1 Introduction
Background: our involvement
1. In 1853 Northcote and Trevelyan laid the foundations for a professional and politically neutral civil service. In January 2004 we[1] published a draft Civil Service Bill, reiterating their 150-year-old call for an Act of Parliament to safeguard their recommendations. In December 2004 the Government produced a draft bill of its own for consultation.
2. In March 2004 we published a draft Ministers of the Crown (Executive Powers) Bill, prepared by our Specialist Adviser of the time, Professor Rodney Brazier, to show a way of bringing within statute law the most important ministerial powers currently exercised under the royal prerogative without the approval of Parliament.[2] We recommended the implementation of proposals to ensure full parliamentary scrutiny in three areas in particular:
i. decisions on armed conflict,
ii. the conclusion and ratification of treaties, and
iii. the issue and revocation of passports.
3. In July 2007 the Government published a green paper on the Governance of Britain, announced by the new Prime Minister as a blueprint for "a new British constitutional settlement that entrusts more power to Parliament and the British people".[3] This was followed in March 2008 by a white paper on Constitutional Renewal, which included a draft bill.[4] A Joint Committee of both Houses of Parliament has been established to consider the Government's draft bill.
4. The white paper and draft bill contain proposals in most of those areas that we have covered in the past. The Minister for the Cabinet Office has described as "absolutely fair comment" our suggestion that the Government had looked at our "back catalogue" in order to inform the draft bill.[5] This Report brings our particular perspective to bear on these new proposals, for the benefit of the Government, the Joint Committee, and the House as a whole.
5. This Report makes a number of constructive suggestions as to how the Government's draft bill could be improved. This is only natural: we have campaigned over the years for legislation covering these areas, and developed detailed views of our own on the form that a statute should take. Any criticisms that we make do not detract from our certainty that, when the Constitutional Renewal Bill is presented in Parliament, it will be a landmark piece of legislation. It will open up some of the main prerogative powers—the secret powers of the Executive since time immemorial—to parliamentary approval and scrutiny.
Conduct of our inquiry
6. This has had to be a speedy inquiry, to enable us to inform the Joint Committee's deliberations—it is required to report by July. We have taken evidence from:
the First Civil Service Commissioner (Janet Paraskeva)
a panel of experts: Professor Robert Blackburn, Professor Peter Hennessy, and Sir Robin Mountfield
the Minister for the Cabinet Office (Rt Hon Ed Milliband MP) and the Cabinet Secretary (Sir Gus O'Donnell), who are responsible for the proposals relating to the civil service, and
the Minister of State in the Ministry of Justice (Michael Wills MP), who is responsible for leading Government policy on constitutional renewal.
We are grateful to all of our witnesses for their thoughtful responses to our questions and for making themselves available at short notice.
7. There are two main parts to this Report. The first looks in detail at the latest version of the proposals for civil service legislation. The second considers how far the Government's proposals in relation to prerogative powers go towards meeting their stated end: "more power to Parliament and the British people". We also consider briefly two opportunities which should not be missed in the bill.
1 More accurately, our predecessor Committee. Back
2 Taming the Prerogative: Strengthening Ministerial Accountability to Parliament, Fourth Report from the Public Administration Committee, Session 2003-04, HC 422, p 31 Back
3 HC Deb 3 July 2007, c 815 Back
4 Cm 7342-II Back
5 Q 93 Back
| 
