Ministerial Code: Policy Announcements

Lord Young of Cookham Excerpts

Wednesday 30th October 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Twycross (Lab)]

This party and the Government understand our obligations to Parliament and take them extremely seriously, but I note the noble Lord’s points. As the Minister for the Cabinet Office said in the other place, we have heard what the Speaker said, and all Ministers are very clear about their responsibility to the other place and, on this Front Bench, to your Lordships’ House.

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, on Friday, we heard about the fiscal rules from the Chancellor. On Saturday, there was an announcement from the Secretary of State for Education of £1.4 billion for school building. On Monday, the pace accelerated and we heard about the bus fare cap and £240 million to get Britain working. On Tuesday, there was a briefing about the national living wage, and today, even before the Budget, there was an announcement of £3 billion extra for defence. Was this not authorised and centralised briefing from 10 Downing Street?

[Baroness Twycross (Lab)]

My Lords, I repeat that we take our obligations to Parliament seriously. I do not think that most of what was in the Budget was pre-briefed. This Budget makes difficult choices on tax, spending and welfare, with the intention of restoring stability, fixing the foundations and investing in the future of Britain. Importantly, we are delivering on our manifesto, which will protect people’s payslips as income tax, employee national insurance and VAT stay the same but businesses and the wealthiest are asked to pay their fair share. We make no apologies for the content of the Budget and I am very proud of the history of the Labour Party in rebuilding our country; we intend to rebuild it again.

Climate Agenda

Lord Young of Cookham Excerpts

Thursday 24th October 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to be the first to commend the moving and compelling speech of my noble friend, and my former Member of Parliament. How appropriate that it should be made on the subject of climate change where, as we have heard, my noble friend ensured her legacy by making the UK the first major economy to enshrine in law a net-zero carbon target. She also accelerated progress internationally, cementing our credentials as an ambitious and reliable climate change partner. My noble friend is particularly welcome in your Lordships’ House because, as Prime Minister, she responded to the Burns committee report by exercising restraint in new appointments, unlike the generosity of her immediate successor.

Our paths first crossed nearly 30 years ago when Maidenhead Conservatives were choosing a new candidate. My seat in London had been abolished, and I fancied my prospects in this newly created constituency. My family had lived in it for more than 200 years, my wife had been on the local council, my children had been to the local comprehensive and I was in the Cabinet. The selection committee threw me out in the first round and chose instead an unknown councillor from Merton.

My noble friend became a great local MP, dominating the pages of the Maidenhead Advertiser every Friday and surprising constituents between elections by knocking on their doors on a Saturday morning to ask what they thought of the train service to Paddington. She did that even when she was Prime Minister. No cause was too small to generate her support—literally, as she came to Cookham last year to celebrate the return of the water vole to the banks of the River Thames.

My noble friend was on the Front Bench from 2001, becoming the longest-serving Home Secretary for 60 years and then becoming leader and Prime Minister in 2016, without the necessity of asking party members—not the most reliable of electorates. She generously invited me to join her Administration and retained my services throughout, unlike her predecessor who sacked me not once but twice.

My noble friend led the country with patience at a time of maximum turbulence in her party at the other end, which treated her badly. In retrospect, Parliament should have backed her proposals on Brexit, as the country would have had a better deal than the one we ended up with.

Along with the net-zero commitments, my noble friend will be remembered for the Modern Slavery Act. She is pursuing that cause by leading the Global Commission on Modern Slavery & Human Trafficking, focusing on the impact of climate change on population movement.

Throughout her public life, my noble friend has demonstrated decency, integrity, courage and selflessness. Before we heard of the Nolan principles, she embodied them. In her book The Abuse of Power, she poses this question: “Does politics attract people who yearn for power, rather than for the opportunity to serve?”. For my noble friend, there is no shadow of doubt about the answer. We warmly welcome her to the House and look forward to her future contributions.

Turning to my noble friend Lord Lilley’s Motion, I will make just one point as I have used most of my available time. My noble friend invites us to take note of

“the impact of His Majesty’s Government’s climate agenda on jobs, growth and prosperity”,

but he is choosing his own criteria. Without pressing the analogy too closely, but just to make a point, what would have been the reaction of your Lordships if, 80 years ago in 1944, my noble friend had asked what was the impact on jobs, growth and prosperity of World War II? The answer then would have been that, while those issues were important, there was an overriding priority.

