EU: Subsidiarity Scrutiny

Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts

Tuesday 5th March 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Kakkar]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the working of the European Union subsidiarity test procedure under the Lisbon treaty in view of the two recent reasoned opinions submitted by this House to the European Union institutions.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, the power of national Parliaments to issue a reasoned opinion that an EU proposal does not uphold subsidiarity has been exercised many times since 2010, including five times by your Lordships’ House. Only once, on the Monti II proposals on the right to collective action across borders, have enough Parliaments done so to trigger what is called a yellow card. However, the views of national Parliaments have been influential on a wide range of issues and the continuing use of this procedure should give them an increasing role.

[Lord Kakkar]

My Lords, I declare my interest as a member of your Lordships’ European Union Committee, Sub-Committee B. Under the current test procedure, this Parliament can only challenge the Commission on the basis of subsidiarity, as the Minister has said, if at least eight other Parliaments also raise concerns. What obligations does the Lisbon treaty place on national Parliaments to participate actively in the scrutiny of directives, because without such scrutiny and participation, the subsidiarity test cannot possibly work? Under what circumstances would the Government consider using the red card in the test procedure, to seek judicial review by the European Court of Justice, where this Parliament, through its scrutiny, has raised substantial concerns about subsidiarity and where other Parliaments may not have participated in the process?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, in the nature of events, red cards are to be used in an emergency situation, not as part of the normal procedure. Perhaps it would help the House if I point out that last year, the Swedish Parliament issued 20 reasoned opinions; the Luxembourg Chamber of Deputies issued seven in 2011 and a larger number in 2012; the French Senate issued seven last year; and the House of Lords issued five. It is not the case that we are the only Parliament to be active in this regard.

[Lord Elton]

My Lords, under what circumstances would my noble friend consider that Her Majesty's Government should exercise themselves through the diplomatic network to engage the interest of other Parliaments in matters that concern us and appear not to have reached their attention?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, Her Majesty's Government do operate a diplomatic network in precisely that area. I hope that scrutiny committees through COSAC—the Conference of Parliamentary Committees for Union Affairs of Parliaments of the European Union—also now operate actively in this regard. I am told that it has become a much more effective body since I used to attend COSAC meetings many years ago when I was the chairman of a sub-committee. There is now a set of offices in Brussels of national Parliaments which provides a network where national scrutiny committees can get together. I hope that the Lisbon treaty arrangements will allow that network to become more and more active.

[Lord Pearson of Rannoch]

My Lords, remembering that for the past 33 years all British Governments have promised not to allow enactment of proposed EU legislation which is still being scrutinised by our Select Committees here and in the other place, will the Minister confirm Written Answers which reveal that this scrutiny reserve was broken no fewer than 403 times between January 2010 and June 2012? Does that not make 403 pieces of EU legislation that Parliament has not agreed but which have been steamrollered through by the juggernaut anyway?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, the noble Lord uses his characteristically robust and colourful language. There is always a tension between the time that national Parliaments wish to take for scrutiny and the pressures that national Governments, including our own, may wish to give to taking decisions. There are those in national Parliaments who regard the eight-week limit for taking a scrutiny decision as unfortunate, but I am informed by those who know the Brussels situation better than I do that the earlier national Parliaments submit reasoned opinions in the process of negotiation, the greater effect they have.

Reasoned opinions in the form of reports issued by the European Committee of this House are widely respected throughout the European Union in other national Parliaments and elsewhere. I recall with delight a Member of the European Parliament being appointed to head a committee in the European Parliament. He was asked by his clerk to start by reading three documents, two of which were reports from the House of Lords EU Committee.

[Lord Hannay of Chiswick]

My Lords, would the Minister not agree that in the short period of time that the yellow-card system has existed, the main lesson to draw is that we have to get better at enlisting other national Parliaments when we use the yellow card because that is the shortfall? Will he confirm that on the one occasion when it was used, the Commission withdrew its proposal—the Monti II proposal? Will he also confirm that the right to take action in the Court is one for this House, not the Government under the Lisbon treaty?

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I can confirm all of those matters. On the Monti II proposals, some of the reasoned opinions submitted by national Parliaments were much more about the principle of the proposal rather than the subsidiarity issue. Her Majesty's Government did not suggest that we should submit a reasoned opinion on subsidiarity issues because they objected to the principle of the proposal.

[Lord Spicer]

My Lords, is not one of the ironies of subsidiarity that it requires greater centralisation to determine with whom the subsidiarity should remain?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I am not entirely sure that I follow the logic of that. We are in an increasingly globalised economy. That economy requires increasing international regulation of one sort or another. We are in a constant situation of tension between international regulators—not just the European Union but many other international bodies as well—wishing to extend the process of regulation and national Governments, national Parliaments, local groups and other lobbies wishing to resist it.

[Lord Wigley]

My Lords—

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Falkner of Margravine]

My Lords, does my noble friend agree with the European Union Scrutiny Committee when it took evidence from Professor Dashwood who, in respect of arguing before the European Court of Justice, said that,

“the subsidiarity principle was most useful in the state of law-making rather than at adjudication, at which point it was ‘largely inoperable’”?

In other words, as the noble Lord, Lord Hannay of Chiswick, has said, we need to build alliances in good time rather than wait to go to court.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, the principle of subsidiarity is in many ways a difficult concept to get hold of, and of course it is highly political. There are those here who think that a number of things should be dealt with in Wales and Scotland and not at the national level, while I wish that the principle of subsidiarity was better applied in England than it is at present. This is part of the way we play politics between different levels of government.

[Lord Wigley]

My Lords, can the Minister clarify how this procedure works in practice, bearing in mind the comments made by the noble Lord with regard to the power being with the Chambers and not with the Government themselves? As the UK has two votes on the basis of being a bicameral system, one of which is allocated to this Chamber, what would be the outcome if there was a difference of opinion between the House of Commons and this Chamber? Would we have to defer to the House of Commons as it is the elected Chamber?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, no, we would not. It would be interesting if, for example, the House of Lords decided on one side while the House of Commons decided on the other. I think it is unlikely, but I should say that there have been occasions on which some national Parliaments have issued reasoned opinions objecting to particular proposals while one or two others have issued opinions that are strongly supportive.

Referendums

Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts

Tuesday 5th March 2013 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Quin]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they are considering further legislation concerning the holding of referendums in the United Kingdom.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, the Government believe that the legislative framework set out in the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000 has worked well. We have no immediate plans to amend this framework. Each referendum held under the Act, however, requires its own separate primary legislation to set the date and question, and to make any other necessary technical changes.

[Baroness Quin]

My Lords, as many with long memories will know, the first national referendum on Europe in 1975 had quite a lot to do with tackling internal divisions on Europe within the Labour Party. Now it seems that we are to have a referendum on Europe principally for party management reasons as the Prime Minister seeks to appease his party critics. Does the Minister think that this is a satisfactory way of deciding on referendums? If not, will he heed the report of the Constitution Committee of this House, which advised Governments against holding referendums for ad hoc tactical reasons and advised building up a wider political consensus about when and if they should be used?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I had indeed reread that section of the Constitution Committee’s report, which said, as the noble Baroness has remarked,

“we regret the ad hoc manner in which referendums have been used, often as a tactical device, by the government of the day … Where possible, cross-party agreement should be sought as to the circumstances in which it is appropriate for referendums to be used”.

