Queen’s Speech — House of Lords, 2016-05-24
Topic: Government Operations
Edward Timothy Razzall (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, I welcome the opening remarks of my noble friend Lady Barker, who quite rightly said that the judgment about the gracious Speech would be how it would be felt by the poor people of this country. A cynic might well say that good government is not about legislation, but about how government is actually run. A cynic might also say that legislation is a make-work project for Members of Parliament and dare I say Members of your Lordships’ House. After all, the example in the gracious Speech was that the Minister spent more than 50% of his time discussing a proposal to alter or amend the Bill of Rights, which is not before your Lordships in the gracious Speech. That demonstrates that this is perhaps the year that we might have what I have always advocated—a moratorium on legislation for 12 months. Some of my colleagues across the House think that it should be more than 12 months, but this would obviously have been the year to do that. Of course, what really matters in the lives of the electorate—the people whom we serve—is not legislation, but how decisions are taken by officials. That is the crux of the problem of government and no gracious Speech for the past 20 or 30 years has ever dealt with the issue of how government is actually run The last 40 or 50 years have seen radical changes in the structure of government, which have clearly impacted on the process of government. We have seen the devolution of powers to Scotland and Wales, the transfer of powers to agencies such as the National Health Service, and the privatisation of industries and utilities that were previously under governmental control. More recently, under this Government and the coalition, we have seen the creation of the northern powerhouse, described in the gracious Speech; a commitment to devolution of power to elected mayors, also in the gracious Speech; and new powers given to prison governors. Every Government for the past 30 years have promised more devolution of power, but few have delivered. This Government have clearly taken further steps in the gracious Speech, with the northern powerhouse and the powers to Scotland and Wales, but are we sure that the Government do not have an institutional bias towards the view that Room 101 Whitehall always knows best I have two examples of this centrifugal tendency in the last year. The first is the closure of the BIS office in Sheffield, which was brought back to London. The second is the Education Secretary’s proposal to impose a mandatory requirement on all local education authorities for schools to become academies, which was certainly postponed and I hope abandoned. In the context of changes to the government structure, what is the Minister’s view on the current abilities of the Civil Service to manage the process of government in this new world? I pose four questions. First, the Minister can have his view, but do Her Majesty’s Government believe that the Trevelyan concept of a Civil Service of the 19th century as the brightest and the best—usually from Oxbridge but no longer—providing impartial advice to Ministers, is still appropriate when the delivery of services is often more relevant than policy decisions and the devolution of powers should mean that power is being taken away from Whitehall Secondly, do Her Majesty’s Government agree with the chief executive of Vote Leave that the Civil Service has not taken any correct decisions since Bismarck—I do not know why he picked Bismarck—or with Steve Hilton, who said that the Civil Service simply cannot perform its functions because of being dominated by Brussels? Thirdly, does the Minister think that the relationship between the special adviser and the Permanent Secretaries in the Civil Service departments is working and properly structured? Fourthly, does he feel that the modern Civil Service is equipped with the right skills, not just as a result of the impact of technology, but given the changes proposed in the gracious Speech I have a final question. When the noble Lord, Lord Maude, was in the Cabinet Office, he committed to a review of how government works. Are the Government committed to continuing his work? We have an opportunity now because all three parties plus the SNP have been involved in government in recent years—the SNP in Scotland. Would it not be time for a cross-party review as to how government works? After all, I am sure that noble Lords agree that Room 101 Whitehall hardly ever knows best.