Of course, climate change is not about saving freedom and democracy, but the Prime Minister and others, including in this debate, have described it as an existential threat. It follows that taking steps to avoid that threat would push the criteria my noble friend has chosen down the agenda. To that extent, they are of course important but secondary. The primary question should be: how effective is the Government’s agenda in averting climate change?

My noble friend may not accept that there is an existential threat, and others will argue this case better than I can, but my view is that we are approaching a number of tipping points that would adversely affect the world in which we live, with consequences for the air we breathe, global warming, rising sea levels, droughts, mass migration and the rest. So, forced to choose between my noble friends Lord Lilley and Lady May, my noble friend Lady May once again has my vote.

Permanent Secretaries: Appointment and Removal (Constitution Committee Report)

Lord Young of Cookham Excerpts

Thursday 9th May 2024 Grand Committee

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Stuart, who brings a unique perspective on this subject. I am grateful to the committee for its report and to the noble Baroness, Lady Drake, for her thoughtful introduction to the debate.

Despite what my noble friend Lord Maude said, I hesitated before putting my name down for this debate—because I was not on the committee, I am not a former Cabinet Secretary, I am not the First Civil Service Commissioner, I am not a Front-Bench spokesman, I have never been involved with Civil Service reform and I am not a professor of government. However, during a career with a number of discontinuities, I served with 12 different Permanent Secretaries, all of whom were of the highest calibre. In a sense, that should not be a matter of good fortune, because you do not become a Permanent Secretary unless on the way up you have had good working relationships with a range of Ministers and other colleagues. I had much more trouble with spads than with Permanent Secretaries.

What concerns me is the trend over the last 30 years increasingly to politicise the Civil Service and to compromise its independence. Both parties—indeed, all three of the main parties—have been complicit in this. That should not be confused with attempts to modernise the Civil Service or strengthen it by bringing in people from outside to reinforce subjects where it may lack the necessary skills. I hope that, at some point, we might debate my noble friend Lord Maude’s excellent Independent Review of Governance and Accountability in the Civil Service, which aims to remove some of the tensions in the system that we have been talking about and to improve the outcomes.

What prompted this inquiry was the dismissal of Sir Tom Scholar from the Treasury, but this was the culmination of a trend that has been going on for some time under both Governments. I go back to 1997, when for the first time Orders in Council gave political aides powers to direct civil servants—powers normally reserved to Ministers. More information on what happened in the Blair Government can be found in Ian Beesley’s book, The Official History of the Cabinet Secretaries. For example, he tells us that Wilson—then Sir Richard, now the noble Lord, Lord Wilson—wrote to Blair:

“Do not try to use the policy unit to run the government; do not attempt to divorce permanent secretaries from their Cabinet ministers; do not be tempted by Napoleonic models, shifting resources ... from the Cabinet Office to No 10”.


Robert Armstrong was quoted in the Spectator in February 2002 as having said this:

“I am worried about the politicisation of the civil service. It is a particular problem in Downing Street”.


Dominic Lawson, perhaps a more partial commentator, wrote in February 2006:

“So the heads of our Civil Service departments do nothing to restrain Mr Blair and his colleagues from one hare-brained ‘eye-catching initiative’ after another. They have become merely a conveyor belt for political whims, having ceased to be public servants in the truest sense”.


We also saw the use of the government information service as a political weapon, a practice followed by the coalition and Conservative Governments, who gave sympathetic newspapers exclusive previews, frequently sidelining the clear guidance in the Cabinet Manual that:

“When Parliament is in session the most important announcements of government policy should, in the first instance, be made to Parliament”.


More recently, this Government have not had an unblemished record, with the controversial departures of Jonathan Slater at the DfE, Philip Rutnam at the Home Office, and the noble Lord, Lord Sedwill. As the noble Baroness, Lady Drake, mentioned, the arrival of Dominic Cummings poisoned this particular well; he made it clear that he had no time for Permanent Secretaries, and civil servants will remember his “hard rain” speech.

However, to my mind, the summary dismissal of Tom Scholar was an infringement of a totally different order: a direct challenge to the independence of the Civil Service and to the principle that Ministers cannot sack civil servants—we are not their employer. No specific reason was ever given for his departure. As the noble Baroness, Lady Drake, said, we know from the Cabinet Secretary that there was no question of poor performance, and we know from the noble Lord, Lord Macpherson, that it was not about political views. He said:

“I have worked with Tom for about 25 years, and to this day I have no idea what his political views are”.


