NHS (Charitable Trusts Etc.) Bill

Debate between Antoinette Sandbach and Jacob Rees-Mogg

Friday 6th November 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

Madam Deputy Speaker is giving me one of her looks. As much as I would like to discuss reform of the House of Lords, I would be ruled out of order. If my hon. Friend will forgive me, I must get back to jobbery, because jobbery and avoiding jobbery are at the heart of the Bill.

I was explaining how jobbery, when it starts, is not a deliberate corruption. It is merely the recognition that it just would not do to appoint somebody on the other extreme of politics. We can hear Sir Humphrey going to the Secretary of State and saying, “It would be a little brave, Minister, to appoint such a person who is on so different a wing from you.” The next time an appointment comes up, there is the thought, “Well, if I couldn’t appoint someone who was actively opposed, perhaps I should really only appoint people who are on my side”—in other words, our mates and friends. Thus we get to the heart of jobbery. Appointments are made purely because of somebody’s political colour and context.

In the primary care trust in Bath and North East Somerset which preceded the current organisations a local Conservative had a judicial review against the previous Labour Government to get himself appointed as its chairman, because he was the most qualified person and had been refused only on the basis that he was a Conservative. Therefore, the idea that jobbery has completely left the system is false, and so too is the idea that Governments are so high and mighty and Olympian in their decision making that they do not descend to mere political jobbery.

[Antoinette Sandbach]

My hon. Friend might like to know that examples of jobbery abound in Wales. It might be useful to look at some of the appointments made by the Welsh Government to the various public bodies.