Examination of Witnesses (Question Numbers
120-139)
RT HON
LORD MANDELSON
AND RT
HON PAT
MCFADDEN
MP
7 JULY 2009
Q120 Miss Kirkbride: You are right
to say, Lord Mandelson, that the rate of decline has reduced;
so can you tell us in what month we will get positive growth?
Lord Mandelson: No, I am not going
to give you an economic weather forecast. All I would say is that
if we continue the Government's current policies, we will have
a much greater chance of getting out of this recession quicker,
easier and sooner than we would otherwise do.
Q121 Miss Kirkbride: You are not
working up what the Chancellor told us in the Budget then?
Lord Mandelson: I am not going
to give you a weather forecast or a prediction on growth. I have
already said publicly, as I did last week in the Mansion House,
that the Chancellor's forecasts made at the time of the Budget
remain. To me, they look like the best indication that we have
of when growth is going to pick up and the economy to improve
and, should the Chancellor have a different view, I am sure he
will—
Q122 Miss Kirkbride: Tell us?
Lord Mandelson: ...be telling
you.
Q123 Chairman: I was intrigued by
your exchange with Brian Binley earlier. You used the parallel
of Rab Butler. Of course, the other one might be Margaret Thatcher
and Willie Whitelaw. She famously remarked that "every Prime
Minister needs a Willie". So you are this Prime Minister's
"Willie"—is that your role?
Lord Mandelson: I am tempted to
extend the metaphor, but decorum ... .!
Chairman: I think we had better move
on to Mick Clapham.
Q124 Mr Clapham: It is obviously
a very large Department. How do you plan to co-ordinate work across
that Department to ensure that no area of policy is neglected?
Lord Mandelson: I am fortunate
to have an absolutely first-rate ministerial team. Pat, who deputises
for me both in the Commons and in the Department, is a considerable
support in apportioning different responsibilities across the
ministerial team. We have on the departmental website a list of
ministers, who is responsible for what and who does what, and
I am finding it working pretty well so far, and I trust it will
continue. The ministers are very conscientious. They do have a
considerable burden, I am not pretending otherwise, but they are
also very hardworking people, and I believe that we will be able
to carry this load. However, Parliament and then the public will
be our judge, which is why accountability to this Committee, amongst
others, is so important.
Q125 Mr Clapham: Given that there
are a good number of ministers who are in the other House and
given that there are so many ministers in the Department—eleven—
Lord Mandelson: We do share one
or two, you will have noticed. I do not have them all full time.
Q126 Mr Clapham: Is it possible to
develop a kind of innovative mechanism that will ensure that it
is more effective in the way that it works?
Lord Mandelson: Pat can comment
on this himself, but I think that as long as everyone is shouldering
their fair share of the workload, that they are communicating
with each other well—and we have ministerial meetings, all
of us, every week—as long as they are doing their boxes
at night and taking their decisions properly and rapidly, the
business can be dispatched well. I have always attached a premium
to ministers doing their homework at night and delivering their
boxes done by the morning; but we also are fortunate to have first-rate
civil servants in our Department. They are wonderful advisers;
they are wonderful submitters of policies; and they are brilliant
in executing ministerial decisions. I know that is the case across
government; I just wanted to emphasise that I feel in our Department
we are especially fortunate with the service that we receive from
our officials. Pat, do you want to add anything?
Mr McFadden: I do not think that
we have been able to identify specific areas where there has been
a problem with co-ordination, in the way that you might ask about.
In fact, I think you can argue the opposite. For example, when
we published the Building Britain's Future document last
week, one of the proposals in there was for an innovation fund.
Putting that together was probably easier in the current structure
that we have than it might otherwise have been; because we were
able to draw on the expertise of, for example, Lord Drayson, the
science minister, pulling together other departments, to put together
a fund that identified a market gap in investing in young start-up
companies, who are doing a brilliant job creatively but where
sometimes Britain has had a problem with those brilliant creative
ideas actually coming to market. I am not sure that we have areas
where there has been a problem with things falling between stools;
but actually, by bringing the two things together, we might be
able to make sure that the whole is greater than the sum of the
two parts in the previous departments. That is one example where
that is the case; there might be others in the future.
Q127 Mr Clapham: Turning to trade,
there used to be a minister who was shared between BIS and DfID.