The statement by the then Chancellor sheds no light at all. His bland statement ended,

“he leaves the Civil Service with the highest distinction”.

Tom Scholar himself said:

“The Chancellor decided it was time for new leadership at the Treasury, and so I will be leaving with immediate effect”.


But the new leadership at the Treasury was Kwasi Kwarteng. If he wanted to change the direction of economic policy, that is the one thing at which the Civil Service excels—and on which it may shortly be tested again if it has to alter policy to reflect a new Administration.

When questions were asked as to what had happened, the then Exchequer Secretary said in an Answer to a PQ:

“It is long-standing Government policy not to comment on individual personnel matters”.


There may have been good reasons why the committee did not get oral or written evidence from either Tom Scholar or indeed the then Chancellor, so we may never know what happened.

The Times came to its own conclusion, publishing on 14 September 2022 a letter that read:

“The sad fact is that in sacking Sir Tom Scholar, one of the ablest civil servants of his generation, the prime minister and chancellor have sent a clear message to the civil service that they are not interested in impartial advice and intend to surround themselves with ‘yes’ men and women. That is a sure route to bad decision-making and weak government. It is also another small step on the road to politicising the civil service”.


The Financial Times went a bit further. It said:

“Truss had pledged war against so-called Treasury orthodoxy and ‘abacus economics’, of which Scholar was a totem after six years at the head of the department”.


Against that background, I wonder whether the conclusions of the committee were robust enough. In paragraph 131 it concluded:

“Under no circumstances should civil servants be dismissed on purely political or ideological grounds”.


But that is exactly what happened. On page 5 it concluded:

“We do not consider the small number of recent high-profile removals of senior civil servants on what appeared to be political or ideological grounds to amount to a trend”.


I hope that it is right, but we need to build in better safeguards than we have at the moment, as the committee recognised.

In conclusion, I am always interested in what my noble friend the Minister has to say, but at this point in the electoral cycle, I will also pay particular attention to what the Opposition spokesperson says.

Cabinet Manual

Lord Young of Cookham Excerpts

Monday 25th March 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

My Lords, previous debates in this House on the Cabinet Manual, and indeed on other issues, have demonstrated the importance of the manual, as the noble Viscount suggests, both for those working in government and those outside seeking to get a better understanding. As I said in good faith the last time he asked me this Question, the Government are considering options on timing and content in the light of these debates, but ultimately, this is a matter for the Cabinet Secretary and the Prime Minister of the day.

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, my noble friend will know that key elements of the recent Budget appeared in the press long before the Chancellor addressed the other place. Was this because our journalists are fantastic mind-readers, or should we revisit paragraph 5.15 of the Cabinet Manual, which says:

“When Parliament is in session the most important announcements of government policy should, in the first instance, be made in Parliament”?

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

My noble friend makes an interesting point.

Minister for Disabled People

Lord Young of Cookham Excerpts

Tuesday 19th December 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

The noble Baroness may be right: perhaps Ministers do move around more than is ideal on occasions. I was delighted to discover that I was not moving in the last reshuffle and can continue. The key thing is to focus on the work in hand, and I believe Mims Davies will do that, with support from across the Cabinet.

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, was not one of the greatest Ministers for the Disabled the late Alf Morris, and was he not a Parliamentary Under-Secretary?

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

I thank my noble friend. I also mention my noble friend Lord Hague, who in the 1990s took through Parliament some ground-breaking legislation on the disabled that has changed the infrastructure of the UK. Those of us who were in business found it quite challenging at the time—I see noble Lords around the House nodding—but it has had a beneficial effect across the UK economy.

Rt Hon Dominic Raab MP: Resignation Letter

Lord Young of Cookham Excerpts

Thursday 27th April 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

I should point out that in his letter, Dominic Raab, who did some good things as a Secretary of State, said:

“I am genuinely sorry for any unintended stress or offence that any officials felt”.


An independent adviser, Mr Tolley, was asked to conduct the inquiry because at that time there was no ethics adviser, as the noble Baroness knows. Sir Laurie Magnus has since been appointed. He can initiate, but he has to get the approval of the Prime Minister. As we discussed on Tuesday, the arrangements have been changed and the process shows that, where there is need for an inquiry, an inquiry takes place.

