Chilcot Inquiry

Debate between Lord Wallace of Saltaire and Lord Butler of Brockwell

Wednesday 28th January 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

There is no necessary relationship between those inquiries which are judge led and those which are time limited. The noble Lord will recall that the Saville inquiry took 12 years. The question of timeliness is very difficult. I think that part of the problem for the Chilcot inquiry has been that the number of documents to be examined, then considered, then declassified and then in some cases to be negotiated on over access with an allied Government was much larger than was originally anticipated. It would probably have helped if a larger staff had assisted at that stage in the inquiry.

[Lord Butler of Brockwell (CB)]

My Lords, the terms of reference of the Chilcot inquiry covered everything that happened both politically and militarily between 2001 and 2009. Is not one of the lessons to be learnt that more consideration should be given to the breadth of terms of reference of future inquiries?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I entirely agree with that. It is a huge inquiry, which is one reason why it has taken so long. Perhaps the noble Lord has seen Sir John Chilcot’s letter of 20 January in which he said that they had served longer on the inquiry than any of them had anticipated. It has been longer than they expected. One of the issues for the inquiry on historical child abuse currently being set up is that the number of cases over a very large number of years that it is being asked to cover is almost daunting for an inquiry of that sort.

The Future of the Civil Service

Debate between Lord Wallace of Saltaire and Lord Butler of Brockwell

Thursday 16th January 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, that is a pretty firm pass. It is very good to be back after a period away, although this is the first time I will have tried to stand for 20 minutes non-stop. I do not regret the need for this debate and I was rather puzzled that the noble Lord, Lord Hennessy, said that in his opening remarks. It seems to me that it is exactly the job of this House to debate the principles of government to see where we think government may be going wrong. We are, in effect, the institutional memory—though some of us can remember rather more than others. In dealing with a number of papers over the past 10 days, I have been very struck by how the institutional memory does not go back much beyond about 1990; however, mine does, so I was able to say, “No, the problem did not begin then”. That is precisely the sort of thing that we should be doing here.

I should declare a few interests. I am a member of the Civil Service reform board. My wife was a civil servant for seven years, at a time when the Civil Service was pretty unfriendly to women with children. My daughter is a civil servant, at a time when the Civil Service is very friendly to women with children—I am happy to say that that is part of the transformation over the past 30 years.

As a young academic, in 1977 I published a study of Whitehall’s management of Britain’s international relations and then got caught up in a government review, the Berrill report, of much the same thing. I vividly remember being carpeted in the Paris embassy by Sir Nicholas Henderson, who thought that I was a dangerous radical suggesting all sorts of things that would undermine Her Majesty’s Diplomatic Service—and, indeed, the Diplomatic Service saw off the Berrill report pretty firmly. That was a mistake. It is part of the problem that we have with the absence of language skills across the Civil Service at present that we did not think, as the Berrill commission and others like me were saying, that we needed to spread those skills across the Department of Trade and Industry and other departments. The internationalisation of government is one of the revolutions that we have been running through since then.

Over the past 30 or 40 years, Whitehall and the British Government as a whole have had to cope with a whole series of changes. I have mentioned internationalisation, but we have also seen the gradual centralisation of the delivery of public services—first across the country and then with the partial reversal of that in the establishment of the devolved Governments—which has left England as the most centralised country in the advanced industrialised world. I hope that what the coalition Government is now doing with city deals is beginning to reverse that. That will have implications for the central Civil Service.

The expansion of public services, particularly the provision of welfare and health, is running up against the limits of the capacity of government to finance the services being provided. That is one of the underlying problems that any Government of any party will face in the coming years.

Over the past 20 years, there has also been the growth of outsourcing and contract management. The move away from lifetime employment has been a matter not just for the Civil Service but for our entire economy and society. It has been recognised that the accumulation of skills from shifts in post in your career helps you on your way to reaching positions of responsibility at the top—particularly, the need to acquire management skills, which the Civil Service has been much concerned about.

