Examination of Witnesses (Questions 160
- 179)
TUESDAY 10 NOVEMBER 2009
SIR JOHN
MAJOR KG, CH, ACIB
Q160 Mr Prentice:
Then he goes on to say, "I have not got my titles for the
sake of a badge." He obviously feels he can contribute something.
But there is a man who is obviously wounded by the criticism and
that is an issue, is it not? You would bring people into politics
and they just cannot take it.
Sir John Major: There are many
people who have come into politics who I think have made a significant
contribution. If you look at the present Government, without going
further back, I would argue Lord Darzi was a success, I think
I would argue that Lord Adonis is a success—was in education,
is at transport. I think Lord Davies, Mervyn Davies, is proving
to be a success. So these are people with a particular experience
who I think have enhanced the ability of government to deal with
problems. Of course you cannot take that too far and, as I said
earlier, some appointments will be more successful than others,
and everyone will have their own judgments about that. I would
rate those three a particular success and I think there are others.
Those who are not a success perhaps will leave government fairly
speedily, others will not. Personally, I would change the system
of appointment. If I were appointing Mr X to the House of Lords
to be a minister, I would like a constitutional change, if we
put him in the Lords, which gave him a peerage for the period
of that Parliament and then when he left government that peerage
would fall away in terms of legislation. He could keep the title,
I have no objection to him continuing to be Lord X, but I think
he would lose his legislative position when he left government.
If the party to whom he adhered wished to put him back in the
House of Lords, then let them later put him on a working peers
list. I have no objection to that, but I think the automaticity
of coming into the Lords, becoming a peer, serving for five minutes
and retaining membership of the House of Lords is something I
would look at and change.
Q161 Chairman:
The proposal you made in The Times though, with Douglas
Hurd, was even more radical, was it not? It was that some such
person would not even need to be in the Lords at all, you said
there should be a percentage of these people who can just be appointed?
Sir John Major: We advocated that
as well. We set out a series of things. We were thinking more
of the Commons than the Lords when we actually wrote that. In
terms of the Lords, if you wish to put people in, you can, and
providing you do not offer them the peerage for life then I think
it is proper to give them the peerage for the period in which
they serve in the Government and let them be fully-fledged members
of the House of Lords during their period there. What we were
looking at was there might be very exceptional circumstances in
the Commons where, because of the particular skill, the Commons
would require that particular minister to be within the House
of Commons so they are directly answerable to the House of Commons,
though under my proposals of course even if they were in the Lords
they could be brought to the Commons to be answerable. That was
where we were being a little more radical and trailing our coat
and suggesting there might be a small number of unelected ministers
who would serve also in the Commons for the period of their time
in government. If you did that of course, let us pre-suppose the
Prime Minister of the day brought in five unelected people—no,
three, five is perhaps over-doing it I think—three unelected
people to serve in the Commons as ministers, I think the inevitable
consequence of that is there would have to be three unelected
additions to the Opposition as well as to the governing party,
but that is not our preferred option. But we do think that is
something which conceivably should be open to a Prime Minister.
Q162 Mr Walker:
I was going to call you "Prime Minister". I almost stood
when you came in. Sir John, it does really sound like serious
consideration should be given to a separation of powers. I am
a legislator, I have no real management ability, I think the idea
of me running a department is probably quite laughable, or even
part of a department. Why can we not start biting the bullet on
this and perhaps accept we need to have a debate about the separation
of powers, so you have people in Parliament who represent their
constituents, scrutinise government and hold it to account, and
then we have people drawn from the best and the brightest out
there being ministers, or whatever you want to call them, and
when they cease being a minister they retire back to public life
with no title, just the pleasure of having served their country?
Sir John Major: Well, you could
do that. Constitutionally it would be an enormous change and I
think it would lose something, because although today we are concentrating
on bringing in experience to help politics, I do not think people
should under-estimate the importance of a political skill in running
a huge department and presenting a policy. I think I would argue
someone who is a professional politician, who has served in the
House of Commons and learned the arts of politics, is often going
to present policy far more effectively than somebody who has just
been brought in from outside. I see the argument for the separation
of powers, it is there, but it is not a route down which I would
myself wish to go, I think it is too big a constitutional change
and I would not do that. Although it is very fashionable these
days to disparage politics and politicians, I think it would be
a great loss were we to lose the ability of people going through
the political system serving as ministers directly and representing
policy. I also think it would be slightly less democratic, noticeably
less democratic, than the system we have at present.
