favour of. It also gets Members of Parliament to vote for necessary
but unpopular things. Without that we would all become Liberal
Democrats, and none of us want that, terrified of electoral retribution!
It seems to me that is the case. On the resolution, what will
happen to that, surely, is what has happened to the Ministerial
Code: now it is used as part of the political game, there are
people jumping up all the time saying that people have breached
the Ministerial Code because it makes a good political debating
point to say that. You would have endless opposition opportunities
to say, "Oh, the terms of this resolution have been breached
because some procedural thing has not happened." It would
mutate into the kind of normal adversarialism that dogs our political
system. It would not be a high-minded enterprise that would uplift
everybody; it would just drag people down.
Mr Owen: You cannot expect that
simply writing things down will cause people to behave well—that
is generally recognised—but at least there is some element
of embarrassment if the Government has committed itself to behave
in a certain way and then it does not. There is some restraint
that comes from that source.
Sir Christopher Foster: There
is the other point that has already been made. The standing of
politicians is not high. This point has been made by you to us
rather than by us to you. I think we believe that not a complete
dereliction of duty by the whips—of course the whips have
got a place in things—but a greater independence of committees
in the end will redound to everybody's credit. That is our belief.
You may say it is absolutely wrong, but we would like to believe
that it would be true.
Q38 Mr Prentice: A couple of observations
and then a series of questions. I will be voting with the Conservatives
today on Post Office closures, and I really do not give a toss
what the whips say! I am saying that because this session is being
broadcast. The second thing I want to say is that I was astonished,
Sir Christopher, when you referred to the 2003 White Paper and
dismissed it because it did not have a nuclear component.
Sir Christopher Foster: It did
not have a conclusion. That is why I dismissed it.
Q39 Mr Prentice: It did not have
a conclusion. It did not have a nuclear component. The fact is
that Germany is working towards an energy policy which is non-nuclear,
but anyway, that is by the by. I have got a series of quotations
here that I would like you to comment on, the first one from a
retired senior civil servant in what was the Ministry of Agriculture.
He said "The Civil Service is not well made to cope with
ruthless reforming zeal."[8]
Discuss. Can we have some short answers, because I have got quite
a few questions to get through in this vein?
Sir Nicholas Monck: I am not sure
about that. I think civil servants have always taken seriously
the aims, including ruthless aims, which in-coming governments
have put forward and have tried to make sense of them. They have
also probably pointed out difficulties, perhaps not always enough,
but I do not think that the Civil Service can only handle small
changes, if that is the point that was being made.
Mr Owen: And "ruthless"
is a funny word. Does that mean that it is one-sided, narrowly
targeted and must be put into effect come what may? The Civil
Service is certainly not good at handling that sort of thing.
6 Public Service Agreement Back
7
HM Treasury, Stern Review: The Economics of Climate Change,
`October 2006 Back
8
"Shape Up, Sir Humphrey", BBC Radio 4, March
2007, news.bbc.co.uk Back
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