Letter to the Secretary of State for Foreign
and Commonwealth Affairs, Foreign and Commonwealth Office from
the Chairman of the Committee
PARLIAMENTARY SCRUTINY
OF DIPLOMATIC
APPOINTMENTS
At its last meeting, the Foreign Affairs Committee
considered the Government's reply to the Public Administration
Select Committee's recent report on Parliament and public appointments:
Pre-appointment hearings by select committees (published as
PASC's Sixth Special Report of Session 2007-08, HC 515).
The Committee was concerned to note the following
response by the Government to a recommendation by PASC:
There is one other circumstance in which pre-appointment
hearings should be introduced. Occasionally, Ministers have made
public appointments without following the usual processes, where
normal practice and the public expectation are that these appointments
will be made on merit. The most common examples are appointments
to the Diplomatic Service, often of former Members of Parliament.
Such appointments may occasionally be appropriate, but they deserve
to be tested in public by a cross-party committee. There is a
strong argument for requiring a preappointment hearing—even
a binding hearing—in such cases. (Paragraph 43).
The Government does not agree.
The Government is introducing pre-appointment
hearings to strengthen the role of Parliament in the appointment
of people to posts in which there is a strong public interest
either because of the role played in holding the Executive to
account or because of the powers exercised in protecting the public's
rights and interests. The appointments referred to do not fall
within this category. The Government does not consider it appropriate
for Parliament to be involved in these appointments.
In its report on The Work of the Committee in
2007, the Foreign Affairs Committee stated that:
We have previously announced our intention of
scrutinising any major diplomatic or consular appointment of a
person from outside the diplomatic service. In our last annual
report we noted that the only such appointments to be made in
recent years were made during the period when there was no Committee
in existence, at the time of the 2005 general election. As the
appointments were faits accomplis by the time the Committee was
nominated, we did not hold hearings with the individuals concerned.
However, in August 2007, the Government announced that it intended
to appoint Scottish Labour leader and former First Minister Jack
McConnell MSP as British High Commissioner to Malawi when the
current High Commissioner's posting ends in 2009. We plan to hold
an evidence session with Mr McConnell in March 2008. (Fourth Report
of Session 2007-08, HC 287, para 55)
The Committee subsequently proposed to the Liaison
Committee that the Government should amend its list of appointments
which will routinely be subject to pre-appointment scrutiny (as
appended to Ed Miliband's letter of 23 January to Alan Williams)
to include "any major diplomatic or consular appointment
of a person from outside the diplomatic service". The Liaison
Committee supported this proposal in its recent report on this
subject, to which the Government has not yet replied (First Report
of Session 2007-08, HC 384, paras 11 and 16).
On 23 April we took oral evidence from Mr McConnell
about his proposed appointment. We intend shortly to issue a report
giving our conclusions on this matter.
The Committee has instructed me to write to
you to make clear that it is for the Committee itself, not the
Government, to decide from whom it chooses to take evidence; and
that it continues to regard the scrutiny of appointments of non-diplomats
to diplomatic posts as a matter which is undeniably within its
area of interest and responsibility and which is deserving of
public and parliamentary scrutiny.
We are particularly concerned that if this category
of appointments were to be omitted from the Government's list,
that decision might be taken as a signal to civil servants or
prospective appointees to be uncooperative with the FAC in respect
of future evidence sessions such as that with Mr McConnell. It
would be very unfortunate if a government initiative aimed at
strengthening Parliament's ability to scrutinise the Executive
were to be implemented in a way that might be interpreted in some
quarters as inhibiting Parliament's previously existing rights
of scrutiny.
We therefore hope that you will give urgent
consideration to reviewing the Government's approach to this matter.
13 May 2008
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