Let us hope that we can reach cross-party agreement on such matters in the future.

[Lord Tyler]

My Lords, given the precedent of the Scottish independence referendum next year, is it now the Government’s position that any future national referendum with long-term consequences should extend the franchise to 16 and 17 year-olds?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, we have debated this before and I do not want to go too far down this road. The Scots have decided that for this one referendum they would like to extend the vote to 16 and 17 year- olds. No doubt we will discuss time and again how much further that should be extended.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

My Lords, has the Minister read the article by our friend, the noble Lord, Lord Hennessy, in the Tablet? In it he reveals that the Cabinet has taken two decisions: first, a wise decision not to have any pre-negotiations with the Scottish Government in advance of the referendum; and secondly, what is in my view an unwise decision not to have any contingency plans to deal with the situation in all our areas of concern if the referendum gives a yes vote. Will he ask his colleagues in the Cabinet to reconsider this? We will all be fighting to ensure that there is a no vote, but in the unlikely but unfortunate event of a yes vote, we have to be ready to deal with the consequences.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord on the catholicity of his tastes in reading. I had indeed read that article because the noble Lord, Lord Hennessy, was kind enough to give it to me.

[Lord Hamilton of Epsom]

My Lords, as it was a Liberal Democrat commitment to have a referendum on Europe, surely there should not be too much difficulty for the coalition partners in agreeing that this is the way forward?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, we will wait to see what is in the manifestos of all the parties for the coming election. The proposal by the Prime Minister in his capacity as Conservative Party leader is to hold a referendum, after some considerable further renegotiation, in the mid-point of the next Parliament.

[Lord Tomlinson]

Does the noble Lord recall that we spent a long time a couple of years ago debating the extension of referenda to transfers of power to Brussels? Does he agree with my understanding that the fact that we have had no such referendum called indicates that Brussels is not always acquisitive of our powers?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I vaguely remember some discussions on the subject. The question of whether we are heading towards treaty change is not primarily a matter for Brussels; it is much more a matter for different national Governments. The opinions of the French, German and Polish Governments and others weigh very heavily in this.

[Lord Taverne]

My Lords, will the Minister recommend to his colleagues in the Government the address of Edmund Burke to the electors of Bristol, its comments on the role of Members of Parliament and its relevance to the current addiction to referendums?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I am surprised that the noble Lord has not also called in aid Mrs Thatcher’s comment in the mid-1970s on the dangers of sliding from parliamentary democracy to plebiscitary democracy. Our political system depends on the principle of parliamentary sovereignty and that is something that we have to cling to.

[Lord Pearson of Rannoch]

My Lords, further to the supplementary question of the noble Baroness, Lady Quin, does the Minister agree that opinion polls consistently show that more than 80% of the British people want a referendum on our membership of the European Union? Perhaps that should be of some significance even to our present political establishment.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I am glad that the noble Lord is such a man of the people in all these respects. I recall that, three months before the 1975 referendum, opinion polls were overwhelmingly in favour of leaving, but that, in the course of the campaign, opinion was informed and thus altered.

[Lord Grocott]

While we are reflecting on the wisdom of the British people, would the Minister like to reflect on some very successful referendums that have been held in the past two or three years: first, on the good sense of the public in rejecting any notion of a fancy new electoral system for Westminster parliamentary elections; and secondly, on nine out of 10 British cities rejecting fancy directly elected mayors? On the basis of this, might it be a good idea to hold just one more referendum, on deciding whether the elections to the European Parliament next year should be on the basis of first past the post?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, the noble Lord, as always, demonstrates what a splendid conservative he is on all matters of constitutional reform.

Presumption of Death Bill

Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts

Tuesday 5th March 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I have it in command from Her Majesty the Queen to acquaint the House that Her Majesty, having been informed of the purport of the Presumption of Death Bill, has consented to place her interests, so far as they are affected by the Bill, at the disposal of Parliament for the purposes of the Bill.

Bill passed.

Strengthened Statutory Procedures for the Scrutiny of Delegated Legislation: DPRRC Report

Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts

Tuesday 5th March 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I approached this debate with considerable trepidation. When I first came into this House, I was told by several people that, after the Clerk of the Parliaments, the greatest expert on all matters of procedure was the then head of the Liberal Democrat Whips’ Office, Celia Thomas, who is now my noble friend Lady Thomas of Winchester. When I started to read into this subject, I discovered how little I understood about the processes of scrutinising secondary legislation and, indeed, about the difference between a remedial order and a legislative reform order. I now understand, and I hope I still will in a week’s time, but it has been a journey of exploration.

This has been a very useful debate, and I start by agreeing with the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mayhew, that this is a success story. What we have seen in this Chamber over the past 20 or 30 years is a gradual rise in its effective ability to give scrutiny. As a young academic, I was an adviser to Lords and Commons committees and I discovered that Lords committees were much more serious in many ways than Commons committees and much less partisan. Members had read their papers, they came and they asked about paragraph (15) and what precisely the Government thought they meant by it. That is, as the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Basildon, said, a different function from that of the Commons, but it is a very useful function. We should be very proud of it and cling to it.

Much of the best work this House does is done in its committees, and I hope that will continue to be the case. There is a necessary tension between the Executive and the legislature and listening to this debate I was thinking that much of the press comment on British government is a matter of seeing a conflict between the Government and the Opposition, but there is also a very positive, necessary tension between the Executive and the Legislature, whatever that may be. We play our role—the Cross-Benchers and others in this House—by providing the detailed scrutiny that does not get on to the front page of the Daily Mail but does improve the quality of legislation. For that reason, I have more sympathy for the suggestion from my noble friend Lady Thomas of Winchester that we should move towards looking at draft SIs than for the Goodlad proposal that the House should assert its right to vote down. As the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, said, that should be regarded as the reserve option, the exceptional circumstance. Greater dialogue with the Government about progress on SIs is a much more effective way to influence.

When I first came into the House of Lords, I was asked what I thought the power of the Lords was. After a bit, I said, “I think it’s the power to embarrass”. That is quite an effective power in the dialogue we have with Ministers. The power to publish and to whisper to a visiting journalist that this Minister has not really got it right yet are quietly effective in the corridors of Whitehall, and that is the way this Chamber should operate.

A number of noble Lords suggested that the number of SIs and the area of subordinate legislation are growing. I am pleased to say that, from looking at the statistics, that is no longer the case. In the legislative year 2007, nearly 1,200 SIs went through. In 2011, there were some 750. Cynics might suggest that the longer Governments are in power, the more they are likely to resort to SIs. If that should be the case and this Government stays in power for long, I trust that Members of this House will point that out and keep Ministers up to the mark.