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, looking around, I see many noble Lords who have had more successful ministerial experiences than mine, but none who lasted 21 years. My experience is that you do not get the best out of civil servants by shouting at them. There is no organised conspiracy to frustrate the will of Ministers, but some Ministers may see as obstruction civil servants doing their job by pointing out the adverse consequences of certain policy options. If we have a review of the complaints procedure, can we debate it in this House so the plethora of ex-Ministers, ex-civil servants and others can contribute to that review?

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

I think almost no Secretary of State has been as successful as my noble friend, and he has helped here as well by joining the Front Bench. What we debate in this House is a matter for the usual channels, but we are getting on and work is under way on the complaints process.

Infected Blood Inquiry

Lord Young of Cookham Excerpts

Tuesday 20th December 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, I declare an interest: I was a Health Minister 43 years ago and am someone who has been told that they may be a potential witness in this inquiry.

Along with those who have served in another place, we have all met those who have suffered from these tragic errors and waited so long. We want to see an early resolution. I urge my noble friend the Minister to give sympathetic consideration to the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Allan, following up the recommendation from Sir Robert Francis, that there should be an arm’s-length body to administer compensation with independence of judgment and accountability to Parliament. That seems to be a crucial factor in maintaining confidence in the system.

Finally, are there some lessons to be learned by government from this tragedy? The fatal errors were made in the 1980s, the inquiry was established in 2017, it will be 2023 before we get the final recommendations, and then there will be payments. Are there lessons to be learned about the sheer timescale of the inquiry in order to minimise the distress that will be caused in future?

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

I thank my noble friend. I think I have said probably as much as I can about having an arm’s-length body, but clearly it is helpful to have Sir Robert’s advice on this important matter. No options are ruled out, and that is certainly one of the recommendations that we are looking at very seriously.

Independence in making sure that everybody gets the compensation they need and ensuring trust in the system are lessons that need to be learned. I like my noble friend’s challenge that we always need to learn lessons from mistakes that are made in government; coming from another world, it is something that I always try to do. Across all parties, we have been slow to take grip of this awful issue.

Having said that, it was the Conservative Government who set up the inquiry into infected blood in 2017. We then commissioned Sir Robert Francis to do a compensation study. The force of that study led Sir Brian—they are both involved in this; they work together—to recommend, on 29 July 2022, that an interim payment should be made. By October, we had paid that interim payment to all those he recommended should receive it. We have also ensured that it is exempt from tax and disregarded for benefits.

Houses of Parliament: Co-location

Lord Young of Cookham Excerpts

Thursday 16th June 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Southwark. I hope that he and his colleague, the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of London, will continue to care for the spiritual health of your Lordships as we remain in the capital. I join others in complimenting my noble friend Lord Norton on his choice of subject, his introductory speech, and his tireless campaign to promote the effective working of your Lordships’ House and, in particular, to prevent us being physically separated against our wishes from our partner down the corridor—a no-fault divorce if there ever was one.

The issue of R&R came up at the Members’ forum last week. These are very welcome initiatives and I hope that more will be held. However, it put the issue before us in perspective. Andy Helliwell made it clear that although the issue of where the House of Lords moves to was important, it was not holding up progress on R&R; it was not on the critical path. Therefore, there is time for us to persuade the Government to think again about their proposals.

Although I am complimentary about the Members’ forum, I am less enthusiastic about the Joint Statement from the two commissions, which was published on Tuesday, purporting to set out the next steps on R&R. I read it twice and confess that I was no wiser at the end, and that I was puzzled by the jargon that was used, such as this:

“The Panel recommends that the parameters ‘should be augmented by clear evaluation criteria’ which are designed to support option assessment, and key trade-offs which will need to be made to arrive at a progressively shorter list of possible options for the works. These criteria should take account of longer-term perspectives and link to the programme’s end-state vision and intended outcomes.”

[Noble Lords]

Oh!

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

Quite so.

Turning to our future location, in his Written Answer to a Question from me on 30 May asking why the QEII Centre was not suitable, referred to by the right reverend Prelate, my noble friend Lord Greenhalgh offered no reason why it was not suitable, but the first and last sentence of his reply were that:

“Levelling Up is central to the Government’s mission and the Government would welcome the House of Lords playing a leading role in that effort…. For this reason, the Secretary of State cannot support the use of the QEII Conference Centre, a location in the heart of Westminster, as a decant location for the House of Lords.”


