Government Efficiency and Reform
Lord Herbert of South Downs Excerpts(9 years, 3 months ago)
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Mr Maude
The hon. Gentleman is completely mistaken if he believes that there is a direct linear relationship between the number of HMRC officials and the amount of tax that is being collected. There is absolutely no evidence of that. The size of HMRC, in terms of headcount, was falling before the 2010 election, and the amount of tax being collected has risen. We can do things differently and we can do things better—we have already shown that that is the case—but if the hon. Gentleman thinks that the only problem with the public finances is that we are not taxing enough and not raising enough taxes, I am afraid that he and I differ. I think that we must cut our costs first, which is what we are doing and will continue to do.
Nick Herbert (Arundel and South Downs) (Con)
May I congratulate my right hon. Friend and parliamentary neighbour, who has done a superb job in driving these savings and thereby ensuring front-line services can be protected? He has done a fine job behind the scenes and will be much missed from this place, but I hope he will be able to continue in some way in this important public service. Does he agree that the key part of his statement was that these savings have been achieved as a result of a strong corporate centre—a central drive for efficiency—and is it not the case that that centre will have to be strengthened further if significant additional savings are to be achieved?
Mr Maude
I am grateful for my right hon. Friend’s kind comments, and I also hugely appreciate what he and the right hon. Member for Wentworth and Dearne (John Healey) have done in leading the work of GovernUp, which has made the case very powerfully, as indeed has the Public Accounts Committee, for a strong corporate centre in Government that can drive these sorts of changes. When we examined this, we found that, in almost all cross-government functions, the historical position of the British Government is to have an extraordinarily weak centre. That is part of the reason why it has been proved in the past to be so difficult to drive these sorts of efficiency savings, but we are changing that.
Ukraine (Flight MH17) and Gaza
Lord Herbert of South Downs Excerpts(9 years, 11 months ago)
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The Prime Minister
The only proposal on the table currently is the Egyptian proposal for a ceasefire and a process. We have said that we back that, the Israelis are willing to back that, and we need Hamas to back that as well. Everyone who can should bring their pressure to bear. All those countries that have a relationship with Hamas—of course, we do not because it does not recognise Israel’s right to exist and it believes in violence—should bring that pressure to bear.
Nick Herbert (Arundel and South Downs) (Con)
One of the people tragically lost on flight MH17 was Glenn Thomas, a British national who worked for the World Health Organisation and who was known to a number of us in this House through his work with our all-party parliamentary groups, including the group on global tuberculosis. His loss was a great shock to us. Will my right hon. Friend join me in paying tribute to his work and to those who were travelling to the world AIDS conference? Do not the values of the World Health Organisation and that conference, the values of internationalism and respect for human rights, stand in stark contrast to the disregard for such values shown by Russia, the aggressor?
The Prime Minister
My right hon. Friend makes an important point. I certainly join him in paying tribute to Glenn Thomas and in sending our condolences to his family and friends. The World Health Organisation and specifically the work that has been done on diseases such as TB, malaria and AIDS has been staggeringly successful and it is a beacon for what we can achieve if we spend aid moneys wisely and sensibly and work together as a global community. My right hon. Friend is right—what a contrast between that lifesaving effort and the brutality of what we have seen on our television screens.
Civil Service Reform
Lord Herbert of South Downs Excerpts(10 years, 2 months ago)
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Nick Herbert (Arundel and South Downs) (Con)
In 2010, when I accepted an invitation to join the Government of Britain, to coin a phrase, I found myself as a Minister in two Departments—the Home Office and the Ministry of Justice. My experience was precisely that outlined by the right hon. Member for Barking (Margaret Hodge) as regards the problems of silo Departments. They were two Departments created from one, and they found it very difficult to co-operate to address holistically the problems that clearly needed to be addressed; how to tackle crime, at source, at the earliest possible stage. Just as people were trying to deal with those problems in a joined-up manner on the ground, the Departments had been split nationally.
It was a salutary experience. When I walked into the Ministry of Justice for the first time, I was shown the lifts by my private secretary. The MOJ had a more intelligent allocation of lifts than the Home Office: you indicated the floor you wanted to go to and the right lift would arrive for you. My private secretary told me that it was possible to override the programme in the event of a Division so that a lift would immediately arrive for me, the Minister. I tried this out on what I thought would be a quiet afternoon. The lift hurtled to my floor, and a sign on it said, “This lift is under ministerial control.” The doors opened, and out stepped the then Justice Secretary, my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke), who questioned whether the lift was indeed under his control. If so, it was about the only thing there that was under ministerial control.