Q163 Mr Walker:
You mention the role of the backbencher. Being called a backbencher
now is a term of derision and I do not think it should be a term
of derision. You said there should be a career structure for backbenchers
which is more robust than the one we currently have in place.
We currently have select committees, you can be chairman of standing
committees, but what other additions could we make to the House
which would allow someone to have a rewarding career as a parliamentarian
as opposed to being judged on whether or not they held ministerial
office?
Sir John Major: If I may say something
for the moment in defence of backbenchers. A really good backbencher
is often the grit in the oyster; Tam Dalyell perhaps. He would
often hold eccentric views but he was an extraordinarily able
and good backbencher and suddenly apt to fire at ministers the
most devastating question of all, and that is, "Why?"
I remember him standing up in the House of Commons in response
to an answer from a minister and just saying, "Why?"
and it was brilliant. So I do not think one should permit people
to disparage the role of the backbencher, I think it is extremely
important, and there are people who philosophically wish to be
backbenchers, represent their constituents, argue their case,
do not have ambition, do not believe they have a field marshal's
baton in their knapsack, and it is very important that Parliament
has a considerable number of them. So I support the role of the
backbencher. What I do think we ought to do, the point I was getting
at, and it is not a million miles away from this Select Committee,
if you look at select committees, they were an innovation introduced
by Norman St John-Stevas 30-odd years ago, I think they have been
pretty successful, I think they could be more successful and I
return to my concern about holding the government to account.
In terms of a career structure, the sort of thing I have in mind
and no doubt this Committee or at least its Chairman would agree
with it, I think we should change the status of select committees.
I would pay select committee chairmen at the rate of a senior
minister, a minister of state at least, and the Chairman of the
Accounts Committee perhaps at the rate of a Cabinet minister.
I would pay the vice-chairman of the committee as well. I do not
know whether there are allowances now for committee members but
I would give them. I would give them more work to do. I would
have them elected by the House, not appointed by the usual channels.
I think that would be a significant improvement. So paid, elected
by the usual channels to give them more independence than they
have previously had. Then I would look at the work they do. One
thing which I think could be done and should be done is quite
a constitutional change but well worthwhile. At the moment, governments
produce a one year parliamentary programme but they have a five-year
manifesto. I see no reason why governments could not announce
a parliamentary programme which spread over a good deal longer
than a year so that Green Papers could be produced on the proposed
legislation, the select committees would take on the role of examining
those Green Papers, taking public evidence and advising upon that
legislation, before the legislation comes to be drafted. I think
if you did that, you would get much better legislation. I think
it would be quite a rewarding thing to do. Bring in the experts
on health and cross-examine them, bring in the chief constables
and examine them on the annual Criminal Justice Bill. I think
that would be a good idea for this reason: too often in the last
few years large parts of Bills have either not been debated or
have been inadequately debated, and you see a few years down the
road that those parts of the Bills have often not been brought
into operation and then in the subsequent Bill they are quietly
repealed without ever having been brought into operation. That
is very amateurish. That is not the way to run a whelk stall,
let alone one of the oldest parliaments in the world. If you looked
at your legislation more on a parliamentary basis than on an annual
basis and gave the select committees this additional role, it
would be a good deal more work for the select committees, and
I am entirely content for them to be paid for the extra work they
do because I think the reward would be better legislation, and
if you want Parliament to be effective, efficient and well regarded,
it needs to produce legislation which works and is seen to be
effective and is seen to be properly democratically examined.
I am not personally convinced at the moment it is. So those are
the sort of changes I have in mind.
Q164 Mr Walker:
So would you agree that we need people who are ambitious for Parliament,
not just ambitious to get ahead in the executive, but in the way
you are ambitious for Parliament, people who come here—able,
bright people, far brighter than I am—who are ambitious
for Parliament and want to make their mark within Parliament?
Sir John Major: Emphatically,
I would, yes. I do think you need people ambitious for Parliament.
