Lord Hennessy of Nympsfield
Main Page: Lord Hennessy of Nympsfield (Crossbench - Life peer)
Lord Hennessy of Nympsfield (CB)
My Lords, I shall concentrate in this welcome debate on a particular British value admired across the world and cherished, I think, by the bulk of our people; that is, the idea of politically neutral Crown service, a concept which speaks deeply to our national instinct for public service. When I first reported Whitehall as a young journalist 40 years ago, this was little talked about by insiders who assumed, rightly or wrongly, that the virtues of a politically and powerful career Civil Service were better lived than proclaimed. Few felt a need to capture them in code or statute. Perhaps regrettably, this became necessary in the intervening decades as some of the relationships within the governing marriage of Ministers and officials became testy, even scratchy. Yet the old 19th century deal, sculpted by the Northcote-Trevelyan report, is as crucial as ever to our good government: that in return for permanence, career civil servants will speak truth unto power, telling Ministers what they need to know rather than what they might wish to hear.
Public service, defined in this fashion, is a state of mind and therefore not susceptible to the performance indicators that have swept through Whitehall like a rash over the past 30 years. Crown service in all its forms depends upon the survival and the flourishing of such principles: the greatest governing gift of the 19th century to the 20th century and our own. The notion of Crown service in the round is the superglue that should bind all those engaged in the Civil Service, the Diplomatic Service, the secret services and the Armed Forces. All these great professions would be sullied and diminished if a creeping politicisation took hold, and given the constitutional uncertainties we face, possessing a UK-wide Civil Service is critical to keeping our union together. Perhaps it is time, amongst many other constitutional requirements, to refresh our notion of public service and those precious values that bring Crown service life and lustre.