I have some sympathy with those who say that slower government is better government and that less legislation is better legislation. The problem, which we all recognise, is that in an era of 24/7 media and of lobbies insisting that Ministers should take on everything they are lobbying for, it is very difficult for Ministers to resist those outside pressures. It is thus up to Parliament to keep pushing back and saying, “Think about proportionality. Think about whether this is necessary. Think about whether this is desirable”.

I am fascinated—I now at last understand this aspect of Henry VIII powers. I thought when I first heard about Henry VIII powers that they were a way of keeping numbers in the House of Lords under control. I have sometimes wished that they might be reintroduced as a means of keeping the numbers down and allowing new blood to come in, so to speak. Henry VIII powers are clearly something we always wish to question. The question of how clear Governments should be about the implications when they put new legislation through is something we can accept as desirable in terms of good legislation. The Government accept all those criticisms and the House of Lords will, I hope, maintain its effort to keep the Government, of whatever variety, up to the mark.

The noble Baroness, Lady Andrews, incidentally, suggested that 80% of legislation consisted of SIs. I am not sure where that statistic comes from. If the noble Lord, Lord Pearson of Rannoch, was here he would say, of course, that 80% of legislation was forced on us by the European Union. I suspect these statistics are both a little—

[Baroness Andrews]

My Lords, I was saying that it has been calculated that 80% of the impact on people comes via SIs, not that 80% of legislation is made through SIs. That is why I find it difficult to source. I will try to find a source for the Minister.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I understand. This was an extremely valuable report, in particular for pointing out that we have wandered into a situation where there is considerable diversity—indeed, almost a confusion—of different sorts of arrangements under secondary legislation. I can imagine how these will have grown up with Ministers from different departments making specific concessions on different Bills. The committee is quite right to say that we should exert pressure to bring things back to as common a model as possible.

The former Leader of the House, my noble friend Lord Strathclyde, wrote to my noble friend Lady Thomas last November, accepting the committee’s conclusion that, wherever possible, existing procedures for enhanced scrutiny should be used. In his response, which I have deposited in the Library, my noble friend noted that there may be exceptions where existing procedures are not suitable, but where the Government sought to create a new procedure they would clearly set out the case for doing so.

The committee’s report also invited the Government either to set out the case for not requiring supporting documents to be laid with draft orders under Section 19 of the Localism Act 2011—to which a number of noble Lords have referred—or to give an undertaking to lay supporting documents when laying any draft order under that section. I can confirm that the Government have given an undertaking to produce material setting out the detail of, and the rationale for, any proposed order under Section 19 of the Localism Act 2011, and to provide relevant background to support the parliamentary process.

The committee’s report also looked at orders made under Section 14 of the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Act 2006. We welcome the recognition that the existing scrutiny procedures for 2006 Act are robust. The committees scrutinising such orders can choose which scrutiny process should be used. They also have the power effectively to oppose any highly controversial measures. Ministers are obliged to consider the committees’ recommendations and cannot easily set them aside. They would need to persuade the whole House to overturn any recommendation by a committee to reject an order.

In practice, any legislative reform order that has been identified as highly controversial during the consultation stage has been withdrawn. Some measures have returned with increased scrutiny in a Bill. Neither committee has ever felt the need to exercise its veto when considering draft orders. This is why the Government have not felt the need to renew the undertakings given by the previous Administration. This is not a change of policy. The undertaking was given by the previous Government in 2006, at a time when it was not clear how the powers in the Act would be used. It is now clear that the process of bringing forward draft orders and the scrutiny process has worked well. However, I recognise that some noble Lords have strong views on this issue, so we are willing to take it away and consider it further.

The Government believe that legislative reform orders are important tools to reduce burdens on business, taking forward deregulatory measures that do not fit into other legislative vehicles. The report also touched upon orders made under Section 85 of the Northern Ireland Act 1998, Section 102 of the Local Transport Act 2008 and various orders made under sections of the Local Government Acts 1999, 2000 and 2003. Some of these have been rarely, or never, used. Section 85 of the Northern Ireland Act has been infrequently used and, following the devolution of policing and justice in 2010, its use is likely to decline further. No orders have been made under the powers in the three Local Government Acts. In relation to the Local Transport Act 2008, the committee’s report on the original Bill at the time noted:

“We consider both the delegation and the level of scrutiny proposed for the powers”,

in these clauses “to be appropriate”.

The noble Baroness, Lady Thomas, touched on the mechanism by which we debate and approve secondary legislation, particularly the system of consultation and the time allowed for it. Any changes would of course be a matter for the Procedure Committee. I would not wish to pre-empt its discussions, but I acknowledge the importance of the process of consultation and of having a process which commands public confidence. Again, I will take that back to the Cabinet Office.

There is of course a great variety in the significance of secondary legislation laid before the House. It is worth remembering that Parliament itself delegates powers to Ministers and, advised by the DPRRC, decides which form of scrutiny—negative, affirmative or super-affirmative—is appropriate for any particular delegation. In addition, a significant proportion of secondary legislation is already published in draft, with the consultation process beginning long before instruments are laid.

The noble Lord, Lord Butler, suggested rationalisation of the committee structure and greater use of Joint Committees. I think a number of us would want to take that away and think about it further. I am more persuaded by the arguments of the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, about the different functions of the two Houses. My limited experience of serving on one Joint Committee suggested that the two Houses do not always blend terribly well. A great deal depends on the subject. To the credit of this House, we tend to approach things in a less partisan and more detailed manner. Perhaps there is an argument that maintaining a degree of duality may therefore be functional.

[Lord Soley]

I understand that. I have some concerns about the idea of making it totally Joint Committees; they are difficult. However, that does not rule out looking at the way in which the two Houses are examining the same bit of legislation at the same time, without being aware of each others’ views. In a way, it is also about harmonisation.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I take all those points on board. This is the sort of question that we would naturally want to continue discussing.

I very much hope that the quantity of secondary legislation will continue to decline. The general power of competence for local authorities, for example, reduces the necessity of detailed secondary legislation on a range of issues.

[Baroness O'Loan]

Perhaps I may ask the Minister to check that the quantity of secondary legislation is declining. It is possible that the number of statutory instruments is declining while the amount of secondary legislation is increasing.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I will get the Cabinet Office to check and will write to the noble Baroness and others if my figures are way out, but I am hopeful that we have seen a reduction in the past three years. I also hope that the efforts that the Government are now making to decentralise within England and to give a power of general competence to local authorities will result in a further reduction in the number of secondary legislative measures.

This has been a very useful and constructive debate. It is the sort of thing that the House needs to do from time to time. I add my thanks to the noble Baroness, Lady Thomas of Winchester. I continue to learn from her about the procedures of this House, and I hope that I will continue to learn from her, as many others will, for many years to come.

Charities (Incorporated Church Building Society) (England and Wales) Order 2013

Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts

Monday 4th March 2013 Lords Chamber

Moved By

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

That the draft order laid before the House on 22 January be approved.

Relevant document: 18th Report from the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments, considered in Grand Committee on 27 February

Motion agreed.

