Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee

Paul Flynn Excerpts

Monday 18th April 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Jenkin]

I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman’s contribution. I thank him for the very diligent work that he puts in on the Committee. I do not think he will mind me putting on the record that in the discussions to which I referred he was one of those who expressed a strong reservation about this appointment, not least because no one could possibly describe Peter Riddell as an outsider to Westminster. Whether an outsider is appropriate for this particular role is debatable. We do not know who else was interviewed for the role, as that is not the job of a Select Committee. One of the frustrations of pre-appointment hearings is that we are not interviewing the person for the job but merely trying to establish in our own minds whether the proposed appointment is an appropriate one and the person has the necessary skills and experience. That is what we concluded, but with reservations. In his evidence, Mr Riddell confirmed his determination to make sure that a much wider pool of people are attracted to public appointments than currently appears to be the case. Certainly, we do not want to go back to the discreet tap on the shoulder—“Why don’t you apply for this job, old boy?”—that used to exist before the Nolan rules were brought into operation.

[Paul Flynn (Newport West) (Lab)]

Are we not going back to pre-Nolan days, which were rife with personal and political patronage? Is this not a case of the role of the commissioner being emasculated? Sir David Normington said that he managed to see off the monthly attempts by the Prime Minister and other Ministers to appoint Tory donors or former MPs to key roles. We will be back in that position. Will that emasculation not be very similar to what has happened with the Government’s adviser on ministerial conduct, where we have seen cases of the most egregious misconduct by Ministers that were not referred to the adviser? We are going back to the bad old days. We have lost so much trust in the parliamentary system in this country. Our reputation was at rock bottom after the great scandal of Members’ expenses; it is now subterranean or worse. Will the implementation of Grimstone’s changes not take us further down that road? How will the Committee make sure that those abuses of patronage do not return?

[Mr Jenkin]

I am reminded by the hon. Gentleman’s stentorian warnings of the cries of St John the Baptist from the dungeon until his head was presented on a platter. Such warnings are important, and we have to have a system that we can defend against them. People are always going to be suspicious that there has been something of a fix about a public appointment. That is perfectly legitimate. Ultimately, the authority for such appointments rests with Ministers. We want a balanced and transparent approach, with safeguards. I repeat that if Ministers get a grip on the job specifications at the outset of such appointment processes, and have confidence in the independence of the interview panels, there should be no problem with the people of quality they want getting through the interviews. If that is not the case, we need to address that.