Oral Answers to Questions

Lord Watson of Wyre Forest Excerpts

Wednesday 7th September 2016 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Chris Skidmore)]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right that we must take electoral fraud very seriously. The April 2015 election court judgment in Tower Hamlets exposed worrying electoral fraud and corruption. The Government are currently considering the recent review by my right hon. Friend the Member for Brentwood and Ongar (Sir Eric Pickles), which provides a range of measures to tackle electoral fraud, and will give a full response in due course.

[Mr Tom Watson (West Bromwich East) (Lab)]

I welcome you back, Mr Speaker, and give a very warm welcome to the new ministerial team. I congratulate them all on their appointments. We look forward to a positive working relationship with them, holding them to account and making a difference where we can.

I apologise to you, Mr Speaker, for my hon. Friend the Member for Lancaster and Fleetwood (Cat Smith), a new member of my team. She is on her honeymoon and cannot be with us today, but I am sure we wish her well in her marriage to Ben. My colleague may be on her honeymoon, but let me reassure the ministerial team that the honeymoon period for the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster is well and truly over. I have asked a series of questions about his responsibilities, but they have not been answered after 56 days in office. I therefore ask any member of the team: where is he today and what does he actually do?

[Ben Gummer]

The hon. Gentleman has asked a number of questions and I will ensure that I relay them to the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, but I can say that he is responsible for the chancellery of the Duchy of Lancaster.

[Mr Watson]

What departmental responsibilities does the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster have, and how is he carrying them out?

[Ben Gummer]

The Chancellor the Duchy of Lancaster sits on a number of very important Cabinet Committees and has a number of responsibilities, which I am sure the hon. Gentleman will find out in due course.

Oral Answers to Questions

Lord Watson of Wyre Forest Excerpts

Wednesday 27th April 2016 Commons Chamber

[John Penrose]

I am glad that my hon. Friend enjoyed the read. I point out to him that some 85% of the population say that they want to hear more about the issues from the Government. If that serves to drive up participation among either remainers or leavers, then I am sure that both he and I will be pleased.

[Mr Tom Watson (West Bromwich East) (Lab)]

There is much concern about the Government’s new proposals for public appointments in that they might decrease social mobility. Sir David Normington has gone so far as to say:

“Grimstone’s proposals would enable ministers to set their own rules; override those rules whenever they want; appoint their own selection panels; get preferential treatment for favoured candidates; ignore the panel’s advice if they don’t like it; and appoint someone considered by the panel as not up to the job.”

Would the Minister like to answer that?

[Mr Speaker]

Before the Minister does so, I am sure that the hon. Gentleman is concerned about the appointment process in the context of the drive to increase democratic participation.

[Mr Watson]

Indeed, Mr Speaker—yes. Social mobility in public appointments is very important for democratic participation.

[John Penrose]

I am not sure how I link any kind of answer to democratic participation, but I none the less point out that we adhere consistently to the Nolan principles in everything that we do in this area.

[Mr Watson]

I appreciate the Minister’s answer to my creative question. I do not believe everything that I read in the papers, but this week it was revealed that the Culture Secretary had recommended five candidates for the position of trustee at the National Portrait Gallery. Three were Tory donors and one was a former Tory Minister. Is that a way of improving democratic participation for Tory cronies?

[John Penrose]

I suspect that the hon. Gentleman is trying to raise a serious point, but this is an example of the principle of if you are in a hole, you should stop digging.

EU Referendum: Civil Service Guidance

Lord Watson of Wyre Forest Excerpts

Monday 29th February 2016 Commons Chamber

[Matthew Hancock]

Let me answer those points in turn. First, the Government are functioning perfectly well—in fact, I came to this House from a meeting with the Minister for Employment, my right hon. Friend the Member for Witham (Priti Patel), on childcare policy, and it was carried out in an entirely normal way. On Friday I visited a prison with the Justice Secretary, and those two points demonstrate that things are functioning as normal.

The civil service code, and the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act 2010, makes it clear that it is the duty of civil servants to support the position of the Government of the day, and it is only because the Prime Minister is allowing Ministers to remain in government while disagreeing with a single policy—the in/out position—that this situation arises at all. The letter from the Cabinet Secretary makes it clear that factual briefing is allowed.

Finally, the 1975 guidance made it clear that no briefing or draft speeches contrary to Government consideration were allowed to be drafted by civil servants. In fact, it went further because it said that if someone wanted to oppose the Government position, they had to inform No. 10 of any invitations to appear on the radio or TV. We have not put that provision in place. On all these things, the clarity in the guidance from the Cabinet Secretary that was published on Monday last week shows the rules, and those rules are consistent with the civil service code and, indeed, the law.

[Mr Tom Watson (West Bromwich East) (Lab)]

I fear that the Minister is having a Jim Hacker moment. In 114 days, the country faces an important decision. The referendum will dictate how in future the UK handles exports and imports, the world of work, the new contours of the digital age, human rights, intelligence sharing, the fight against crime, and how we adapt to climate change, and here we are today discussing guidelines for civil servants and special advisers.

Sadly, I am not in the strongest of positions to lecture the poor Minister on handling splits in his party, but in the way that Opposition Front Benchers are almost duty bound to do, I would like to give him some advice. The Justice Secretary has a history of letting his special advisers off the leash. Does the Minister really think that a memorandum from a mandarin will change that?