Charities (Incorporated Church Building Society) (England and Wales) Order 2013

Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts

Wednesday 27th February 2013 Grand Committee

Moved By

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

That the Grand Committee do report to the House that it has considered the Charities (Incorporated Church Building Society) (England and Wales) Order 2013.

Relevant documents: 18th Report from the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, this order is made under Section 73 of the Charities Act 2011 to give effect to the provisions of a scheme settled by the Charity Commission for England and Wales. The purpose of the scheme is to amend the existing trusts of the Incorporated Church Building Society, the ICBS, a charity which gives grants for the building and repairing of Anglican churches and chapels, and to simplify its administrative provisions.

The charity is regulated by the Church Building Society Act 1828 and therefore this order is needed to give effect to the changes to that Act contained in the Charity Commission scheme. Because the 1828 Act is a public general Act, the scheme cannot be made without the draft order first being approved by a resolution of each House of Parliament, in accordance with Section 73(4) of the Charities Act 2011.

The ICBS was founded in 1818 and incorporated by Act of Parliament 10 years later. Its purpose was to,

“remedy the deficiencies of places set aside for Public Worship in our towns and cities”.

For the next 100 years, it enjoyed considerable public support and contributed to the building and repair of Anglican churches and chapels. By 1845, the society was assisting with the building of more than 50 churches a year. It was the principal voluntary society for promoting the building and restoration of Anglican churches in the 19th century, the most active period of church building since the Middle Ages, and provided funds via grants and loans.

Over the next century, however, public support waned to the extent that by the early 1980s the society’s activities had shrunk considerably. The then trustees were concerned that the administrative costs of maintaining it as an independent charity, though modest, were absorbing an unjustifiable proportion of its income, which by then was derived largely from investments. To improve efficiency, another charity with similar objects, the Historic Churches Preservation Trust, now succeeded by the National Churches Trust, agreed to administer the society’s affairs for a small fee.

The ICBS was registered with the Charity Commission in 1962. A commission scheme is now needed to enable the National Churches Trust to take full trusteeship of the ICBS. However, due to the statutory basis of the ICBS, a parliamentary order is required to give effect to the scheme, which repeals all but the preamble and four sections of the 1828 Act, and provides for the administration of the charity.

The National Churches Trust is the only independent UK-wide charity supporting and promoting Christian places of worship. It does this through the provision of grants for repairs and modernisation, and through the provision of support, advice and information. The general committee of the ICBS has aligned the use of the remaining funds of the society with the general aims and objectives of the NCT, subject to ICBS funds being used to support those buildings with which the society is associated, namely Church of England buildings constructed from 1818 onwards. To this end, in recent years, and in anticipation of the implementation of the scheme, the remaining ICBS funds are being used to provide repair grants to churches that fall within this criterion.

The proposed scheme, which is being made at the request of the charity’s current trustees, sets out the powers of the new corporate trustee. The 1828 Act specifies that the trustees of the charity are the management committee. This governing body is more than 80 strong and includes the Archbishops of Canterbury and York, 44 diocesan bishops of the two provinces of Canterbury and York and 36 elected lay members of the charity. Members of the charity are,

“anybody who makes a donation of 10 guineas or an annual donation of one guinea”.

The trustee body is too large and it is difficult to know who is currently a member of the charity. The scheme replaces the existing trustees with the NCT, which will be the sole corporate trustee of the charity. The existing trustees are in agreement.

The charity’s objectives set out in the scheme are similar but not identical to the original objectives. In the 1828 Act the purposes are defined as,

“enlarging, building, rebuilding and repairing Churches and Chapels in England and Wales”,

whereas the proposed new objectives refer to churches and chapels of the Church of England. This narrowing reflects the charity’s close links with the Church of England and the fact that its support has traditionally been provided only to Anglican churches.

I declare what is almost an interest here. I am very conscious that Sir Titus Salt, who built Saltaire, not only built two churches in Saltaire for a village with a population of only just over 1,500 people but gave a very considerable amount of money for the erection and repair not only of Congregational and Methodist churches but also of Anglican churches all over the north of England. As I walk around Yorkshire, I am not entirely sure that the “repair” of a number of medieval churches during this period was something of which I entirely approve, but no doubt at the time it was regarded as entirely necessary.

The 1828 Act does not set out the charity’s powers explicitly in the way that modern charity governing documents do, so the scheme also provides the charity with standard powers, most of which are found in the model governing documents on the commission’s website. A significant motivation behind the trustees applying for this scheme was to modernise the governance and governing document of the charity. The scheme provides the charity trustees with the powers that they need to operate effectively and efficiently in the modern world.

I am confident that the new scheme will be beneficial to the charity. It will ensure that administrative costs are kept to a minimum and that a greater proportion of the charity’s funds can be used to fulfil its purposes. I therefore commend this instrument to the Committee.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Jones]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his commanding introductory remarks and my noble friend for her youthful remarks. I have read the helpful policy background in the Explanatory Memorandum which the department has composed, and for which I am grateful. Paragraph 7 of the Explanatory Memorandum, headed, “Policy background”, states:

“The purpose of the Charity is to provide for the better collection and application of voluntary contributions for the purpose of enlarging, building and repairing Church of England churches and chapels situated in England and Wales”.

It has occurred to me that those churches and chapels in Wales are not Church of England, they are Church in Wales. So the question I have for the Minister is: has the department come forward with this order not knowing that there is an error in the Explanatory Memorandum? Is it therefore proceeding in error on that basis?

It was nice to hear the Minister refer to churches in Saltaire. St Ethelwold’s of the Church in Wales is a splendid church in north-east Wales in the town of Shotton. Would this order enable the tower of St Ethelwold’s to be completed or allow for that possibility?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I thank noble Lords for their welcome of the order. I particularly welcome the comments of the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, on the translation of churches into spaces for the local community. I have experienced shock on one or two occasions when going back to churches in which I had worshipped, or in whose choirs I had sung as a boy, to discover that all the pews had been removed, including one very old-fashioned church which we went to when my father was the local bank manager. The bank manager’s pew was the second one from the front on the right-hand side, and one had to sit in the bank manager’s pew. Thankfully, that has now all gone. The pews have all been removed and it is an open space for all sorts of purposes. As we know, that has happened all over the country. I think that that is part of the transformation of the Church of England in making sure that it does continue to hold together local communities for people of all backgrounds and all faiths.

On the question of churches in Wales, there is a separate Welsh Religious Buildings Trust, which was founded in 1996 to care for redundant historic places of worship of all faiths in Wales. To avoid duplicating the work of the Friends of Friendless Churches, those of the Church in Wales are excluded from this. The trust currently cares for six buildings and is in discussion with regard to a seventh, but I am very conscious, as I know the noble Lord will be, that there are a great many churches and chapels in Wales which are open to the desirability of assistance. There are other comparable charities. I happen to know the Historic Chapels Trust very well because I have good friends in Yorkshire who are actively engaged in that. There is a Scottish Redundant Churches Trust, a Scotland’s Churches Trust and an Ulster Historic Churches Trust, so this is dealing with England partly because the devolved Administrations have parallel and comparable bodies.

