Liaison Committee Report

Steve Baker Excerpts

Thursday 12th December 2013 Commons Chamber

[Sir Alan Beith]

In our report it was the first of those two possible explanations that we referred to. For Ministers not to have known for three years into the programme suggests that civil servants did not feel free to tell them what they needed to hear, but rather seemed to be telling them what they wanted to hear. Our primary task was not to look for which individuals to blame, but to look for what was wrong with a system that did not communicate early enough that things were going wrong.

[Steve Baker (Wycombe) (Con)]

The civil service is ultimately founded on political power, whereas good business is ultimately founded on voluntary co-operation. Will the Committee accept that this categorical difference could be at the heart of any coherent explanation of the civil service’s failings? Would the right hon. Gentleman consider that this might mean that the civil service is incapable of meeting his high ideals?

[Sir Alan Beith]

That is a very interesting argument, which I would like to discuss with the hon. Gentleman at greater length some time. Both voluntary co-operation and the exercise of power seem to me to exist in both the public and the private sectors.