Examination of Witnesses (Question Numbers
100-119)
RT HON
LORD MANDELSON
AND RT
HON PAT
MCFADDEN
MP
7 JULY 2009
Q100 Miss Kirkbride: If the advice
is that it cannot be while a prosecution is pending, will your
Department look into decoupling the trust fund issue, so that
at least former Rover workers can access that trust fund, rather
than have to wait for what could then be a very expensive trial,
given the nature of these complicated things?
Mr McFadden: It is not our Department
that have, if you like, coupled the trust issue. It is not us
who have—
Q101 Miss Kirkbride: But can you
help to sort it out?
Mr McFadden: ... issued rules
and guidance on that. That is a decision for the trustees; it
is not a decision for the Department; so it is not our decision
as to what happens to those funds. To go back to what we were
talking about a minute ago, there is a wider important point here.
Precisely because this inquiry has taken so long and precisely
because it has cost so much, that is why we should take care not
to do something late in the day, because everybody understandably
wants to see it published if that is possible, if we had legal
advice or advice to the contrary. It is precisely because of the
issues that you are raising, which I agree are shared in the region,
that we have to make sure that we get this right.
Chairman: I think that is probably enough
on Rover.
Q102 Mr Hoyle: Two quick points.
Obviously if it is possible—and I understand that it is
subject to legal advice—will you try to make sure that it
is done before the recess? The danger is that 20 days will take
us beyond the recess and I think that, in fairness, after £16
million being spent, it is only right that Parliament should receive
that report before we go into recess. The second point is this.
Has anything been learned by the amount of time—and quite
rightly it has taken time and cost a lot of money? Would it have
been possible—and I do not know, I just ask this for the
future—for the Serious Fraud Office to have been brought
in sooner rather than right at the end? They could have been working
hand in hand with the investigation. It is just a question I leave
open to you.
Lord Mandelson: I think that is
very difficult because, in doing so, you would be at risk of pre-empting
or anticipating the final report and the conclusions that the
inspectors reach. We do not want to do that. Nor do we want it
to take an indefinite time without being satisfied that in this
case either the facts have been properly established, and/or justice
is being seen to be done, and/or the proceeds from the trust fund
that was originally set up can be distributed as soon as possible.
But I can absolutely assure you there is no question at all of
this report being put into the long grass; it has been put onto
a pretty closely mown lawn. I would therefore hope to see the
final stages of this expedited as soon as possible.
Q103 Chairman: That is helpful and
thank you for that. Can we move to the new Department itself,
which I think took us all a bit by surprise a few weeks ago? I
have to say that we took evidence last week from Universities
UK, TUC and CBI, and they were quite supportive of the new structure—in
fact, very supportive. Just persuade me that it is not a Department
built around one man's leadership—your leadership—but
actually the Department is built around a strategy that makes
sense intrinsically and is likely to survive any change of government.
I do not mean a party change of government; I mean a change of
government after the election of any party.
Lord Mandelson: I think that any
future government will see the sense of bringing these responsibilities
and areas of policy together under one roof and putting the different
levers of policy together in the hands of one set of ministers,
because they all interrelate. The aim of the Department is very
simple: to help the UK, our business, and working people to excel
and thrive in the future world economy. In creating this Department,
we have brought together, we have aligned the Government's approach
to policies that will sharpen our competitiveness. It is about
investing in knowledge—its creation, its application, its
commercialisation—and I think that is a very good summary
for the Department's role.
Q104 Chairman: What specific comfort
can you give the universities that their particular needs will
be met, aside from where they relate to business?
Lord Mandelson: Judging by the
meetings I have had—and I have had more meetings with more
vice-chancellors and principals than I would ever have imagined
my doing in such a short space of time—and very interesting
and rewarding they have been too because they are a first-class
set of people, organising a set of world-class universities in
our country, which, together with an excellent further education
system, is delivering the skills that people need in order to
generate and give access to the widest possible knowledge in our
society, as well as opportunities for lifelong learning; and that
is essential to our economic performance and our future competitiveness.
Whenever I meet business people and business leaders, as I do
every single week, almost always, when I ask them their priorities
and what they are looking to government for, it is to organise
skills, skills and skills.
Q105 Chairman: And a second priority
is transport, for example. Putting everything together in one
big department—
Lord Mandelson: I have never met
businesspeople who have said that their second priority is transport.
Q106 Chairman: I have.
Lord Mandelson: Although they
do want infrastructure; they want modern infrastructure and they
want shorter planning periods to which this infrastructure is
subjected in getting it right—which is why it is so important
to keep on the statute book the Government's legislation concerning
planning.
Q107 Chairman: The point is you can
look me in the eye and say that this Department makes intrinsic
structural sense and a new prime minister, of whatever political
party, will be well advised to keep the new structure in place,
irrespective of personalities? It is not a department built around
your own personal ambition?