The serious point I want to make is that, just as my hon. Friend the Member for Harwich and North Essex (Mr Jenkin) and the right hon. Member for Barking have said, although set by an historical doctrine, questions of accountability arise today. If, in the mid-19th century, a form of permanent government was effectively created, that is fine when that permanent government happens to do things in the way that accountable Ministers like and that is satisfactory, and when it happens to be performing well. The problem comes when that permanent government does not perform well. Accountability then falls on Ministers who have little ability to wrest improvements from the system.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Harwich and North Essex suggested, the failures do not need to be rehearsed. As the right hon. Member for Barking said, there have clearly been major and costly project failures. When this Government came to power, only a third of major projects were running to time and to budget, and the problems have persisted. There are issues with skills, given the commissioning failures we have seen. There is also the issue of poor financial control. It is a paradox that in our centralised state the willingness of the centre to exercise careful financial control over Departments is actually very limited. The Treasury does not wish to exercise that detailed financial management or scrutiny, and it shows. All these things often lead to poor value for money, a waste of resources and poor outcomes. It is the weakest in our society who pay the price, but we all pay a price through higher taxation. I think it is common ground that these issues need to be addressed.
Every time a Government come to power, they arrive believing that there are few problems that cannot be solved by the arrival of an enlightened Government with a different set of political objectives, and that all the problems are the fault of the outgoing Government. That was certainly the case in 1997 and in 2010, when most Ministers—my right hon. Friend the Minister for the Cabinet Office was one of the notable exceptions, and it shows—had little experience of government. Soon the scales drop from Ministers’ eyes as they realise that not all the problems can be laid at the political door—the door of the Opposition—and that there are systemic problems.
As my right hon. Friend the Member for Meriden (Mrs Spelman) said, we have an opportunity for forging a cross-party agreement about the changes that need to be made. Why? Because, for the first time since the second world war, every party has had recent experience of being in government and understands that while the political debate goes on, there are issues that we need to address. That is why I am pleased today to have launched GovernUp with the right hon. Member for Wentworth and Dearne (John Healey), a non-party project with cross-party support. I am delighted that the Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee is a member of the advisory board. The board also includes the Government’s lead non-executive director, Lord Browne; Lord Bichard, a former permanent secretary; Lord Birt and Baroness Lane-Fox—all Cross-Bench peers with important experience to bring.
Over the course of the next year the project will do important research in the areas of accountability, skills and international comparisons—work that needs to be done. It will not do that work alone, or simply be an isolated research project, but will draw on the experience of former Ministers, in this place and outside, and of civil servants, whom we wish to appoint to a reference panel. We have secured agreement to that proposal from the leadership of the civil service and the Minister.
That approach will be evidence-led, will involve detailed and careful research, will be open, involving outside bodies, will involve dialogue with the civil service itself and will draw on the experience of parliamentarians in both Houses. I want to suggest that that is a better approach than that of a parliamentary commission. I have grave doubts about the capability of a parliamentary commission to do what is necessary. Indeed, I think that the concept of a parliamentary commission—an old-fashioned, inquisitorial model—is entirely wrong, quite apart from the question of who would be on it. The real question is whether it is a body that looks backwards or forwards: do its members wish to be a part of it because they think that proposals for civil service reform are dangerous and wrong, or are they looking forward to addressing the challenges that face this country and the kind of system we need to develop? The danger of the commission as currently constituted, with a judge leading it, is that it would be the worst kind of backward-looking and reactionary body, so I do not support the proposal.
Although the Public Administration Committee report has some interesting content, I think it is evidence of some of the weaknesses of a parliamentary approach. After months of deliberation and evidence-taking, what is the report’s conclusion? It is that there needs to be an inquiry. Where are the detailed recommendations? Where is the detailed analysis and evidence of the kind of change we need? We have only a year left and I believe that now is the time to do the careful work.
Kelvin Hopkins
I am disappointed at the right hon. Gentleman’s criticism of the concept, but the fact is that there are enormously wide ranges of views about the civil service. A conclusion would not have been consensual: there would have been serious division among members of the Select Committee and we would have gotten nowhere. A parliamentary commission could do that job.