Having answered those questions, I welcome the general acceptance that this is a desirable and useful adjustment of an early 19th century charity. We have to modernise charities from time to time and it is entirely within the principle of the public interest of charities that this amendment should be made. I hope that we all welcome the extent to which churches, which are often at the historic centre of communities, are being restored, opened and transformed to provide places where members of the communities can get together. I commend the order.

Motion agreed.

Elections: Voting Age

Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts

Wednesday 27th February 2013 Grand Committee

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, for bringing this debate to the Lords. He started his speech by referring to a debate in the Commons on 24 January, which I read with some interest, and I have to say that I found the most novel argument to be one that in a sense complements the argument just made by the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, which is that of the increasing imbalance in the electorate between the over-65s and young people. That imbalance will grow, and all political parties know that we are pulled in the direction of those who vote and thus are pulled towards putting resources into the over-65s and not into young people. The argument was made in one of the Commons speeches that this might be one way of beginning to redress the balance and to encourage political parties and Governments to think more actively about the needs and interests of young people. It is an argument that I think we all need to take into account.

Let me stress that the Government have no plans to lower the voting age in this Parliament and that, as has already been mentioned, there is no consensus within the coalition Government. That in turn reflects the different views held across society at large and the divergent positions on this topic both within and across the various political parties. After all, we have discovered over the course of the past two and a half years just how difficult political and constitutional change is and how on any proposals for political and constitutional change there are always at least 15 different and contradictory arguments for why nothing should be done, while fewer arguments are made in support of the case for change. Nevertheless, we welcome the ongoing discussions and debate on this issue and we would encourage the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, and others to maintain their approach.

On the question of the age of majority, which was raised by a number of noble Lords, I simply repeat the comment made by the noble Lord, Lord Parekh, that there is no standard age of majority within the United Kingdom. The process of moving from childhood to majority takes place over several years, and the question of where that should be standardised would itself open up a very difficult process. However, the question of how to re-engage young people in our democracy, in citizenship and in local society is important and we all need to address it. When taking the Electoral Registration and Administration Bill through the House of Lords, I was struck by how severe a problem this is becoming. Younger people do not feel engaged in politics and they are not committed to political parties. In one way or another, we all have to address that problem. The noble Lord, Lord Adonis, said that providing the vote at the age of 16 is not the answer, but it may be one of the ways of contributing to an answer. It would certainly mean that schools and parties would pay much more attention to citizenship education, which is important, and we would have to think about how else we could hook young people into their local communities and into wider engagement as a whole.

We all recognise, as the noble Lord, Lord Norton, pointed out, that young people are already the least likely to vote. That is the problem, of course, and the question is how to tackle it. We know that a number of things have contributed to it: the increasing remoteness of national politics; the decline in local government and local politics; the decline in respect for our political institutions—above all for Westminster—and the decline of participation at all levels in intermediate bodies from churches and chapels to trade unions and social organisations. The question is: where do we go from here and how can we ensure that engagement in democracy at all levels from the local to the national does not continue to decline in the long term? We cannot let this question go.

Perhaps, as the noble Lord, Lord Wills, suggests, deliberative democracy on the Granada 500 model—I think that was what it was called—is something that we should be experimenting with again in terms of bridging the gap between the governors and the governed. However, I suspect that television companies would be less willing to invest in such activities today as they were 20 or 25 years ago, partly because they would be less convinced that it would command the sort of audience that those very interesting experiments did in the 1980s.

We have a real problem here; we do not yet have a consensus on how we should move forward, as the debate has again shown. The research that there has been in a number of different activities is itself inconclusive. The Government do not disagree with the conclusions of the youth commission report that the approach of using independent commissions to review this should not be used again in the near future. However, we all need to focus. All of us who are committed to democratic politics and want to see a high level of political engagement have a huge and rising problem. All the research that went into looking at the shift to individual electoral registration persuaded me that this is a large and secular issue to which we do not have much of an answer. In a week in which the combination of the Eastleigh by-election and the Leveson report has encouraged the press to throw almost everything it has got at politicians of one sort or another—and people cheerfully say, “Well, don’t worry, they will move on to another set next week”—we recognise how deep a problem of democratic disillusionment and disengagement we have.

[Lord Tyler]

I am very grateful to my noble friend the Minister for giving way. Since we have a few minutes in hand, will he specifically address the fact that both the Electoral Commission and the Youth Citizenship Commission have said that there is a real gap in the research in this area, which has been reflected throughout your Lordships’ discussion this afternoon? Will the Government at least give an undertaking today that they will look again at that lacuna, which has been so clearly identified, and invite the Electoral Commission to look specifically at this again?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I hesitate to make a commitment as broad as that, but I will certainly feed it back and we will look at the question of whether there is a substantial lacuna. One of the issues that we all face here is that we know what the situation is now, and we know that the evidence of demand from young people for votes at 16 is weak. The question that I take particularly from the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, is whether we are happy about that, and whether we ought to be getting out there to persuade young people that they should be interested in having the vote and they should want to be re-engaged in politics. That is a much larger set of issues.

The previous Government, to their great credit, did their best to get at the question of citizenship. A number of distinguished political scientists contributed to that with modest success. We all recognise that schools have all sorts of other priorities, and that PSHE has not been one of the grandest or most glorious aspects of the secondary curriculum. There is a large issue out there, and we need much more public debate on it. This is part of a much larger issue about popular disillusionment with democratic politics as such, which has to concern us all. None of us would wish to suggest that lowering the voting age would begin to solve that; it would be only a small part of a strategy which I suggest all of us interested in democratic politics, from whichever point of view, should recognise is a shared problem to which we all need to find some shared answers.

Ministerial Code

Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts

Wednesday 13th February 2013 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Miller of Hendon]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether the constitutional convention of Cabinet collective responsibility, as confirmed in the Ministerial Code, remains in force.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, yes.

[Baroness Miller of Hendon]

I thank the noble Lord for his very helpful and complete reply. However, as noble Lords are doubtless aware, in the votes that took place last month in both Houses, none of the Liberal Democrats who are members of the Government supported the proposals of the independent Electoral Commission to ensure fair voting by making equal, even-sized constituencies. What are the current sanctions available to the Prime Minister against Ministers who vote against government legislation?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, perhaps I may read from paragraph 1 of the Ministerial Code:

“The principle of collective responsibility, save where it is explicitly set aside, applies to all Government Ministers”.

Three sentences before that, it states:

“The Ministerial Code should be read alongside the Coalition agreement”.

[Lord Kakkar]

My Lords, in coalition government, does the application of sanctions against Ministers who fail to respect the convention of collective responsibility lie with the Prime Minister or the Deputy Prime Minister?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, this is, as the noble Lord said, a convention. I am sure he recalls that it was developed in the 1780s as a way to protect the Cabinet as a whole against the monarch, who wished to call Cabinet Ministers in one by one to ask them what they personally thought; it was not originally concerned with Parliament at all. There is a very useful document with which noble Lords may not be familiar, which accompanied the coalition agreement, entitled the Coalition Agreement for Stability and Reform, which states:

“There is no constitutional difference between a Coalition Government and a single party Government, but working practices need to adapt to reflect the fact that the UK has not had a Coalition in modern times”.