Lord Mandelson: No, it is a department
which is built around knowledge: knowledge for its own sake; knowledge
as the foundation for our competitiveness, our character, our
confidence as a nation. I have found not one single vice-chancellor
or principal who has said to me, "We want in our university
work to have nothing to do with the economy" or "nothing
to do with business". Not one has said that.
Q108 Chairman: No, quite the opposite.
Lord Mandelson: Quite the opposite.
Q109 Chairman: I agree.
Lord Mandelson: Which is why I
think that they are rather warmer, frankly, to this change in
the machinery of government than some newspapers initially suggested—but
that will not be a first.
Q110 Lembit Opik: I hope I
am not intruding on other people's questions, but it is just on
the question of pure research versus applied research. I would
have imagined that universities might be concerned that, in a
period of economic pressure as we are in now, there would be a
temptation to go away from pure research or to incentivise universities
to become a research addendum to industry. How do you protect
the pure research elements of great universities like Bristol,
who can obviously do the applied stuff as well but would probably
not want to be put under pressure to compromise their pure research
in the process?
Lord Mandelson: By respecting
both and making sure that you do, and that the one is not undertaken
at the expense of the other; by ring-fencing the science budget
and maintaining the dual system of support which we operate in
this country for financing and administering research. I made
clear in the first speech that I made at Aston University that
this would be the case.
Q111 Mr Binley: I have always admired
your great ability to get your message over in the press. From
the opposite side of the table, but I have always admired it.
Therefore I am a little concerned about your role, and I think
a lot of people out there do not really understand what your role
is. You have the biggest department in Government and yet you
seem to be taking a sizeable, major, directional role in the Cabinet
itself. I refer to the comments with regard to Mr Woodward. For
instance, are they purely paper talk or is your message getting
through in the way that you would normally want it to?
Lord Mandelson: I am not quite
sure what you are talking about, but—
Q112 Mr Binley: I can enlighten you.
Lord Mandelson: ... every member
of the Cabinet has a collective responsibility for the Government's
policies and performance as a whole. That is the definition of
cabinet government as we operate it in this country. As Secretary
of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, I have said before
that 80% of my time is taken up with departmental duties and responsibilities,
and that is how I like it. You could say that 20%—but this
is not 20% every day or necessarily every week—involves
a wider and collective responsibility that I have in the Government
as First Secretary of State. That role is about supporting the
Prime Minister and the Government as a whole in the execution
of their duties. I am not the first Cabinet member to be playing
that role. I think the first such was Rab Butler for Harold Macmillan,
and there have been a number since—mainly, but not exclusively,
Conservatives.
Q113 Mr Binley: I understand that
and I am grateful for your answer. I am still not sure about the
message that is given out when we read reports of sizeable rows,
asking Mr Woodward to leave the meeting and all of that. Is it
purely frivolous?
Lord Mandelson: It is not only
frivolous; it is also trivial and gossip masquerading as journalism.
I do not recognise any of these accounts.
Q114 Mr Binley: That clears it up
for a lot of people.
Lord Mandelson: They are a complete
fiction.
Q115 Mr Binley: My final question
is about your comment that "The worst is over, so we can
keep on spending".
Lord Mandelson: I do not think
that is quite what—
Q116 Mr Binley: Is that a frivolous
comment too? It is just a headline that I am quoting.
Lord Mandelson: It is probably
in the Daily Mail.
Q117 Mr Binley: You saw that it was
in the Daily Mail.
Lord Mandelson: It is not, is
it?
Q118 Chairman: Absolutely right!
Lord Mandelson: I could not see
the newspaper in question through the stenographer, but I guessed
right!
Q119 Mr Binley: Let me press this,
because only in June 40,000 staff at BA were asked to work for
a month free. I do not understand how those two statements line
up, and it is an important matter for people out there.
Lord Mandelson: People do say
that the worst is behind us, in the sense that the deterioration
in the economy, of demand, of orders, has reached its furthest
point and that in the course of the coming months—and it
will be months, let me tell you—we will see things picking
up; but we will only see things picking up if we maintain the
Government's current policies. If we were to abandon our policies,
if we were to abandon our spending and investment in the economy,
then we would quickly see our recovery being reversed; the depth
of the recession would be greater; it would be prolonged; very
many more people would become unemployed and many more homeowners
would come under extreme pressure. If you take the construction
industry for example, I would offer it as my view that it is public
spending in investment that is keeping the construction industry
alive and in work at the moment. If you were to pull the plug
on the Government's current spending and investment, the unemployment
would soar, businesses would fail, and the economy would be seriously
set back; which is why, of course, the last thing Britain needs
is the adoption of Conservative party policies.
Chairman: I am sorry that partisan note
has entered the proceedings. That was a shame. We were being so
splendidly bipartisan, but never mind!
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