Nick Herbert
I find great difficulty in understanding how a cross-party Select Committee would find it impossible to come to a conclusion, but a parliamentary commission would not. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman could explain that.
Mr Jenkin
Why does my right hon. Friend think that the think-tank he has set up would be any more objective than a parliamentary commission? Indeed, how would it be more objective when it has been sanctioned and approved by the Cabinet Secretary and the civil service—the very thing he seeks to reform?
Nick Herbert
I agree with the right hon. Member for Barking that we should let a thousand flowers bloom. Many will wish to do work in this area, but I doubt very much that the GovernUp initiative, which I and the right hon. Member for Wentworth and Dearne have set up, is sanctioned by the leaders of the civil service. What I specifically said was that they had agreed that civil servants could perhaps sit on a reference panel. That does not mean that they would have control over any of the body’s work. My argument is that we now need to do the work. It is the detailed research and analysis that we need to do; we do not need political grandstanding or an inquisitorial approach. That is why I think that the proposed parliamentary commission would be wrong.
I believe that the narrative of Whitehall wars, whereby Ministers are at loggerheads with civil servants, is wrong and misplaced. There is plenty of evidence that civil servants themselves seek change. Indeed, the Public Administration Committee report notes that Lord O’Donnell, the previous Cabinet Secretary, said in his evidence that
“if you really want to improve public sector outcomes, I think there is a radical transformation necessary.”
It seems to me, therefore, that the question is not whether change is necessary, but what is the nature of the change and who will make the case for it? Do we have a system that is equal to the challenges facing this country, with rising demand for services, the need to adjust to further spending reductions in the next Parliament and in the future, and the fact that we face ever greater international competition? All parties need to understand that Government reform is as significant as, and essential for, public service reform. That is why this is such an important issue.
Mr Jenkin
I thank my right hon. Friend the Minister and everyone who has spoken in the debate. I agree that it has been an interesting debate in which there has been a great deal of consensus and agreement. Let me just respond to the last point made by my right hon. Friend. The point we are making in our report is that it would be wrong for the Government to overrule the Civil Service Commission without Parliament having some say in the matter, because the Civil Service Commission was established by Parliament to provide precisely that kind of check and balance in the system to stop the Government making such a decision merely on the basis of royal prerogative. Personally, I am sympathetic to the idea that ministries should have more influence and choice, as they had in the past, over decisions about the appointment of permanent secretaries.
In all the speeches today, I have not heard a single solid argument against the civil service commission. Every argument in praise of GovernUp and the work it is doing is an argument in favour of the civil service commission in Parliament. How can we let one thousand flowers bloom, as the right hon. Member for Barking (Margaret Hodge) said—my right hon. Friend the Member for Arundel and South Downs (Nick Herbert) endorsed that—if we stamp on the one flower that has democratic authority and legitimacy on the question of the civil service in Parliament?
International Wildlife Crime
Lord Herbert of South Downs Excerpts(10 years, 4 months ago)
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Nick Herbert (Arundel and South Downs) (Con)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered international wildlife crime.
Four years ago, I visited the Kaziranga national park in Assam, north-east India with the International Fund for Animal Welfare. The park is home to two thirds of the world’s population of one-horned rhinoceroses. Extinct in some parts of the sub-continent, there are now fewer than 3,000 of these animals left on the planet. But in the short space of time since I visited Kaziranga, more than 75 rhinos have been killed by poachers, a rate that has risen such that last year saw the highest number of killings in more than two decades.
The park is a UN world heritage site and an area where those animals are protected. The poaching is undoubtedly driven by the illegal trade in wild animal parts, which has never been more serious. The effects are not just catastrophic for wild animal populations, some of which are now at real risk. This hideous trade impacts on communities and fuels serious crime. The UN estimates that it is now the third most lucrative criminal activity after narcotics and human trafficking, worth a staggering $19 billion a year.
Next week, the Government will host the London conference on the illegal wildlife trade. I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary for working hard to get these issues on the international agenda and securing the attendance of high-level delegates from so many Governments, including that of China. I know that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has also taken a strong interest in these issues.
