Cabinet Office: Constitution Committee Report

Lord Norton of Louth Excerpts

Tuesday 6th July 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Norton of Louth]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Armstrong, has had to leave, but if Hansard wishes to confuse me with him, I shall not object.

I congratulate my noble friend on securing this debate. I, too, declare an interest as a member of the Constitution Committee. As my noble friend said, this is an important debate. It may appear to some to be a somewhat dry discussion of the machinery of government but it is crucial to how government policy is agreed and delivered.

Government is often viewed as a single entity—a smooth-running body, agreeing collectively on policy and structured in order to deliver that policy. In practice, it comprises a range of bodies that have their own views on the content and delivery of public policy.

The Prime Minister has always been a powerful figure in government—at least, relative to the Cabinet. As has already been mentioned, the report notes the recent development of a presidential style of prime ministerial government. The term is often employed but rarely defined. It is designed to identify the growing detachment of the Prime Minister from the other parts of the political system—from Parliament, from the Cabinet and from the party. The Prime Minister is not directly elected by the people but acts as though he is so elected. This was a notable feature of the Blair premiership.

We have also seen the development of a more powerful role for the Treasury—always a powerful department but operating in recent years as a supra-departmental policy-maker. At the same time, other government departments have remained important political actors. Statutory power continues to rest with Secretaries of State. I have elsewhere likened senior Ministers to medieval barons, albeit operating in a shrinking kingdom. Senior Ministers have their own departmental bailiwicks, their own courts and courtiers.

Then one has the officials within departments. They serve their Minister but also have a loyalty to the Civil Service and to the department. A department can develop its own ethos. Officials remain important as policy advisers and implementers, and indeed as ministerial gatekeepers. They are also important links with bodies outside government and at times may develop a strong affinity with them. There are occasional accusations of departmental capture by particular interests.

We thus have a range of bodies within government and their interests may at times not be wholly compatible with one another. There has always been the potential for tension within government and that potential has variously been realised. There has never been a golden age of government—that is, internally harmonious and wonderfully efficient—but there have been times when tensions have been less severe than they have been in recent years.

The disparate nature of government and the potential for clashes between the several parts means that the Cabinet and the institutional support for it in the form of the Cabinet Office have a crucial role to play. We have arguably never had Cabinet government in the sense of consistent collective policy-making. None the less, the Cabinet has a critical role to play in integrating and co-ordinating government policy. It is the essential buckle in government, linking the Prime Minister and senior Ministers with the rest of government. It can form a vital two-way transmission belt and constitute the body through which Ministers understand and feel engaged with the collective goals of government. At times it may not appear powerful, but without it the Government lack coherence.

In recent years, the role of Cabinet has been downgraded, especially under the premiership of Tony Blair. He exhibited some leadership skills but lacked an understanding of the processes of government. That was illustrated by the decision, covered in the report, to abolish the role of Lord Chancellor and to create a Supreme Court. These were seen as machinery-of-government matters rather than important constitutional issues, with the result, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Goldsmith, detailed, that there was inadequate consultation. Throughout his premiership, Tony Blair failed to grasp the significance of Ministers and the Cabinet. He told Dennis Kavanagh and David Butler that Ministers were the “agents of the centre”. He saw the Cabinet as little more than a forum for reporting matters already decided. He worked around it rather than with it. The result was to exacerbate tensions within government; the means of relieving those tensions was in essence closed.

At the same time, as we have heard, the Cabinet Office became increasingly cluttered and diverted from its core roles. As various witnesses told the committee, it came to fulfil something of a dustbin function, housing various agencies and units. We were told that it performed a useful role as an incubator for such bodies before some of them moved on to departments, although why it was uniquely placed to fulfil such a role was never fully explained. The effect was to produce a larger and less coherent body than had existed previously.

As has been mentioned, we have also seen the development and growth of the Prime Minister's Office, which appears to have had a distorting effect, essentially helping to draw the Cabinet Office more and more into a supporting role for the Prime Minister. It could be argued there was always something of a skewed effect, given that the Cabinet Office answers to the Prime Minister as chairman of the Cabinet. However, recent years appear to have seen an exacerbation of that tendency. As Professor Kavanagh noted in his evidence to the committee, after 1997, the Cabinet Office changed from its traditional role of an honest broker between departments to an arm of the centre, which is decided by the Prime Minister. The Cabinet Office appeared to become misshapen and too much the creature of the Prime Minister.