[Lord Hughes of Woodside]

My Lords, is it not the case that, apart from the words as written down in the paper, there is much more to collective responsibility? Does not a moral judgment apply here? Should it not be a matter of honour, or does the story that there is honour among thieves not apply in this case?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, if one compares this Government with the previous Government, there has been much less briefing by Ministers against other Ministers than there was between 1997 and 2010. If I may cite my favourite senior official, this coalition Government are rather easier for officials to work with than their predecessors because, “You have to have your discussions out in the open rather than in secret”.

[Lord Mawhinney]

My Lords, given that collective responsibility exists, how can the Minister stand there and answer as he has, with a straight face, as if we are expected to believe what he is telling us? Will he do me the honour of personally asking the Prime Minister what disciplinary action he intends to take against Lib Dem Ministers at both ends of the Corridor, and then do me the courtesy of writing to tell me what reply he got?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I am happy to write to the noble Lord but I reiterate: this is a coalition Government. Working practices have to adapt to accept that this is a coalition Government. That is what was formed in 2010; that is what I trust will continue until 2015.

[Baroness Butler-Sloss]

My Lords, does the agreement between the coalition include that one party should be whipped to vote against the coalition?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, we proceed case by case as we move ahead. There are a number of issues on which it is agreed that neither party will be whipped. As on the question of same-sex marriage, some issues are not whipped; however, the programme Motion in the Commons was whipped. One takes it case by case and on particularly sensitive social issues we do not have a Whip at all.

[Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean]

My Lords, the coalition agreement does indeed make the point about collective responsibility, where the two parties agreed that on certain issues they might not be able to vote together. I have two points. First, does the noble Lord not acknowledge that the coalition agreement has had no endorsement from the British public and that it is very odd for the current Government just to set aside what the Ministerial Code says, of their own volition? More specifically, can he tell the House where in that agreement there was a specific set-aside on the issue of the vote that took place a couple of weeks ago when his own party—and he as a Minister—did not support the Government?

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

As the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, points out, I was in Berlin at the time so I was not involved in that particular dimension. I recall some time ago being asked by the noble Baroness, when she was on a committee, whether I felt that one could operate as a Government against the mandate of the manifesto. I pointed out that the strongest mandate in the 1997 Labour manifesto was a commitment that the Labour Government never fulfilled, so there is a degree of flexibility in all these issues.

[Lord Tyler]

Does my noble friend accept that on the specific occasion to which the noble Baroness referred, the Prime Minister himself accepted that there could not be collective responsibility where there had not been collective agreement? That was explicit in the coalition agreement and, as with Leveson, which we will refer to later, there are disagreements that are accepted. In a grown-up society, it is surely right to be transparent about that rather than covering up artificial disagreements, as in the previous Administration, where collective responsibility was disguised.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

As the opening paragraph of the coalition’s working agreement also stresses:

“In the working of the Coalition, the principle of balance will underpin both the Coalition Parties’ approaches to all aspects of the conduct of the Government’s business”.

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town]

My Lords, of course we hate to intrude on private grief, but will the Minister tell us whether we will have one response on the charter or two?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, that question is currently under discussion, although of course the doctrine of collective responsibility prevents my telling the House exactly where those discussions are at present.

[Lord Cormack]

My Lords, did the Liberal Democrat Ministers change their minds as well as their votes, bearing in mind the Deputy Prime Minister’s earlier firm agreement to boundary changes?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, coalition government is a matter of constant negotiation and discussion. Unfortunately, we have not managed to deliver much of the political reform agenda that we agreed to in the coalition agreement. All three parties bear some responsibility for failing to deliver that agenda.

Drones

Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts

Thursday 7th February 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Judd]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what bilateral and multilateral discussions they are having on the regulation of the civil and military use of drones.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, Her Majesty’s Government and the UK Civil Aviation Authority are working with both the International Civil Aviation Organisation and the European Commission and EU member states on developing harmonised rules and regulation for the safe integration of civil remotely piloted aircraft systems into both European and global air space. The Ministry of Defence is not involved in any bilateral or multilateral discussions specifically on the regulation of the military use of remotely piloted aircraft systems but is involved in more general discussions on arms control, such as the UN Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons.

[Lord Judd]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for that encouraging reply. Does he not agree that, as far as the domestic situation is concerned, whatever the value of drones for emergency services and the like, their increasing availability makes the need for some sort of code an urgent priority? When it comes to the international scene, how do the Government define the difference between extra-judicial killing and legitimate killing? How can transparent accountability for every civilian, not least innocent children, be ensured? How can the use of drones in areas not defined by the UN as conflict zones be justified? Is there not a desperate need for something like the Geneva Conventions?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

The noble Lord has asked several complex questions and I will try to answer some of them. The development of civil systems is clearly a complicated area. Basically, for large unmanned systems, the same rules apply as for manned aircraft. For small unmanned systems—there are now some very small unmanned systems—provided they are within the sight of the person controlling them, regulations need not apply. Clearly, a lot more work is needed in that area. On the international dimension, the question of extra-judicial killings is something which, as those who have read this morning’s Guardian will know, is being actively debated in the United States as we speak.

[Baroness Falkner of Margravine]

My Lords, on 20 November 2012, the Senior Minister of State at the Foreign Office, the noble Baroness, Lady Warsi, assured me that the UN special rapporteur for human rights and countering terrorism was preparing a report to the UN on the issue of drones. That was in response to a question I had asked her along the lines of the Question asked by the noble Lord, Lord Judd, today. Can the noble Lord tell the House what progress there has been in terms of Her Majesty’s Government’s contribution to the report of the special rapporteur and when we can expect it to be forthcoming?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I am not briefed on that specific question and will have to write to the noble Baroness. We are, of course, in conversations with others about the use of drones. On the specific issues being discussed in the United States at the present moment, I simply stress that the United Kingdom has used drones for military purposes only in Afghanistan.

[Lord Singh of Wimbledon]

My Lords, does the Minister agree that the control of the military use of drones is absolutely necessary internationally? The carrying out of extra-judicial killings in the sovereign airspace of other nations is a very dangerous precedent. Something needs to be done about it very urgently.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, the question is very much about the use across national boundaries in areas where there is not an active conflict. I simply stress again that the United Kingdom has used military drones only inside Afghanistan and that we are in Afghanistan at the invitation of the Afghan Government. There is an active debate in the United States about the American use of drones across national frontiers in areas where it is a question of terrorist threats to the United States rather than local conflict.

