Civil Service

This has been a debate of light and shade. The hon. Member for Cannock Chase (Dr. Wright) captured some of the crucial aspects of the debate. On the one hand, we are debating the future of the civil service—the successor to the Northcote-Trevelyan reforms of 150-plus years ago. However, as the hon. Gentleman said, at the same time it falls to the Opposition to expose, and hold the Government to account for, some of the excesses that we see in the current arrangement. It is not entirely surprising that the speeches today have covered the different aspects of that. It is also not surprising, in a week when Ministers have been called on to the airwaves to give the best possible gloss on the Government's difficulties—our side have had to do that in the past—that the question of presentation and spin has been applied to the administration of the Government and those charged with carrying that out. [Interruption.] I am pleased that the Minister for the Cabinet Office has come back; he has done great service over the weekend, doing his ““Comical Ali”” bit and presenting the best possible gloss on the Government's experiences. Incidentally, I noticed that the Cabinet Office website changed mysteriously on 29 April, two days before the local elections. It said, in bold type, that the No. 1 priority for the Minister was now supporting the Prime Minister. It comes to a pretty pass when the Prime Minister needs to give instructions to his colleagues through their job descriptions. Today's debate has been about three things: spin, waste and incompetence. That is a serious matter. [Interruption.] Ministers may laugh, but the noble Lord Butler's report for the ““Better Government”” initiative pointed to precisely those criticisms and suggested that they should be addressed seriously. We would not expect such words as ““spin””, ““waste”” and ““incompetence”” to be associated with the British civil service, yet this Government have brought the service to such a situation that those words are the subject of debate. I was a special adviser at the Department of Trade and Industry; I declare that interest. As my hon. Friend the Member for New Forest, East (Dr. Lewis) said, in those days there was only one; now there are three special advisers at the successor Department, the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform. Contrary to what the Minister for the Cabinet Office said, John Major limited the number of special advisers to 38; there are now 68 across the Government. A question arises that needs to be answered: why do this Government need to resort to so many more special advisers to do more or less the same job as was done under the previous Conservative Government? The example of my right hon. Friend the Member for Hitchin and Harpenden (Mr. Lilley), who is temporarily absent from the Chamber, has not been followed at all: according to that example, officials, including special advisers, should see their role as giving the most accurate presentation of information and disclosing it in response to a question. Today, however, their role is often to prevent the disclosure of that information.