When we have a Prime Minister who allows his spin doctors to brief that the Justice Secretary will be sacked after the referendum, or that his chum the Mayor of London has breached the old school code and that the Prime Minister is “hurt and upset”, I understand how the Minister would have been overcome with a wave of ennui at the prospect of answering an urgent question from the Chair of the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee about the conduct of special advisers. However, answer for their conduct he must, and I wish to ask him how many special advisers have informed No. 10 of their intention to work on the no campaign. In the event of ministerial visits where a Minister and their special adviser campaign for a no vote after the event, will the cost of travel be carried by the Minister? How will that be monitored and made public? The guidelines state that special advisers are not allowed to campaign for a no vote in office hours. For the avoidance of doubt, please define “office hours”.

When the inevitable happens and special advisers to those Ministers who are defying their leader completely ignore the memorandum from the Cabinet Secretary, on a scale of one to 10 how confident is the Minister that the Prime Minister will enforce the code? Does the Minister have the confidence to admit that these attempts to dilute the freedom of rebellious Ministers will only detract from the key issues that matter to voters in the referendum? It seems that the out campaign is attacking the referee, not the captain of the opposing side, yet the Prime Minister has a simple choice: either he gives his Ministers free rein to run their Departments, or he sacks them. It cannot be fudged for the next 114 days.

[Matthew Hancock]

Unfortunately, I have had to scrap most of my proposed reply to the hon. Gentleman, given his gracious acknowledgement that he is not best placed to throw rocks on this particular subject. I will, however, agree with him on this: questions on this matter are a distraction from the main event and the main substance, which is whether Britain is better off inside or outside a reformed European Union. I strongly believe that, thanks to the deal the Prime Minister achieved, we are better off and more secure inside a reformed European Union.

The hon. Gentleman asked some specific questions. First, on the efficacy of the guidance, the guidance is for civil servants to follow. Civil servants do follow guidance of that sort and I have every confidence that they will do so. On what constitutes office hours, I will merely say that office hours means the normal working day. I hope that clears that one up. On the broader question of whether this is necessary, and his point that Ministers need both to run their Departments and be able to differ on this one question, this is why the guidance is very specifically and solely about the in/out question, not other EU business or other business. After all, we have Departments to run.

Oral Answers to Questions

Lord Watson of Wyre Forest Excerpts

Wednesday 27th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[Matthew Hancock]

Great training is available for people once they are in, but I want to broaden the number of people from different backgrounds coming into the civil service right at the start, which means people from all over the United Kingdom: from all parts, from all groups, from all ethnic backgrounds, men and women, to make sure that we make the very best use of the talent that is available.

[Mr Tom Watson (West Bromwich East) (Lab)]

I see that the Minister’s right hon. Friend the Chancellor has his own mission critical approach to social mobility. His closest adviser got a 42% pay rise while most public servants got a pay freeze; he has five times the usual number of special advisers while 80,000 jobs have been cut in the civil service; and this week it was revealed by The Sunday Times that the permanent secretary in his Department has used a loophole to avoid paying tax on his pension pot. Is it the Minister’s view that that is an appropriate leadership approach in the civil service, and is it not true that when it comes to tax, the Chancellor’s friends in Google get special treatment, and when it comes to social mobility in the civil service it helps to be a friend of the Chancellor?

[Matthew Hancock]

It is disappointing that we do not have a cross-party approach to improving access to the civil service—who comes into it—to make sure that we have the very best people working for the common aim of delivering the Government’s agenda to improve the lives of citizens whom we serve, because that is the job that we focus on.

Oral Answers to Questions

Lord Watson of Wyre Forest Excerpts

Wednesday 21st October 2015 Commons Chamber

[Matthew Hancock]

The transparency of Government information is absolutely aided by a combination of our open data and the use of press officers and communication teams to explain to the public what is going on. Making sure that that happens in an orderly and organised way, subject to Ministers’ wishes, is a very important part of it running effectively.

[Mr Tom Watson (West Bromwich East) (Lab)]

I make a genuine offer to the Minister: we would like to build on the progress of the past decade in opening up government to more scrutiny. But we are very concerned that the commission on freedom of information may roll back the FOI Act. It is not subject to the FOI Act and it has recently held a secret briefing to invited-only journalists, off the record. It is not very transparent, is it? Is there a reason for that?

[Matthew Hancock]

First, may I welcome the hon. Gentleman to his post and congratulate him on his resounding victory in the deputy leadership election? On this question, I also welcome his tone. I am a great supporter of the Act, but 10 years after its introduction it is reasonable to see how it is operating and to make sure, as the Justice Committee said in the last Parliament, that there is a “safe space” for policymaking, so that people can be confident about giving frank advice to powerful people safe in the knowledge that that will remain private. It is about how this operates; it is not about the principle of having freedom of information in the first place.

Tributes to Charles Kennedy

Lord Watson of Wyre Forest Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd June 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Tom Watson (West Bromwich East) (Lab)]

I knew Charles through Sarah Gurling and got to see beyond the public figure and party leader. He was shy, but always polite. He was kind, engaging and a good dad. I enjoyed his wry humour. He used to joke about how we shared the same private investigator from the News of the World. He had an ability to bring levity to the dark corners of British political life that made the bad days at the office easier to cope with, yet as many Members all too painfully know, politics often takes a toll on the lives of our loved ones in a way that we never properly know or understand. Through you, Mr Speaker, I would like to direct my words at Donald, son of Charles and Sarah.

Your father was a very great man; he stood up for what he believed in. He led a party of the centre-left with dignity and compassion. When you are older, you will know that your mum and dad believed in a cause greater than themselves and you will be proud.