King’s Speech

Lord Maude of Horsham Excerpts

Tuesday 19th May 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Maude of Horsham (Con)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Alexander. It is also a pleasure to speak on the same day as so many distinguished maiden speakers, particularly my noble friend Lord Blackwater. We are fellow alumni, and those of us who are devotees of his magisterial tomes know that he will bring a splendid erudition to your Lordships’ proceedings.

I want to touch on a part of the gracious Speech that is a bit of a minority interest. It is the words on the Civil Service—the proposals that the Government pledge to bring forward to

“strengthen the delivery, accountability, innovation and productivity of the Civil Service”.

I welcome this; I applaud it, although tinged with a little bit of déjà vu. Few people are better qualified than me to know that the easy part is the bringing forward of the proposals to address the failings of the institution of the Civil Service— not the civil servants, because we still have brilliant civil servants in this country, but the institution itself, which is flawed and needs serious reform.

The flaws are well known: the churn, the unplanned movement of civil servants from one post to another, the class distinction, the lack of parity of esteem between those charged with delivery and implementation versus those who make the policy—the Whitehall civil servants who get nearly all of the top jobs—and the lack of openness to influence from outside the Civil Service. All these are flaws which have been identified going well back even to before the Fulton committee report in 1968. Therefore, we look forward to these proposals, but the hard bit is making it happen. There are three things which need to happen to make it even possible for these changes to be introduced and then to stick.

The first is authority. Real authority needs to be given to the head of the Civil Service, and that authority can be given explicitly only by the Prime Minister, whose statutory powers can be delegated so that the head of the Civil Service does not need to rely upon her admittedly splendid powers of charm and persuasion to ensure that these reforms can be implemented on a whole-of-government basis. They need to be implemented on a whole-of-government basis, although that may give offence to those in the Treasury who worship at the altar of the hermetically sealed departmental silos. Authority is essential.

The second is transparency. It is time to lift the veil that conceals the sensitive area of the management of the Civil Service. This is deemed too precious, rare and sacred to be exposed to view, particularly to the view of politicians—the people who, after all, are required, rightly, to take responsibility and to be accountable for everything that is done by civil servants.

The third element that needs to be strengthened is mentioned: accountability. It is time for there to be genuine, external accountability for what is actually being delivered as regards the Civil Service’s capability. For too long, the Civil Service has scrutinised itself. It is time to beef up the role of the Civil Service Commission to make it a genuine external regulator of the Civil Service. The tendency now is for the Civil Service to mark its own homework.

Authority, transparency and accountability: if these are introduced genuinely, there is at least a chance that these no doubt splendid proposals will actually be put into action.