Publication Administration Committee Report (Smaller Government)

David Nuttall Excerpts

Thursday 10th March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House notes the publication of the Seventh Report from the Select Committee on Public Administration on Smaller Government: What do Ministers do?, HC530.

This procedure, involving a motion, is in place of what we hope one day will be an arrangement to make a statement. I will make some remarks and then invite right hon. and hon. Friends to intervene.

Our Committee decided to inquire into the role of Ministers following the Government’s decision to reduce the number of right hon. and hon. Members by 50 without a corresponding reduction in the number of Ministers. The Prime Minister made it clear before the election that the public wanted us to

“cut the cost of politics. Everyone is having to do more for less”.

He therefore asked if it was not time that

“politicians and ministers did a bit more for a bit less”.

He was absolutely clear that he intended that statement to apply to Ministers as well as to MPs.

The UK is notable among similar western nations. We have more Ministers than France, Italy, Spain and Germany.

[Mr David Nuttall (Bury North) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that we could make do with fewer Ministers in the UK if we did not receive as many edicts and directives from the European Union?

[Mr Jenkin]

I am most interested that my hon. Friend should ask that question, because my Committee is considering the possibility of an inquiry into the impact on Departments of our relationship with the EU and looking for an academic who might support us in that work and help us to construct a cartography of the relationship between EU institutions and Whitehall Departments.

The total number of Ministers has grown steadily since 1900. Our report examines whether revising the role of Ministers could provide a way of reducing their numbers. We took evidence from current and former Ministers, as well as from academics and senior civil servants, and we were left in no doubt that Ministers have a very heavy work load. Lord Smith of Finsbury, a former Culture Secretary, said that the amount of paperwork he had to contend with was “plainly ludicrous” and

“no way to run a life let alone a country”.

It is less clear whether all that Ministers do has to be done by a Minister of the Crown. Chris Mullin, in his autobiography, noted his role as “a glorified correspondence clerk” and lamented:

“So much ministerial activity is entirely contrived and pointless.”