The conference will focus on protecting three of the most iconic species on our planet—elephants, tigers and rhinos—all of which have seen a disastrous decline in numbers in recent years. Three of the nine known sub-species of tiger became extinct during the 1980s and there may be just 3,200 left in the world. At least 10,000 are needed to secure the tiger’s long-term future, but that is impossible while they are killed for their organs and hides and their habitats continue to be damaged. Some 1,000 rhinos were killed illegally last year in South Africa alone, up from just 13 in 2007. Rhinos had been a big conservation success story in recent years, but poaching on that scale is putting their future in jeopardy. In 1979, there were estimated to be 1.3 million wild elephants in Africa: now, there are fewer than 400,000. In the last three years, elephant poaching levels in Africa have exceeded 5% of the total population, and that is horribly significant because it is a tipping point: killings are now outpacing the animals’ birth rate.
Other species are being heavily exploited by the illegal trade for traditional medicine, with turtles and seahorses harvested for food, medicine and decorative purposes, despite being protected, and 100 million sharks killed every year for their fins to be used in soup, despite an international agreement to curb that just last year. How have we got here? How have we come from an international focus on the importance of species conservation in the late 1980s and early ’90s, which saw the abolition of the ivory trade and an escalation in the number of states joining the convention on international trade in endangered species, to a situation where iconic species literally face extinction?
The international community failed to respond swiftly enough when these precipitous declines began. When we did respond, it was sometimes in the wrong way, such as when sales of ivory stockpiles were authorised in a misguided attempt to provide resources for conservation and satisfy demand for the product—an issue to which I will return in my speech.
The killing of endangered species and the sale of their parts is not just bad news for the animals themselves: it also has a devastating impact on communities. It breaks down sustainable development opportunities such as animal-related tourism, and it leaves communities at the mercy of criminal gangs. The impact of poaching can be as damaging to fragile communities as disease. New evidence has shown that countries with the highest incidences of child mortality also have the highest incidence of elephant poaching. Poverty and poor governance are the enabling factors for poaching. As MIKE— Monitoring the Illegal Killing of Elephants—the United Nations-backed programme for monitoring the illegal killing of elephants, has observed, if local communities can derive little value from animals such as elephants, but bear the costs in terms of crop damage, injury or death, incentives for conservation are lost.
Successful programmes to protect animals must find a way to realise their value, including to local communities, for instance through eco-tourism. For some, the idea of placing an economic value on wildlife is anathema. When I spoke to the Wildlife Trust of India, one member of the audience responded that their tigers were beyond value. In one sense, of course, we all see magnificent wildlife as priceless, but actually poachers put a very precise monetary value on these animals, and so long as we value them less, the poaching will continue.
The tables can be turned, however. In India I met representatives of an eco-tourism society who are literally funding poachers to become gamekeepers. Some 80 former poachers in the Manas national park now see greater value in being employed as conservation guards than in being poachers.
In recognition of the links between the availability of natural resources and economic development, part of the Government’s welcome commitment of £10 million of funding to tackle the illegal wildlife trade announced last December has been provided by the Department for International Development, but this is not aid for animals; it is aid for people.
The right principle must be to enable and support local action to conserve wildlife. Next week’s summit must consider whether the resources directed at programmes like the African elephant action plan will be sufficient. There must be a combination of resources, international leadership—as has been shown by the UK and by President Obama in the US, who last year issued an Executive order to combat wildlife trafficking—and effective monitoring of action. All three of these components matter.
The illegal trade in wildlife has another impact: crime—and serious crime, too. In 2009 I was invited to address the Wildlife Trust of India in Delhi where I drew attention to the risk that blood ivory would replace blood diamonds as a source of revenue for criminal gangs and militias. As the Foreign Secretary warned this week, there is evidence to suggest that the trade in ivory is funding terrorism. Al-Shabaab, whose attack on the Westgate shopping centre in Nairobi led to the death of 62 people, may have funded that operation with illegally obtained ivory sold on the black market to buy arms, and with the price of rhino horn on the black market now estimated at $100,000 a kilo, which is more than the price of gold or platinum, it is no surprise that the most serious criminal organisations are turning to poaching to finance their activities.
Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)
I have been listening to my right hon. Friend’s speech, and it seems to me that the losses from poaching have got so immense now that Governments must have some involvement in this, and they may well be talking with forked tongue: on the one hand condemning it, while on the other hand allowing it to occur. Would my right hon. Friend care to comment on that?
