Scotland Bill

My Lords, I have considerable sympathy for this amendment. When I was in the Scottish Office, I was not exactly remiss in trying to push forward my agenda. I suspect that most of the civil servants did not fully share that agenda, but in all the time I was there I was hugely impressed by the professionalism that was shown. It is a pity that the noble Lord, Lord Robertson, is not with us this evening. He once complained about me for politicising the Civil Service because I had issued a press release that contained the phrase ““tartan tax””. When the press release was done—and it was drafted by an official, the head of the communications department, Liz Drummond—and it came to me, I said, ““We cannot say 'tartan tax' in an official press release””. She said, ““No, it is fine””. I asked her to check with the Permanent Secretary, who thought it was fine. The press release went out. George Robertson as he then was complained to the Cabinet Secretary, now the noble Lord, Lord Butler, and a Member of this House. The Cabinet Secretary came to the conclusion that it was political and should not have been put in the press release, and I was given a wigging. The conventions then were that if the Cabinet Secretary or the Permanent Secretary took the view that something was political and not ministerial, you obeyed that view. That is very precious. I have to say that under Labour the information departments were a bit politicised. In the end that was very damaging to government. When I was in the Scottish Office, if the Government said something, the Scottish media—who were not my biggest fan club, I have to say—would believe it if it came from the Scottish information office, but if it came from me they thought that might have some gloss, spin or angle on it, or that some kind of plot was afoot. The moment you allow that line to be crossed, which appears to be happening in the Scottish Government, where the Civil Service is not seen to be, like Caesar's wife, beyond reproach and impartial, ultimately that is very damaging to the process of government. Although it may be attractive in the short term for Mr Salmond and his colleagues to use the Civil Service in this way, in the end it will damage them. The best civil servants are those who turn up at meetings and say, ““You can't do this for these reasons””. They will argue the case, accept a robust argument and give good, impartial advice. I am horrified by some of these stories, although my experience of the Scottish press is that you cannot always take as gospel everything that you read. However, there certainly have been enough examples. The blog which the Permanent Secretary has been running in the Scotland Office is truly extraordinary. One of his blogs advised his civil servants to see a play about an English army occupation in medieval Scotland, which he said speaks to us of our present condition. I do not know what is going on inside his department. Nothing about the condition in Scotland today is equivalent to that. That the Permanent Secretary should be doing that is, as I have said, quite extraordinary and a world apart from the Civil Service as I remember it. It is a very sad thing that the Prime Minister has allowed the head of the Civil Service to be separated from the role of Cabinet Secretary. Having a strong head of the Civil Service as Cabinet Secretary whose job it is to maintain the integrity of the Civil Service system and to resist the inevitable pressures that come from Ministers to push the machine to the limits of what is appropriate, given their political agenda, is an important part of our system and one that is clearly being undermined. As we have seen through the First Minister's conduct towards the judges, he has little respect for conventions. If any of my Ministers had attacked a judge in public—my goodness me, I am sorry that the noble and learned Lord, Lord McCluskey, is not in his place but he gave me plenty of cause to respond at times—we took the view that you do not attack judges and you certainly do not attack them in very strident terms, as the First Minister did. Something is going very wrong with the guidance that has been given to Ministers on how they should conduct themselves in office and the guidance that has been given to senior civil servants. That is important. Whether we end up with an independent Scotland or not, an independent Scotland should maintain that separation. It is absolutely vital to the good governance of Scotland and to the operation of our democratic system. I think that—I nearly said my noble friend—the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, in moving this amendment is drawing attention to something very important. I hope that my noble friend will consider if not adopting this amendment then putting some provisions in the Bill, which after all deals with the powers and responsibilities of the Scottish Parliament, to enable some kind of redress if what we have seen happening in Scotland continues to happen and is not put back on the straight and narrow to ensure that the conduct of the Civil Service is appropriate to its role.