[Baroness Kinnock of Holyhead]

Since we know that 51 states now have the technology to use drones, does the Minister agree that it is essential that a proper legal framework is urgently put in place and that action is taken to ensure that there is accountability and reparation when things go wrong as a result of a drone attack? Does the UK support the stated view of the UN special rapporteur, who is to conduct an investigation into the spread of drone technology, that we urgently need to know the extent of civilian casualties, the identity of militants targeted and the legality of strikes where the UN does not recognise that there actually is a conflict?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, unmanned aerial vehicles are spreading around the world. My figures say that some 80 countries now have some capacity, or have been involved in purchasing such capacity, so this is spreading very quickly. Clearly, we do need to develop international law and practice on this. We also have large issues about what happens in ungoverned space, such as aspects of the Sahel and, until very recently, some parts of Somalia. I stress that the largest single use of unmanned aerial vehicles for military purposes is in surveillance and reconnaissance and not in direct strikes.

[The Lord Bishop of Bath and Wells]

My Lords, I welcome the Minister’s remarks about the progress in the United States. However, does not a world characterised by the proliferation of armed drones, without an internationally supported framework of regulation, undermine our core interests such as preventing armed conflict, promoting human rights and strengthening international legal regimes? Could the present role of the United Kingdom be one which enables and begins the process of trying to find some kind of international regulatory process?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, there are some benefits from unmanned drones, particularly in terms of reconnaissance—maritime reconnaissance off Somalia and so on—because these aircraft have much longer endurance than manned aircraft. I would add that the question of whether distantly controlled aircraft encourage people to be less careful in their use of military weapons is one which I have spent some time studying. I am rather reassured that, because of the ability of unmanned aircraft to loiter over the site, not only is target acquisition more carefully attended to than if you are in a fast aircraft but you are asked to look at what happened afterwards. I am told that this means that those who are controlling these aircraft have a thorough sense of responsibility for what has been done.

[Lord West of Spithead]

My Lords, following on from the Minister’s previous answer, whenever one makes war less horrible—war is horrible, death is horrible and being involved in the risk is horrible—and kills people remotely from some leafy suburb in the middle of one’s own country, it makes it remote, which has huge implications and is very worrying. It needs a lot of control. Does the Minister agree?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, the Armed Forces are well aware of that and that matter is under active discussion at the present moment.

Accountability of Civil Servants: Constitution Committee Report

Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts

Thursday 7th February 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I declare a professional and personal interest: I am, as the noble Lord, Lord Hennessy, remarked, a member of the Civil Service reform board; my wife is a former civil servant; and I have a family member who is a current civil servant.

The Government welcome this report. We apologise profusely for the late completion of the response. We were keen to ensure that the committee received a carefully considered and positive response to the report and were hoping to include some of the ongoing work on accountability and Civil Service reform. That resulted in a delayed response, but I appreciate that it was a lack of courtesy to the committee to leave it quite so late. We look forward to the committee’s further work on this theme. The report is a contribution to a continuing discussion about our state, our constitution and the relationship between the Executive and Parliament.

We should not exaggerate the degree of current disagreement or discontent, or the supposed threat to the principles of Northcote-Trevelyan. It is clear that recruitment is still by merit, and I am happy that recruitment is going extremely well. The Diplomatic Service and the domestic Civil Service attract intense competition from graduates. Promotion is also by talent, although I have noticed during the past 30 or 40 years that ministerial favour has rarely hurt the careers of particular civil servants under different Governments. There are some queries about retention, particularly in the Treasury, where I think churn is one-sixth of staff a year. I am still puzzled as to why the Treasury should pay much less than some other departments in Whitehall. Those are the sort of things which some of us are querying inside government.

We still have the principle of a permanent Civil Service, although I think that it would be fair to say—and the noble Lord, Lord Hennessy, will certainly remember—that when we had a large number of temporary civil servants in World War II, many of them turned out to be the great civil servants of the following generation. The idea that one has a permanent Civil Service in which there should be no movement in and out is one with which I think none of us entirely agrees.

There is of course a necessary and continuing constructive tension between Ministers and officials, and between government and Parliament. When I first came into this area as a graduate student studying under Max Beloff at the University of Oxford, the new Labour Government were then deeply suspicious of the conservatism of the Civil Service after 13 years of Conservative Government. Again, in 1974, a Labour Government came in who were suspicious of the conservatism of the Civil Service. When the Conservatives came in from 1979, there was, as the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, remarked, a mood of “Is he one of us? Are they too close to Labour?”. When new Labour came in again in 1997, there was some suspicion that many senior civil servants were too close to the Conservatives. We have now had a coalition from 2010, and some people have natural suspicions that people are too close to the previous regime.

The development of the role of special advisers during the past 25 to 30 years has, in my opinion, helped the relationship between Ministers and officials, although, of course, there are always exceptions to every case. The transformation of government during the past three generations has also changed the challenges posed to Whitehall. We have moved from policy to management, to a very large welfare state and thus to a much greater concentration on delivery, and from local delivery to central control. I note the argument as to how far the Secretary of State for Health should continue to be personally responsible and accountable for actions within the National Health Service across the whole of England. That is an interesting question. If one adopted the principles set out in the very interesting new report by the noble Lord, Lord Heseltine, which proposes a substantial decentralisation of delivery, it would mean that Ministers would be less responsible for delivery on the ground. However, 50 years ago, delivery on the ground was the responsibility mainly of local authorities and not of central government. That is an issue which we will no doubt also continue to discuss.

The sharpness of financial constraints under which the Government are now operating, and they exist not just in the United Kingdom, pose real challenges for all departments of government. Major shifts in skills are needed. Permanent under-secretaries two or three generations ago did not think that they needed strong managerial skills. It is clear that in what we now call “the delivery departments” managerial skills are extremely important. Management of major projects, which the Civil Service reform plan is much concerned with, requires skills which are not always easily available within the Civil Service. We have just set up a major project academy and are well aware of the managerial failures during the previous Government and before in the management of major innovatory projects. Digitisation—which is just beginning to hit the Civil Service—might lead to a total revolution in the entire relationship between the state and the citizen, in which the state moves from paper to a much greater reliance on electronic exchanges, enabling us to have a smaller central state.

There is also the move to formal coalition, in which civil servants have to balance between two parties in government, although that is not entirely novel either. I cherish the senior official who said to me a year ago that this coalition was in many ways working much better than its predecessor because it was a formal coalition, meaning that we had to have argument in the open and in committees, unlike in the coalition between Brownites and the Blairites which had plotted behind closed doors.

There has been a comparable shift in the relationship between the Executive and Parliament: the rise of Select Committees, a far greater seriousness of parliamentary scrutiny and the development of committees in the Lords. As I sit in the Cabinet Office, I hear people talking about “the three key committees” to which the public service now relates; that is, the Public Accounts Committee, the Public Administration Select Committee and the Lords Constitution Committee. That relationship did not concern civil servants very much in the 1970s. I cherish a comment that I came across, on the recommendation of the author of the volume, a couple a weeks ago. It was made by a senior official during an off-the-record conference on open government in the late 1970s. The civil servant said to the journalist concerned that he had a “nightmare” of being subject not just to Parliamentary Questions but to Select Committee inquiries, investigation by the ombudsman, the Equal Opportunities Commission, the Community Relations Commission and an appeal to the European Court of Human Rights. “And now”, he said, “you’re trying to impose freedom of information on us”. He said it was a totally different landscape from that which he had to steer policy through than the terrain he had entered as a young assistant principal in the 1950s. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Hennessy, for that quotation.