Nick Herbert
That is an interesting intervention, but I will let the Minister reply to it, if I may.
Tackling this illegal trade can no longer be seen as a low priority. That is why I was proud that the Conservative party’s manifesto promised action through border policing, and this important commitment fed through to the Government’s new serious organised crime strategy, which explicitly mentions wildlife crime. This prioritisation of organised crime is new and it has been welcomed by WWF, and it is essential that it is turned into effective action.
Martin Horwood (Cheltenham) (LD)
My right hon. Friend is absolutely right to highlight these connections, but he must also agree that we must put our own house in order. Is he aware that hundreds of thousands of songbirds are being killed on British sovereign territory in Cyprus, with the Ministry of Defence apparently turning a blind eye to the industrial-scale planting of acacia bushes to facilitate this, and will he join me in demanding that the MOD put a stop to this as soon as possible since it is organised crime on British sovereign territory?
Nick Herbert
My hon. Friend has made his point forcefully.
Enforcement and conservation measures, however well resourced, will never be sufficient while there is a demand for animal parts. In both the medicine and the ivory trade, seeking a reduction is not enough. As Will Travers of the Born Free Foundation has said, we need to be calling not for a reduction, but for the eradication of the trade.
We must refuse to allow cultural sensitivities to prevent us tackling so-called traditional “medicine” that does so much to fuel the illegal wildlife trade. Spurious health claims about the efficacy of rhino horn as a cure for everything from hangovers to cancer led directly to the extinction of the Javan rhino two years ago and the huge spike in killings of the African rhino. Education programmes to challenge the myth of traditional remedies are vital, and so is leadership by Governments.
Seeking an eradication is entirely incompatible with farming wild animals such as rhinos, as some have suggested, so that their parts can be sold. We must choke demand; not stoke it. That is why there should be a total ban on further ivory sales. As shadow Environment Secretary, I strongly opposed the sale of stockpiles, proposed by Tanzania and Zambia, in 2010. We took that decision because the 2008 sales were a complete failure. Far from reducing poaching, as some thought that they might, the sales led to a huge spike in killings. A report the next year showed that 38,000 elephants were then being poached a year, almost three time the level before the sales. In Sierra Leone, for example, the entire elephant herd was destroyed by poachers in the country’s only national park.
The 2008 sales were also significant in that they allowed China to participate for the first time. It purchased more than 105 tonnes of ivory, flooding the market with cheap “legitimate” ivory and stoking a demand that is now being met with poached illegal ivory. The Chinese Government’s destruction of six tonnes last month was a welcome change of emphasis, but that still leaves 99 tonnes unaccounted for. It must be a goal of next week’s conference and international agreement that there are no sales of ivory, and all stockpiles are destroyed.
In conclusion, action to oppose the illegal trade in wild animal parts is vital to conserve endangered species, to develop communities in Asia and Africa and to cut off an important source of funding to criminal and terrorist groups. I will never forget, in Kaziranga, hearing the electrifying roar of a tiger in the wild, yet seeing the sorry fate of a captive tiger orphaned by poachers. It would be a tragedy if magnificent animals such as those were lost from the wild. Next week’s conference offers a real chance to prevent that from happening.
Nick Herbert
We have had a good debate, albeit a relatively short one, and although floods and the future of the United Kingdom are, of course, pressing issues that command a great deal of concern, so too is this one. That is evidenced by the fact that there were many excellent contributions from concerned Members of this House. I think all of us have recognised that this is not just a matter of animal welfare or concern for species conservation, but that it is also a matter that spills over into other areas—international development, protection of the livelihoods of the poorest in the world and security. I thank the Backbench Business Committee for allowing this debate. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Newbury (Richard Benyon) and the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (Joan Walley), Chair of the Environmental Audit Committee, for co-sponsoring it. I thank the seven Members on my side of the House who took part, evidencing continuing Conservative concern for environmental matters. I also thank my right hon. Friend the Minister for Government Policy for coming to this House and responding to the debate, thereby demonstrating the fact that the Government take this very seriously and the cross-cutting nature of the response that is necessary. I also thank the Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, my hon. Friend the Member for Camborne and Redruth (George Eustice), who has been present throughout, demonstrating DEFRA’s concern.
Perhaps hon. Members should reflect that there may be an opportunity to take our collective concern on this issue forward, possibly even by creating an all-party group to pursue it.