If you have a Parliament in which every member has as his primary
ambition to be Prime Minister or a minister, you do not have a
Parliament which will hold the government to account. You need
people of an independent strand of mind. One of the advantages
of bringing in older people is that the career structure through
the select committees would be particularly attractive, and they
would be particularly experienced, though of course that raises
wider questions of getting them selected and adopted as we all
understand, but if they were there I think it would be better
for Parliament and I think we should encourage that. In terms
of standing committees, you might look at similar reforms but
I think it is less evident how you do that than it is with select
committees.
Q165 Paul Flynn:
Very good to see you back here, John.
Sir John Major: Thank you, Paul.
Q166 Paul Flynn:
One of your early ambitions as Prime Minister was a very laudable
one, which was to take the yah-boo out of Prime Minister's Questions.
You suggested this and, in a spirit of co-operation, in your first
fortnight as Prime Minister I had the luck to have a Question
drawn and I sent every word I was going to ask in that Question,
stripped of adjectives and on a serious subject, to 10 Downing
Street, and when I asked the Question your reply was described
in a Times editorial as a "typical Civil Service brief
with a party political sting in the tale". I had not given
my "yah" but you gave your "boo". Within a
month, Prime Minister Questions had gone back to what it always
was. Is it not likely, that because the system is favourable to
the Prime Minister of the day and the party political of the day,
it is very, very difficult to institute reforms particularly when
they are sabotaged by what in this case was the person who started
it all?
Sir John Major: Well, one man's
boo is another man's cheer. Surprisingly, Paul, I do not remember
that incident 19 years on; I am sorry not to have an absolute
total recollection of it. I am surprised if I responded in that
way because I recall for some months both Neil Kinnock and I at
the outset tried to take some of the heat out of Prime Minister's
Questions. He did too and I have always paid great credit to him
for doing that. Eventually, as you say, the system forced us back
into it. It was decreed by those who write about these things
that it was becoming deathly boring, the backbenchers became restive,
they needed a little blood at Prime Minister's Question Time,
and so things did drift back. Prime Minister's Questions is a
thing apart. I think all of us who have been in Parliament know
it is a unique few minutes each week and the rest of Parliament
is not generally like Prime Minister's Questions, for which in
the interests of good government I think most of us would give
a hearty cheer and not a boo. So if I did not treat your question
with the importance it deserved, I offer you an apology 19 years
later, but I cannot entirely remember the incident.
Q167 Paul Flynn:
One of the things that many of us find distressing about the political
reality of life today is this subservience of governments and
oppositions particularly to the red top daily newspapers. You
had your problems with The Sun, have you been sickened
in the last 24 hours by The Sun's attack on the Prime Minister?
Sir John Major: I did not particularly
have my problems with The Sun, I had my problems with everybody!
Let us not understate this. You may or may not accept this, but
some time ago I had the self-denying ordinance that I no longer
buy the morning newspapers, so I do not really feel in a position
to comment on them.
Q168 Paul Flynn:
You are happy about what I can only perceive as the press deteriorating?
I can recall the editor of The Sun threatening to dump
something on your desk at one time.
Sir John Major: Yes, I read about
that, I do not ever recall it happening but I have read about
that. The press exist and there is nothing whatever you can do
about it. I advise everyone to understand that very early in their
political career. There is not a great deal you can do about it,
just concentrate on what needs to be done and get on. I am not
sure I always handled that extremely well, probably I did not,
but that is ancient history, and with experience perhaps comes
a wisdom about it. I just advise people to carry on doing what
they think is right. Speaking about what is right, they may in
the short term have an extremely difficult time of it, but I think
over a period if you stick to what it is you believe and continue
to advocate it, even if people disagree with it, they will admire
you for the way you stick to what you say. You and I can both
think of parliamentary mavericks who have done exactly that over
the last few years and been very valuable.
Q169 Paul Flynn:
Why did you not follow your own advice about getting talented
and experienced people in the Lords by going into the Lords yourself?
Sir John Major: I have never ruled
that out but I think it is a matter of personal preference. I
think if you are going to go in the Lords, for me I thought, "Am
I going to be able to make a significant contribution and be there
as frequently as I would wish." The truth is, there were
so many things I did outside the House of Lords that I wished
to do. In politics, most of the rest of your life is extinguished
if you become a senior minister, that was my fate. I am very proud
to have done the job but that was my fate for a very long time
and when I finished with politics I thought a sabbatical from
it was a very good idea, and I have continued to take the sabbatical.