Of course, there is also now the digital revolution. The Government have been behind the private sector in moving from paper to digital exchange, but I am happy to say that through the Cabinet Office—Francis Maude and others—they are doing their utmost to catch up. One of the most effective pieces of insourcing in which this Government have been engaged is the creation of the Government Digital Service. This is made up of a number of bright outsiders who hate wearing ties when they come to work but who are very good at pushing forward the revolution that we need in this respect.

There has also been the revolution of the coalition Government, to which the Civil Service has had to adapt. In my experience, a number of civil servants have adapted extremely well to the tactful ways in which Ministers of two different parties have to be treated. There has been a need for adaptation while, as a number of people have argued, sticking to the core principles of Northcote-Trevelyan.

On the concept of civil servants following the national interest, we no longer talk about them as being “servants of the Crown” but the noble Lord, Lord McNally, talked about the ethos of public service and a sense of altruism as being important parts of what they believe in. That ethos has been undermined to some extent, particularly on the economic right, by the growth of public-choice economics and by the philosophies of Ayn Rand which have come across the Atlantic, but I think that all of us here would hold to the idea that service to the state and the concept of public service are important parts of what holds government, the Civil Service and society together.

The noble Lord, Lord Marlesford, referred to the transformation of the Civil Service in terms of diversity and gender. It is encouraging how many bright young women there are coming up in the Civil Service. I think that eight of the 36 Permanent Secretary posts are now held by women—that is not enough; it was rather more two years ago and we hope that it will again be rather more in a few years’ time. There is real diversity across the sector. When I travel to other countries, it seems to me that at every embassy that I visit the economic counsellor is of south Asian extraction. Lots of bright people, men and women, are coming through the Civil Service. That is one of the achievements in particular of the Blair Government and, within the Foreign Office, of Robin Cook. We recognise that that has helped to take us forward.

On the issue of a parliamentary commission, the Government are not persuaded of the need for a vast commission. The noble Lord, Lord Hennessy, is too young to remember some of the royal commissions of the past. When he was probably still at school, I was a junior adviser to the Crowther-Hunt Royal Commission on the Constitution. If he has the nine volumes on his shelves, he will find in volume VII a paper that I wrote. The commission took several years and almost no one now remembers it. We are hesitant about getting back to the circumstance in which, as they used to say, such commissions “take minutes and years”.

The Prime Minister did say to the Liaison Committee that he is not entirely closed to the idea of further inquiries. As the noble Lord, Lord Norton, suggested, it would be more helpful if we took one chunk at a time rather than tried to take the whole thing. For example, there is the question of the relationship among Ministers, civil servants and Parliament. The noble Lord, Lord Turnbull, talked about the role of junior Ministers and how many we may need, which is a rather fundamental issue for the future of the relationship between Executive and legislature. The noble Lord, Lord Waldegrave, suggested that we look at the future of the Civil Service Commission.

Through committees and in debates, there are a range of things that this House and the other House should be encouraged to do. That is a different exercise from saying that we need to start again and re-examine the principles of Northcote-Trevelyan, of Haldane or indeed of Fulton.

[Lord Butler of Brockwell]

Will the Minister confirm that Parliament can look at these things, in toto or seriatim, only with the consent of the Government? Can we expect that the Government will be more encouraging than they have been so far?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I am not entirely sure what the position on this is, but I suspect that there is a formal position and an informal one. Parliamentary committees inquire into a great many aspects of government, and that is welcome and will no doubt continue. I think that where a good case for a parliamentary inquiry is made, the Government will not obstruct it.

