Senior Civil Service (Accountability and Appointment)

Giles Watling Excerpts

1st reading
Tuesday 5th March 2024 Commons Chamber

[Giles Watling (Clacton) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That leave be given to bring in a Bill to make provision about the scrutiny and approval by Parliament of appointments to senior civil service roles; and for connected purposes.

In this nation, people rightly expect this elected and accountable Parliament to oversee an impartial civil service. The notion of distance and unaccountability has, however, grown among the populace like a spectre, caused by unnecessary tensions on both sides and casting aspersions on the majority. It is time something was done about it.

We need this reform because nothing is more fundamental to our democracy than the relationship between Parliament and the civil service. This is the mother of Parliaments, and our civil service is held to be the gold standard in the world of officialdom. When elected Members and the civil service row in the same direction, we can produce startling results, which have beaten fascists, built the NHS, and won the Olympic bid. When the conduct between us becomes strained, when confidence is undermined and when accountability, trust or respect are lacking, we get cast-iron assurances regarding matters such as weapons of mass destruction and sub-par personal protective equipment contracts. As a result, perfectly sound policies get stalled.

I am sure all colleagues will agree that our civil service is a great one, as is our Parliament—men and women dedicated to the public good—but has been plagued in recent years by increasing tensions that have a fundamental impact on the discharge of governance and policy. Let us consider the issues we have seen in recent years and how they tell of structural deficiencies, rather than being merely isolated accidents under a particular Administration.

The Sue Gray affair should alarm us all, whatever side of the House we sit on. To have a civil servant preside over an investigation into a Prime Minister, and then achieve escape velocity from the civil service to go and work immediately for the Opposition, has scarred the view of impartiality that the majority rightly accept and expect. The same could be said of the role of political appointees. In many ways, we can view certain Labour and Conservative spin doctors as essentially the same entity: unaccountable to the public, but very much imposed on the public, beyond the advisory role for which they were initially intended.

Both those issues could be addressed through updates to the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act 2010, which sought to better control apparatus such as special advisers, but if we wish to fix an issue, we need to amend the culture that goes with it. To do that, we need to start at the top. We need a culture that the majority of the service still respects.

Let us define that top and the route to it. The great mandarins who hold vast power are often faceless. That cannot be right in a democracy: if a person wants power, they must be subjected to the sunlight of this place. Permanent secretaries are appointed under a scheme in which the Prime Minister has the final say in the recruitment process—the Prime Minister alone chooses directly from a list created by the civil service commissioners. If any Member present can, without the aid of Google, name the commissioners who appoint people to hold power over their constituents’ lives, I would be amazed.

It is not just the permanent secretaries we must consider. The Transparency of Lobbying, Non-party Campaigning and Trades Union Administration Act 2014 explains that a permanent secretary is a person serving in a range of government posts. That definition needs massively expanding to ensure that it encompasses top officials within state entities such as the NHS—for instance, the CEO of the NHS is often seen as a godlike distant figure and not suitably accountable to this place. Let us be in no doubt: horrific things happen if a culture is enabled where officials feel they are above policy instructions from the elected. At the current time, advancement in the civil service comes from appeasing the established networks, such as the commission, and the Minister for the civil service. These people serve the nation, so their fortunes should lie with this institution, not an elite few within it.

I do not propose that we fix all the issues at once, nor do I propose a baby-out-with -the-bathwater approach, but a modest solution that resets the relationship to a more traditional and, may I say, British footing. By that, I mean a process that is less invested in smoke-filled rooms with those from the Executive, one that empowers this place. I propose that a cross-party Committee of both Houses be formed to fold those appointments into understood due process. Appointments would be fixed-term and renewable by this place, which will end at a stroke the concept of a job for life. This is hardly revolution: it is a mix of established democratic processes in Parliament and professional standards that industry outside this place would recognise. It would only impact a few dozen people at the top; it is hardly onerous. I imagine that 99.9% of the civil service would not be impacted, but the change to the culture at the top would cascade down. If the upper echelons knew they were better overseen by this place—this cross-party institution—they would ensure that those they manage are correctly supported, mentored and held to account.

Some siren voices claim that this work could be discharged by Select Committees holding more hearings, or that better training of Ministers could fix all the issues, but the bottom line is that if a person has vast power over the machinery of government but does not feel a sense of fealty to Parliament, such ideas are mere tinkering. What I have proposed can be done now, in a modest manner, to gently course-correct a few errors and modernise and empower this institution. If we do not do so, eventually we could well need more radical reform. The relief valve is simple and established: professional industry processes via this accountable House. Let us act now, because if a trend of unaccountability continues to make people question who is really running Britain, the gold standard I mentioned will soon be seen as fool’s gold.

Question put and agreed to.

Ordered,

That Giles Watling, Michael Fabricant, Andrew Rosindell and Mr Mark Francois present the Bill.

Giles Watling accordingly presented the Bill.

Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 17 May, and to be printed (Bill 171).