Civil Service: Permanent Secretaries

Lord King of Bridgwater Excerpts

Thursday 13th December 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Butler of Brockwell]

My Lords—

[Lord King of Bridgwater]

My Lords—

[Lord Dubs]

My Lords—

[Lord Strathclyde]

My Lords, I think it is the turn of the Conservative Party.

[Lord King of Bridgwater]

I am not aware of any complaint from our side of the House about the selection that Mr Jack Straw made on a short list of three which he insisted on having, for which he perfectly properly said that he took final responsibility for his department. Are not those Permanent Secretaries, having been appointed, also entitled to expect that the person who makes the final decision stays in office for slightly more than one year? In the case of both the previous Government and the present Government, can we see a little bit more continuity in Ministers than we have had in recent years?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

The current Government have been doing their best to provide rather greater continuity, particularly in the Ministry of Defence, than the last Government. One has to recognise that this is a difficult relationship. A very good friend of mine who was a senior official under the last Government said to me that if you want to be a senior official with this sort of Government—and he was talking about the last Government—you need always to have in the back of your mind that you could move somewhere else. It is a delicate relationship. We hold to the principles of a permanent Civil Service, but there is unavoidable tension between a Permanent Secretary and a Secretary of State—just as there is in a company between the chief executive and the chairman.