Civil Service: Permanent Secretaries

Debate between Lord Wallace of Saltaire and Lord Butler of Brockwell

Thursday 13th December 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

Let me be as clear as I can. The panel is asked to interview those who have applied. It ranks those whom it considers to be above the line in terms of being appointable or not. The issue at stake is whether the Secretary of State, and behind him the Prime Minister and the head of the Civil Service, can change the order of those who are ranked above the line. I recall that, until two years ago, the Prime Minister was able to change the order of those recommended as Archbishop of Canterbury—and on occasion did so, as Margaret Thatcher once famously did. The suggestion that Secretaries of State should not be allowed to at least consider the ranking of those above the line and accepted as appointable by the panel is one that we should consider further.

[Lord Butler of Brockwell]

My Lords—

Civil Service Reform

Debate between Lord Wallace of Saltaire and Lord Butler of Brockwell

Tuesday 19th June 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, as we all know, a number of processes are under way. This Government are also committed to decentralisation as far as possible, and one reason why the central Civil Service will shrink is that more decisions and areas of policy delivery are being put down to the local level. Some of this will be carried out through local authorities; some of it will be carried out through mutual and other agencies. The division between the public and private sectors is not entirely a binary one; there is also, as we all know, the third sector or voluntary sector. I think we all agree that, together with the decentralisation of the delivery of public services, some services are better delivered as a partnership between the public sector and the third or voluntary sector. All those processes are under way. Put together with the technological revolution that is pushing us towards a much greater dependence on digital services, this is part of the revolution we are facing.

On the question of parliamentary accountability, there is less in this plan on the details of accountability than there might otherwise be because there has been a deliberate decision to await the study of the House of Lords Constitution Committee on that very area. That will feed into further consultations on how we strengthen accountability to Parliament. However, noble Lords will be aware that the role of Commons parliamentary committees in particular in relation to the Civil Service has strengthened over the years. I was reading the Osmotherley Rules earlier today and began to look at how they may need to change further as part of this. That is the sort of thing that the Constitution Committee will be considering.

[Lord Butler of Brockwell]

My Lords, the Statement paid lip service to the quality of the Civil Service but it sounded to me—as, I am afraid, it will sound to many civil servants—like a litany of criticisms. Will the Minister accept from me that, while proposals for improved performance by the Civil Service are always necessary and welcome, it is essential to their success that the Civil Service should be led and not just driven—as the Statement said—and should not be reviled and unattributably dumped on when Ministers’ policies run into difficulties?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I strongly agree with that. I am very conscious—again, I make a non-partisan remark—that there have been occasions under successive Governments over the past 50 years or more when some Ministers have occasionally wished to blame their civil servants for things not happening. I would be extremely upset if the noble Lord interpreted this plan as being an attack on the Civil Service. We have emphasised very strongly that that is not the case and that it has come out of a partnership between Ministers and the senior Civil Service with extensive consultation. We value the quality of leadership within the Civil Service. I am one of the many within government who have serving and former civil servants as close members of their family. It matters very much for the quality of our society, our public services and our country as a whole that we have the best-quality Civil Service working for government and the state as a whole. We very much hope that this plan strengthens that.

Scotland: Civil Service

Debate between Lord Wallace of Saltaire and Lord Butler of Brockwell

Thursday 6th October 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, on the second of those two questions, my understanding is that this was an internal blog. Noble Lords will have their views on the advisability of blogging. It was leaked to the Scottish edition of the Daily Telegraph. There might be a certain lack of wisdom there.

On the first question, once we have a devolved Government, although constitutional matters are reserved to the UK Government they are bound to be discussed within the Scottish Government. How far civil servants should offer advice is an important question. There is also a director-general for constitutional reform in the Cabinet Office.

[Lord Butler of Brockwell]

My Lords, will the Minister confirm that, just as it is the duty of the rest of the Civil Service to support the policies of the Administration that it serves, so it is the duty of the civil servants in Scotland to advise on the policies of the Scottish Executive?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I entirely agree with that. It is important that the Civil Service working for the Scottish Government commands the confidence of Scottish Ministers of the day, regardless of their political complexion, just as it is for civil servants in Whitehall working for the UK Government.