We have moved a great deal, without, of course, resolving some of the central tensions within our informal constitution between executive sovereignty or parliamentary sovereignty. All Governments tend to favour executive sovereignty and all Oppositions tend to favour parliamentary sovereignty. I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Hennessy, has taken note and will use in his next volume the wonderful quotation by the noble Lord, Lord Armstrong, that the lines in the sand need to be kept under review. That is as good a definition of our unwritten constitution as one could possibly hope for. It recognises that much of our constitution works on trust. We only go into demands for detailed writing down of rules when trust has broken down.

The Northcote-Trevelyan principles have been retained, but have to be reinterpreted for changing circumstances. I am not involved in great, grand parricide; we are involved in adaptation.

Civil Service morale is not as bad as the FDA report suggests. The Civil Service annual survey provides a much more confident interpretation of the way in which the Civil Service currently sees its role than that which the FDA itself has provided. My own informal conversations with my former students across the Civil Service suggest that morale is still good, although, of course, there are concerns about the rapid changes which are under way.

There is not an atmosphere of hostility to the Civil Service within the current Government. There were one or two temporary officials when the Government came in, but the leading force of hostility has departed to California.

The transformation of Government over the past three generations has taken us a very long way. The Prime Minister in his statement to the Liaison Committee said very clearly:

“I do not want us fundamentally to change the system from ministerial accountability with a permanent civil service”.

But there is scope to consider how we can sharpen accountability and make it more transparent in some areas. The distinction which is made and much contested between accountability and responsibility is part of trying to ensure that Parliament is able to get at a much more complex government machine.

There is a quotation in the report which remarks:

“When Haldane established the constitutional convention that Ministers are accountable to Parliament and civil servants are accountable to Ministers, there were 28 civil servants in the Home Office”.

Today, when one is dealing with a much more complex department, in particular the Home Office, with a number of executive agencies and arm’s-length bodies, Ministers have to retain responsibility and accountability, but, of course, Parliament is entitled to ask some of the heads of those arm’s-length bodies as well to come in and give evidence.

The noble Lord, Lord Armstrong, suggested that Mrs Thatcher had never actually changed the order of the recommendations that were given to her. I can remember, and I will tell him afterwards, at least one occasion on which she did indeed change the order of the recommendations given to her.

I regret that on Action 11 of The Civil Service Reform Plan we have had such a battle in the press about one of the less fundamental issues in Civil Service reform. I do not want us to go back to the situation in which Richard Crossman as Secretary of State and Evelyn Sharp as his Permanent Secretary hated each other and went on nevertheless living with each other. There has to be a relationship between the Secretary of State and the Permanent Secretary which is one of trust and it depends on both of them maintaining that level of trust.

Ministerial turnover has been much reduced since 2010. Permanent Secretary turnover has indeed been higher, although I am informed that one reason for that is that a number of Permanent Secretaries were asked to stay on longer than their original term of office in order to ease the transition between one Government and another. That I believe was passed by the noble Lord, Lord O’Donnell. The Government believe that there has been far too much rapid turnover in the management of major projects. We wish to insist as far as possible that people appointed to manage major projects will spend longer in post. The degree of official churn from one job to another is a matter of concern to many of us. Civil servants move very rapidly from one job to another just at the point when skills have begun to be really well established in that particular post.

On the question of short-term contracts, I do not recognise some of what the press has been saying about this. Let me give one example of a temporary contract with which I am familiar. The Government digital service is concerned to lead on moving towards digital by default. The head of the Government digital service is on a temporary contract. It might be said that he had an unfortunate political background; he was previously developing the Guardian online, but that is not something that can be held against this Government as a political bias. The people I have met from the Government digital service are incredibly good and incredibly professional and have skills which are not easily available within the existing Civil Service. That is exactly the point that we are looking at.

On special advisers, I think that is more a matter to discuss another day. I hope noble Lords are familiar with the Commons Select Committee report on special advisers. Lines of accountability for special advisers are clearly set out in the Ministerial Code and in the code of conduct for special advisers.

On the question of appraisal, again, I compare what I see inside with what I hear from the outside. I have been asked to write appraisals, both on civil servants with whom I have worked particularly closely and on special advisers. I have not yet been asked to write an appraisal on a Minister, but I look forward to that with hope.

The noble Baroness, Lady Tyler, asked about contracting outside advice. This is not entirely novel. The Government have contracted for outside advice over a long period. From the 1980s, when I was director of studies at Chatham House, we had a particular study contracted by the then Department of Trade and Industry, on which we got into a sharp argument between the officials who were trade negotiators and the departmental economists over which of them approved and disapproved of the tenor of our report, which ended up in discussions with the departmental solicitor over whether we were allowed to publish it. Government benefits from outside advice and it is cheaper to ask academics and think tanks than to employ large numbers of outside consultants to provide it.

On the Osmotherly Rules, the Cabinet Office has begun a review of the guidance given to civil servants on providing evidence to Select Committees and it will be liaising with the House of Commons Liaison Committee as part of the review and also with the Lords Constitution Committee. It would not expect there to be any change in the current position, which is that the document is a Government publication and has no formal Parliament standing or approval.

On the question of interviewing named civil servants for evidence for Committees, the presumption again is that Ministers will agree to meet such a request but that civil servants are doing so to contribute to the process of ministerial accountability to Parliament and on behalf of their Ministers.

On the question of responsibilities to Parliament, let me also underline that Parliament itself has some responsibility in return. The noble Baroness, Lady Donaghy, and the noble Lord, Lord Rodgers, talked about the bullying of civil servants by parliamentary committees. That is something which those committees have to take on board very fully. The case of Dr David Kelly is one from which we have all learnt a number of bitter lessons.

The noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Basildon, asked about Ministers answering to Select Committees and I hope I have given her reassurance on that. The Ministers will continue to answer to Select Committees and to be responsible to them. They will also answer for arm’s-length bodies, although others will be allowed to answer as well.

I noted the comments she made about the transparency of the structure of the Civil Service and will take back concerns about the transparency of the website. I do not have an answer on the number of secondments at present but will write to her on that.

Finally, I say to the noble Lord, Lord Hennessy, that rumours of an amendment to the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act 2010 are much exaggerated and that no such rumour has reached my ears. On Action 11, I do not detect the whiff of politicisation that a number of noble Lords have suggested is there. I am reassured to hear that the informal arrangements which have operated across several previous Administrations are not too dissimilar from where we are now and reiterate that this coalition Government retain a high level of confidence in our Civil Service. We are committed to the future of a politically impartial and independent Civil Service and intend to maintain the principles of Northcote-Trevelyan, although necessarily and unavoidably adapted to the present day. I still have confidence in William E Gladstone and the legacy which he left us 160 years ago.