At the moment, for example, I am abroad between five and six months
of the year. Very useful, because it gives me a perspective of
this country from the Far East, from Africa, from Latin America,
from America, from Eastern Europe, but if you are abroad five
months of the year, I am not entirely sure you are going to make
the contribution to the House of Lords that you would wish.
Paul Flynn: Thank you very much.
Q170 Paul Rowen:
Sir John, you had five Cabinet reshuffles in your seven years
as Prime Minister, what would it be like under your system and
how do you avoid having that number of reshuffles?
Sir John Major: I think there
were too many reshuffles. We were passing through a period in
probably the 1970s, 1980s and the 1990s, in which an annual reshuffle
became an event rather like Christmas and Easter. I think in some
ways the present Government have been wise to leave ministers
in place in many cases for longer. Certain senior ministers have
served in positions for a very long time and I think that is attractive.
It is not universally true, the number of Defence Ministers we
have had and Prisons Ministers we have had, have been far more
than is wise I think over recent years, but in other positions
ministers have served longer. So I think the implicit criticism
in your question is justified. I do not think you should automatically
assume there is going to be an annual reshuffle and, where you
have someone who is good at the job, it is more in the interests
of good government to let them continue to do that job than to
go through the old maxim of "Onward and upward, this minister
is talented." So fewer reshuffles would probably lead to
ministers more in command of their departments and better legislation.
I think that is right.
Q171 Paul Rowen:
Is not part of the reason you had so many reshuffles and we have
had so many in the last couple of years is events, which you do
not control?
Sir John Major: I have observed
that. I remember not being in control of events. Yes, it is part
of the reason, but it is not the only reason. There was a tendency
to have an annual reshuffle. Events are going to be the same whether
X is the minister or Y is the minister. The reshuffle may be brought
about because the event had wrecked X's capacity to continue,
that of course may be the case and you may need a mini-reshuffle
in that department, but it does not have to be more general.
Q172 Paul Rowen:
Do not Prime Ministers use the reshuffle as a way of hanging on
to power? Certainly Tony Blair in his last few months reshuffled
twice. Is that not one of the tactics which you as a Prime Minister
used?
Sir John Major: No, actually it
is not. No, it certainly was not. I am not sure what Tony Blair
did or how his reshuffle would have helped him. It seemed to me
he had a fairly secure majority, so he certainly was not minded
to—
Q173 Paul Rowen:
There were the Brownites and the Blairs and the people who were
baying for his blood.
Sir John Major: I am shocked that
you suggest there was a difference between the then Prime Minister
and the then Chancellor. I did not observe it at close quarters
and I think I would prefer not to comment on it.
Q174 Paul Rowen:
Your majority, as you said earlier, was very small, given the
proposals you have actually put forward in the article in The
Times, fewer ministers, less power of patronage, how would
you in that circumstance have been able to command a majority
to get your programme through?
Sir John Major: It is always difficult
if you have a small majority and it perhaps would have been marginally
more difficult if we had had a lower payroll vote, it probably
would, but the important point is not whether it is convenient
for any Prime Minister or any government but whether it is right
for Parliament to have a better democratic structure. I think
it is. I can speak now, having been through the system and observed
it from outside. Whether I would have taken that view at the time
I was in power is a more questionable point, I cannot go back
and tell you, but if I now look at what Charles Walker called
the interests of Parliament, then I think it is the right thing
for Parliament to do in the future.
Q175 Paul Rowen:
Finally, Sir John, how do we restore public confidence in politics?
Sir John Major: When there are
great crises there is a huge clamour, but as those crises begin
to be solved and as things begin to be put right, I think you
do see confidence rising in Parliament, so it is important that
that happens. If the crisis deepens and worsens and spirals out
of control, then that confidence does not reappear. But the first
thing is not gimmicks, I do not think you can restore the status
of Parliament with gimmicks. I do think you can restore it with
solid, sensible policy, and the proposals I have made this morning
are because I believe they would contribute to solid, sensible
policy and I think you need to see that over a period of years.
I think if you did, it would have its impact on public perceptions.
Q176 Chairman:
Sir John, you had an interesting phrase, you said, "In this
age of freakish government majorities".