I agree with the committee that that situation was not satisfactory. I disagree with the Government's response, which constitutes a notably poor piece of work. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Rodgers of Quarry Bank: the response is notable for its complacency. It fails to accept that there is a case for change. I appreciate that the response is the product of the late Government. I hope therefore that my noble friend Lord Taylor of Holbeach—whom I very much welcome to his new role—will discard that response and tell us not only what the Government are doing to address the concerns of the committee but what plans they have for the future.

I note that the Cabinet Office under the new Government has retained some features from the last Parliament, but has acquired not only a new dimension in the form of the Deputy Prime Minister's Office and Constitution Unit, but also some other units.

I welcome the statement on the current Cabinet Office website as to its purpose—not least,

“helping to ensure effective development, coordination and implementation of policy and operations across all government departments”.

That strikes me as eminently appropriate—certainly in line with what I regard as the purpose of the Cabinet Office.

However, I have some concerns which I hope that my noble friend can address. Enabling the Cabinet Office to focus on its core functions entails decluttering it, so that it no longer fulfils a dustbin function. I can see the relevance of many of the units—the secretariats, groups and other bodies—that appear in the organisation chart of the Cabinet Office. However, there already appears to be an element of incremental accretion. The Office of Government Commerce and the public sector procurement agency have moved from the Treasury to the Cabinet Office. Some Ministers in the Cabinet Office have been giving talks or making statements on important issues, but matters which are not obviously—to me, anyway—within the remit of the Cabinet Office, such as the regional growth fund and the Government's commitment to children and families.

What is being done to ensure that the clear institutional remit of the Cabinet Office is maintained? What mechanism is in place to protect against the Cabinet Office becoming, in the phrase of my noble friend Lord Heseltine, a bran tub?

Again repeating a question that has already been asked, what is the status of the Prime Minister's Office? The organisation chart shows it is as one of the component parts of the Cabinet Office. It continues to be headed by a Permanent Secretary. When the committee took evidence, there was some confusion as to the relationship of the Prime Minister's Office with the Cabinet Office. Some witnesses told us that they were functionally distinct. The Permanent Secretary, Jeremy Heywood, said the border between the two was “very porous”, and the Cabinet Secretary, Sir Gus O'Donnell, told us that No. 10 was a subset of the Cabinet Office.

Like the noble Lord, Lord Butler, I favour a formal institutional separation, reflecting the physical separation, with no porous borders, with the other units in the Cabinet Office fulfilling roles on behalf of government and kept separate from the influence of the Prime Minister's Office. Are they indeed functionally distinct?

Peter Hennessy, in his evidence to the committee, said that Cabinet Ministers were there to say, “Wait a minute”. That is appropriate in terms of policy. What is also required is a Cabinet Secretary who can say, “Wait a minute”, in terms of process. The Prime Minister has to be prepared to accept guidance on process if government is to work effectively.

The relationship with the Cabinet Secretary is thus crucial, although, as the committee recognises, much depends on the individuals involved. The crucial point is that the Prime Minister needs to be cognisant of what is appropriate—indeed, necessary—in terms of the relationship. There is a responsibility on Parliament, through the Constitution Committee in your Lordships' House and the Public Administration Committee in the other place, to monitor the relationship and check the health of the system operating at the heart of government.

My penultimate point follows and relates to accountability. The committee stresses the need for greater accountability. The Deputy Prime Minister is but one of seven Ministers, excluding the Prime Minister, located in the Cabinet Office. I welcome the fact that the Deputy Prime Minister has a dedicated slot in Question Time in the other place, as does the Minister for the Cabinet Office and the rest of the ministerial team. The decision to establish a Select Committee in the other place to cover constitutional and political reform—in other words to scrutinise the Deputy Prime Minister—is also very welcome. That goes a long way to enhance accountability to Parliament. However, it divides the Cabinet Office into two halves and raises the question as to how the Cabinet Office, other than the Deputy Prime Minister, is to be held regularly to account, other than through Question Time. The Public Administration Committee in the other place and the Constitution Committee in your Lordships' House can play an important role of general oversight, but is there a means of more regular scrutiny that can deliver the accountability sought by the Constitution Committee? I ask that for information rather than to make a critical point. I very much welcome how much has already been done to deliver accountability.

My final point is that effective government derives not just from structures but from those responsible for creating those structures and making them work. I have highlighted the capacity for tension within government. If government is to work harmoniously, or at least reduce tension between the different parts, there has to be an acceptance by the Prime Minister and senior Ministers that leadership does not mean dictation. There needs to be an appreciation of the extent to which the component parts of government rely on one another, and that you get most from Ministers and civil servants by making clear that you are working with them and that they are part of a team. Cabinet is a bonding element, not a channel through which Prime Ministerial orders are relayed to Whitehall. If the Prime Minister sends out that signal, we are moving very much in the right direction.