Examination of Witnesses (Questions 60
- 67)
THURSDAY 15 OCTOBER 2009
PROFESSOR ANTHONY
KING, MR
JONATHAN POWELL
AND LORD
TURNBULL KCB, CVO
Q60 Chairman:
We do not want to get into the House of Lords issue generally
but of course, it is a paradox, is it not, that if we were one
day to finish up with an elected House of Lords, we would have
closed the back door that we are using at the moment to bring
people into government and to answer some of these problems that
we are dealing with? We would have to find another way of achieving
what we are now achieving through the House of Lords.
Mr Powell: You would have a different
problem, would you not? You would have ministers who were responsible
to two different majorities of different sorts. So you would have
ministers in the House of Lords who were accountable to the majority,
which might be a Conservative majority because of the electoral
cycle, and to a Labour majority in the Commons, so you would find
yourself with a completely different set of problems.
Q61 Chairman:
This is why I did not want to go down the House of Lords route
but I just said that as a way of asking this question, which is,
at the moment when a minister is appointed to the Lords, when
a Lords minister is appointed, they do not have to go through
the propriety checking process that everybody else who enters
the Lords has to go through, through the House of Lords Appointments
Commission. Is that not just an anomaly?
Mr Powell: Yes, it is an anomaly
but, as I say, I do not think they should be in the Lords anyway.
Indeed, I do not think there should be a Lords so I would start
from a slightly different position on this.
Professor King: Can I just chip
in that a lot of people who think there ought to be a predominantly
elected House of Lords—of whom I am not one, by the way—but
a lot of people who believe that nevertheless allow for the possibility
of a, say, 80% or whatever elected House of Lords, but also I
go back to the point that was made earlier, with which I concur:
it seems to me that it would not be beyond the wit of man or woman
to invent a number of slots, if you like, a number of opportunities,
half a dozen or a dozen, for people to become ministers who are
not members of either House of Parliament but who nevertheless
are expected to be answerable to one or other House of Parliament.
Q62 Chairman:
That was my second question, which is ...
Lord Turnbull: Can I just say
on this question of who is responsible for appointment vetting,
and by and large I think the Prime Minister should be responsible
for the calibre of people and the background of people, so he
should do these checks.
Q63 Chairman:
So they should be exempt from any further propriety check?
Lord Turnbull: No, they should
be done by the Prime Minister. I do not think you would have divided
accountabilities, "Who on earth let this guy in?" If
he is coming in as a prime ministerial appointment, the Prime
Minister should take responsibility for all the background checks
and so on.
Q64 Chairman:
Does that happen?
Lord Turnbull: I think they check
whether someone has a CRB record or something, yes, or if he is
disqualified as a director. With all ministerial appointments
you basically make sure that our friends in various places have
no objections.
Q65 Chairman:
Is this true, Jonathan, that you vet people for decency?
Mr Powell: There is a standard
that has existed for decades, a standard process for vetting anyone
who becomes a minister, which would apply to these people too,
yes.
Q66 Chairman:
We could go there but we will not go there. Could I just pose
this final question, which is, if we do go down the route of bringing
people in, letting them be ministers, holding them to account
in the normal way, which is the route we seem to be going down,
would it make sense to add in the other bit from the more separated
power system, which is to have these people submit to confirmation
hearings in the Commons, if these are people who are not elected
by anybody?
Professor King: Could I just say
about that that I am tempted by the idea but I think there is
one very serious problem which has manifested itself in the United
States, which is that very often in the US the quantum of clearance
that takes place, to which is added confirmation hearings, simply
puts an awful lot of people off. They are very reluctant to allow
their names to be put forward, not because they are crooks or
for any reason like that but simply the quantum of hassle is far
too great. If you ask a very able person to do a job, he or she
may think "Yes, I will do it if I am offered it," but
if I have to spend a couple of months appearing before committees
or whatever, I may not want to do that. That is a serious problem
in the US.
Mr Powell: I think if you had
confirmation hearings, you would need to have them for all Ministers.
I do not really recognise this concept of elected ministers because
no-one is elected as a minister; they are elected as an MP. It
is the Prime Minister of the day who chooses them as a minister,
so all ministers should be on the same footing from that point
of view.
Q67 Chairman:
You are quite in favour of confirmation hearings for all Ministers,
are you?
Mr Powell: I think the practical
problems that Tony raises are pretty serious but in principle,
if you are going to have this new role for the House of Commons
where committees are playing a bigger role and there is a role
for backbenchers, it seems to me a logical extension of that,
yes.
Lord Turnbull: I am rather against
it. I think the Prime Minister should take responsibility for
the appointments that he makes.
Chairman: Fascinating stuff! The sense
is that there is a direction of travel going on here in a rather
disorganised way. I think what we are trying to do is to give
some shape to it so that we can work out where we might want to
go, so we do not see all these as problems with the system but
are probably edging towards a rather different way of doing some
of this. You have been immensely helpful. Is there anything else
you think you would like to say before we end that we have not
asked you? If not, let me just thank you all very much for coming
along and for talking to us.
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