I have two questions arising from this. Is that a statement of government policy, carrying collective agreement, including that of the Leader of the House and my noble friend the Minister, or was it just the personal view of the current Secretary of State, which might not have gone through the normal process of Whitehall clearance, and which might well be altered if it did?

Secondly, if the Secretary of State has his way, £10 million of abortive expenditure will have been incurred. Which unhappy accounting officer will be hauled before the NAO and the PAC to explain this? If it comes off the Parliament vote, will it be reimbursed by the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities? Has there been a direction from the Secretary of State that feasibility work on moving to the QEII Centre should stop?

I notice that it is not proposed that the other place should join us in this exodus. If relocation of your Lordships’ House elsewhere would have a leading role to play in delivering the levelling-up agenda, as the Secretary of State asserts, would not that impetus be magnified several times over if we were to be joined by the other place? Sauce for the ermined goose is surely sauce for the plebian gander. R&R can proceed only with the agreement of both Houses. As we have discovered over the past eight years, getting that agreement is difficult. It is made more difficult, unnecessarily so, if there is a pre-emptive strike on options by one party to the discomfiture of the other. One lesson from the events of last month is that there should be no more of it.

In considering the proposition that we should move out of London while the other place remains here, I am reminded of the sketch in which Peter Cook is holding auditions for the role of Tarzan in a film and Dudley Moore hops on to the stage, clearly, in the words of Peter Cook, a “unidexter”, for the role conventionally played by a biped. Having complimented Dudley Moore on his residual leg, Peter Cook then says:

“I’ve got nothing against your right leg. The trouble is, neither have you”.


So it would be under the Government’s proposals: the country’s legislative Tarzan—Parliament—would be unable to play its role effectively, shorn of one limb. In the words of Peter Cook, next candidate, please.

Independent Adviser on Ministers’ Interests

Lord Young of Cookham Excerpts

Thursday 16th June 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, I join noble Lords in paying tribute to the work of the noble Lord, Lord Geidt, and I welcome the changes that my noble friend referred to in his answer to my question last week. Reverting to the question posed by the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, and my noble friend Lord Hailsham, can my noble friend confirm that the only reason the Prime Minister would exercise a veto on a forthcoming investigation would be reasons of national security and no other reason?

[Lord True (Con)]

My Lords, I cannot be drawn on that. I gave an example. I also stated—the Government have stated it repeatedly—that the normal expectation would be the course that the noble Lord favours. This role has been strengthened very recently and those changes were discussed with the noble Lord, Lord Geidt. They have been agreed and found to be workable and, as I said, in the light of the events and the PACAC meeting, further careful consideration of how best to proceed will be undertaken.

Upholding Standards in Public Life

Lord Young of Cookham Excerpts

Wednesday 8th June 2022 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Young of Cookham]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government when they will respond to the recommendations made by the Committee on Standards in Public Life in its report Upholding Standards in Public Life, published on 1 November 2021; and in particular, the recommendations on the Ministerial Code and the Independent Adviser on Ministers’ Interests.

[The Minister of State, Cabinet Office (Lord True) (Con)]

My Lords, the Government have responded to recommendations on the code. They have made important changes to strengthen the Ministerial Code and the role of the independent adviser on ministerial interests, including an enhanced process for the independent adviser to initiate investigations and new detail on proportionate sanctions for a breach of the code.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

I am grateful to my noble friend. Does he recall that in its report in November last year, the Committee on Standards in Public Life said that the

“government needs to take a more formal … approach to its own ethics obligations”?

Does he agree that recent events have underlined the importance of the Prime Minister securing the public trust expected of holders of that high office? Will he encourage the Prime Minister to respond constructively to the remaining 25 recommendations that have not been addressed? Will he ask the Prime Minister to reconsider his decision to have a veto on investigations launched by the independent adviser?

[Lord True (Con)]

My Lords, in making the changes I have referred to, the Government carefully considered the recommendations made by the committee on those matters in the Upholding Standards in Public Life report, which was published only six months ago, alongside consulting the noble Lord, Lord Geidt. The Government are considering the other matters and will issue a response to the committee’s other recommendations in due course.