Sir John Major: Yes.
Q177 Chairman:
You did not have a freakish government majority, although you
had some freaks behind you as I remember, but is not the remedy
for that to think about the cause of the freakishness rather than
to deal with some of the other things?
Sir John Major: Well, it is a
remedy. I do not think the freakish majority takes away from any
of the other proposals I would make, which are made more pertinent
by the freakish majority but which I think are desirable in themselves.
What I meant by freakish majority is that probably the 1979 result
reflected the overall vote in a first-past-the-post system; 1983
did not; 1987 did not; actually 1992 did not because on the basis
of the plurality of votes in 1992 the then Conservative Government
should have had a majority of 70 and not 21. We did of course
have a majority of 21 with rather more than 21 who were dissatisfied
with many of our policies, so we were a minority government on
some issues even before the majority began to fall. Then in 1997
you had a freakish result again. It is odd, and people tend not
to remember it, but in 1987 or 1983—I forget which—the
Labour Party got 27% of the vote and 240-odd seats, in 1997 the
Conservatives got between 31 and 32%, 3 or 4% more votes, but
70 fewer seats. That is what I meant by freakish majorities. At
the last election, with a vote percentage which was, I do not
know, 35, 36%, a very significant working majority was again delivered
to the government of the day. I think the problem lies essentially
in the remit given to the Boundary Commissions which are still
producing distorted results. That is a matter which Parliament
can put right. You could look at the voting system but that has
other disadvantages if you move to proportional representation.
Proportional representation might be seen as more democratic and
fair in terms of a direct number of members for the proportion
of the votes cast, but I think it does have other disadvantages
in producing perpetual coalition or minority governments. So I
would not go down that route, but I do think you need to look
at the maldisposition of the present electoral system in terms
of the relative size of constituencies.
Q178 Chairman:
You have been quite radical in much of what you are saying to
us, I am trying to entice you to be radical on this one too. As
you well know, if you go back to the post-war period, the two
major parties were getting over 90% of the vote between them,
now that is down to 50% or something. The context in which politics
happens has changed completely and yet we still have an electoral
system which delivers the freakish results you describe. So is
not the fact in the outside world the way people behave politically
has just changed fundamentally and that, not the essential rights
or wrongs of the system, causes us to go back and look at it?
Sir John Major: I think the world
has changed and we now do have more regional parties, we have
some single issue parties which have not really got into Parliament
yet but could, and we have a much lower proportionate level of
support for each of the two major parties. That is undoubtedly
true. I think before you make any more radical changes we really
ought to look at the disposition of the boundaries; I would not
go beyond that at this stage.
Q179 David Heyes:
One of the consequences of reducing the number of constituencies
dramatically would be an increase in constituency workload for
Members, and that is a massive part of the job, rightly or wrongly,
for most MPs nowadays, and there is a certain routine—some
may even say drudgery—about that. How does that sit with
wanting to widen the pool of talent in the Commons? You make the
job less attractive if you create fewer opportunities for people
to go into, and at the same time you are bringing in talent from
outside which might reduce the opportunity for preferment once
you became a Member. There seem to be some real contradictions
in here.
Sir John Major: You are quite
right, there is an element of contradiction in reducing the number
of Members because you increase the workload and distract them
from the legislative responsibilities they have in the House of
Commons; I think that is undoubtedly true. But I think you have
to weigh that against the other advantages I see in a smaller
House of Commons. I think you can partly deal with it if you have
a proper back-up structure for Members of Parliament. I know it
is not fantastically fashionable to talk about those sorts of
things at this particular moment, but it is important that Members
of Parliament have the right back-up structure to assist their
constituents and support them in the work they are doing. I think
it is unfortunate that one or two incidents have caused great
difficulty with that. Yes, you are right, there is an element
of contradiction. Nothing in this world is clean-cut and absolutely
certain or it would have happened, so of course there are contradictions
in changes and you have to take the course you think on balance
is the best. The course on balance which I think is best is a
smaller number of Members. I am not talking about a hugely radical
reduction, I would not go below 500 for example, so you would
take out 150 maybe over two or three Parliaments. That would be
the sort of thing I would have in mind. So there would be an increase
in constituency workload but I would hope that could significantly
be compensated by the degree of back-up given to the Members who
are retained in the House.
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