Why do you feel it is no longer necessary to have that minister
doing that kind of work? It also relates of course to the Cabinet
committee that was chaired by the Secretary of State for DfID.
Lord Mandelson: You are right,
but the co-ordination between DfID and BIS is very strong, and
between Douglas Alexander and myself. Gareth Thomas, who was the
shared minister, is now needed full time in DfID, due to the changes
that were made, but we have in Lord Davies, Mervyn Davies, a Minister
for Trade, Investment and Business who has huge experience of
international trade, given his international banking background.
There seem to be very few people at levels of influence and decision-making
in most countries with which we do trade whom he does not know—and
thank goodness for it. It is a real boost for the country to have
him there working as he does in the Department, and I think that
this Committee will see him shortly. He has taken on trade policy
as well as trade promotion and investment and, in doing that,
he will be working closely with DfID as well as his other partner
department, which is the Foreign Office.
Q128 Mr Clapham: Therefore, even
though we see that the DfID-BERR Trade Policy Unit is no longer
going to be active as such, do you feel that that work will still
be undertaken?
Lord Mandelson: No, it is only
the ministerial level that has been adjusted. The Joint Policy
Unit continues.
Q129 Mr Clapham: That is what I was
going to come to.
Lord Mandelson: Yes. I am sorry,
I should have made that clear.
Mr McFadden: The other thing to
say about these machinery of government changes is that this is
not the first time it has happened. We have had many precedents
over the years, where the Government has adjusted its departmental
structure for various reasons. We used to have a separate Department
of Energy. For a time that came into what was the DTI, then BERR.
Now it sits with climate change, and I think that we would agree
that is probably the right place to have energy at this time.
If you go back ten or 20 years, however, it would not have looked
like that. We used to have a separate Department of Employment,
and so on. Over the years, there have been machinery of government
changes. It is quite right that we examine them and say, "Is
this the right idea?", but they will go on happening in the
future.
Lord Mandelson: The illustrations
that Pat was offering up, of course, were related to the years
of Conservative government. In a sense, therefore, it is nothing
new or that has started afresh since 1997.
Q130 Mr Clapham: I heard what you
said in reply to the Chairman at the beginning. Thinking about
a department the size of BIS, you obviously need somebody with
drive, with understanding, with outlook. What would happen to
the Department if, for example, you were to leave for other pastures?
Lord Mandelson: I am not anticipating
an early departure from Government.
Q131 Chairman: You have not in the
past either.
Lord Mandelson: I have been there
and done that. I think we will stay where we are this time!
Q132 Mr Clapham: So you feel that
the Department is substantial enough and co-ordinated enough to
be able to ensure its dual ability, despite a change, should there
be a change?
Lord Mandelson: I really do think
so. It does take energy and drive but there are plenty of other
members of the Cabinet, and no doubt some outside it too, who
have energy and drive and could offer the same leadership to the
Department. I am not pretending that it is a walk in the park;
it is not. It involves a lot of hard work. However, I feel very
ably supported both by the ministers in the Department and by
the civil servants. It is something I feel passionately about.
As Secretary of State, I really want the Department as a whole
to make a difference: both a difference to our ability to get
through this recession but, equally importantly, if not more so,
to put in place the conditions for our future industrial and economic
success. It is why we produced the framework policy document in
April, New Industry, New Jobs, which has been welcomed
right across the economy. There is not a single industrial sector
that has not said that our approach makes sense. Implementing
it and making a success of it is very important to me.
Q133 Mr Clapham: Could I ask one
final question with regard to the structure? Half of your ministers
are in the other place. Given that that is the situation, do you
feel that there will be a need to devise a system for greater
accountability to the Commons?
Lord Mandelson: We touched on
that, did we not, right at the beginning? I floated the idea that
perhaps Cabinet ministers in the Lords could answer questions
in the Commons, but that idea was not readily embraced by anyone
and—
Q134 Chairman: You made some suggestions
which your Government subsequently rejected. It was rejected by
the Leader of the House.
Lord Mandelson: I think they would
feel that it might encourage the trend of having Lords Cabinet
members, and she did not think that that would be welcome to the
Commons. It was also suggested by some that if a Lords Secretary
of State was answering questions in the Commons, it might be seen
as a discourtesy to the Lords. It is not easy. However, I find
that not only do we have excellent Commons ministers, and a number
of them answering for the Department in the Commons but, of course,
I have an opportunity such as the one I am enjoying today, of
answering your questions on behalf of the rest of your colleagues
in the Commons.
Q135 Lembit Opik: I have a
short process point. It seems to me that you need a big team,
because oftentimes the economic or business problems that present
themselves are very pressing. Often people come to Members of
Parliament at the last stage, when they are really on the ropes.
Is there a methodology that you can think of where your Department
can turn things round much faster than the Government normally
can, because you need to operate at the speed of business rather
than the speed of the sometimes rather slow-moving political systems,
which may be fine for generating legislation but they are not
good for problem-busting?
Lord Mandelson: I think that we
are pretty fleet of foot in BIS. We have, as you know, a telephone
hotline for Members of Parliament to use—and they do use
it, phoning up and alerting us to problems or dangers for businesses
in their constituencies, or relations with banks for example,
where we have been particularly active. I think that we have put
good arrangements in place, therefore. I think that we are fairly
responsive. I certainly have not had a complaint yet that we have
simply overlooked or been asleep on the case. I cannot think of
a single instance where that has arisen.
Mr McFadden: We were conscious
at the beginning of the recession that the job description of
the Department was changing. That is why we set up this particular
telephone line, with the unit there to help MPs right across the
House. We wrote to every MP about that when it was set up. You
are right to say that sometimes, by the time a business goes to
their MP with a problem with their bank or with their creditors,
or whatever kind of problem it is, it is often late in the day.
We cannot, in setting up this unit, say that we can suddenly step
in as a kind of economic fire brigade and put out every fire.
That is not possible. What we have been able to do in a number
of instances, however, is perhaps to broker a discussion between
that business and its banks; perhaps get the banks to take a second
look at a particular decision. We cannot step in and make banking
decisions for them; that has to be done on a proper commercial
basis. However, this unit has been very active in helping MPs
who have approached us on behalf of businesses that have run into
trouble because of the recession. It is not something that always
existed in the Department; it is something we specifically set
up because of the tough economic times we have been going through.
It was done pretty quickly. It is not a huge resource for the
Department. It is a few, very good people who are active on the
phone, responding to MPs. That is one instance where I think we
have moved quite quickly to respond to concerns coming from MPs.
Q136 Chairman: Before we turn to
the next group of questions on the Royal Mail, one last question
on structure. There have been a lot of innovations from Government
on alternative structure, which have not lasted very long. Mick
talked about the trade minister share with DTI, then BERR, which
went. There was the establishment of DIUS two years ago with a
great fanfare of trumpets. It has now gone. We now have DBIS.
One of the innovations that I thought was a really good idea—and
I am generally against shared ministers—was Stephen Carter
doing the Digital Britain work. Stephen showed great expertise
in that work. He has announced his intention of retiring from
the Government shortly—I do not know exactly when. The implementation
of Digital Britain will be as important as getting to the
report itself; so who will take forward the implementation of
Digital Britain?
Lord Mandelson:
I could not agree with you more in your judgment of Stephen Carter,
Lord Carter. He has been an absolutely first-rate minister. He
has been a pioneer. His diligence, his attention to detail, is
a model for us all. He did say when he took up the task, however,
that he would do it for a year. It has been a year, but a year
well spent. He has left a tremendous legacy, as well as a hefty
manual of what needs to be done and followed up from his report,
and that will be undertaken by ministers when he leaves—in
my Department and in DCMS.
Q137 Chairman: Will a minister of
a certain seniority drive it forward? There is speculation that
it will be delegated quite a long way down the tree in both departments,
and that would be unhelpful. Digital Britain is a really
important issue. At what level will it be taken forward within
the departments?
Lord Mandelson: It will be taken
forward with aplomb and ability.
Q138 Chairman: So you are taking
personal responsibility then? Seriously, there is speculation
that it could be delegated down to quite junior parliamentary
secretaries. That would not be appropriate. They are all very
busy and it is an important issue.
Lord Mandelson: Let me give you
a straight answer. The continuation and implementation of this
work will be in very safe hands, but I cannot pre-empt what the
Prime Minister decides. It is a matter for him—
Q139 Chairman: You are quite close
to him these days.
Lord Mandelson: ... but I can
assure you that my strong advice will be to put this responsibility
into very capable hands in BIS.
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