If I may, I wish to speak to Amendment 25 in my name. I begin by drawing attention to my registered interest as chair of the Cambridgeshire Development Forum, which will become more relevant in relation to the later housing, planning and development-related issues than to this first part relating to missions.
In the earlier group, there was a reference to this Bill being more than one Bill. It is in truth three Bills all in one place. When we started out in this, I was reminded of that story about the elephant: “How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.” Let us take it just one bite at a time and try not to eat it all in one go.
I did want to make a point about missions, and I will add to it a little. Amendment 25, to which I speak, was really about trying to explore, with my noble friends on the Front Bench, the Government’s overall attitude to the process of parliamentary scrutiny of their policy priorities. For example, a number of noble Lords will have participated in our recent scrutiny of the Procurement Bill. In the that Bill, now in the other place, the Government included a provision relating to parliamentary scrutiny of the national procurement policy statement, an important statement of the
Government’s priorities. The Government are resisting being told what those priorities should be, but none the less consented in the Bill, in the other place, that it was Parliament’s job, if it did not approve of their priorities, to say so by means of a Motion.
Amendment 25, which is subtly different from Amendment 24 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Stunell, and others, which says that Parliament must approve the statements, is in precisely the same form as the Procurement Bill regarding the scrutiny of the national procurement policy statement, in that the statement will be proceeded with unless either House resolves not to approve it within 40 days. It uses exactly the same terminology; I have simply lifted it from the Procurement Bill.
I want to know, what is the difference? Why, in this respect, do the Government not think it appropriate for Parliament to approve—or, indeed, if it objects, not to approve—of the Government’s executive decisions? They are undoubtedly important. The priorities in the Procurement Bill are terribly important. The missions are terribly important. I cannot understand why one should have this form of scrutiny and the other should not. My first question to my noble friend is: why can we not have the same degree of scrutiny in relation to this statement as the Government are giving us in relation to the national procurement policy statement?
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My second point is that it is an easy argument to say that the missions are not in the Bill. I think it is a wholly incorrect argument. The Executive have determined the missions; it is an executive function to determine the missions. I cannot conceive that we think it would be appropriate for Parliament to impose on a Government a series of missions or metrics to which the Executive did not consent. The noble Baroness on the Opposition Front Bench, if ever the time arrives—we do not expect it any time soon—when she and her colleagues are determining what the missions are, would not want Parliament to tell them what the missions should be; but if they were in the Bill, that would be what Parliament had already done, in a previous Session.
That would mean that in order to substitute the new Administration’s set of missions—10 days after an election, perhaps, if the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, is to be understood; the pace at which she thinks these things are done in government is admirable—she would have to introduce and pass a new Bill, if we entrenched the missions in the Bill. I have my views about what the missions and the metrics should be, but I absolutely do not think it is the job of Parliament to mandate the missions and metrics in legislation and in statute. I think it is for the Government to do that, but it is for us to scrutinise what they choose to put in. That is why I feel strongly about Amendment 25.
While I have the floor, I want to mention a couple of other things. I am very perplexed about the five-year timing for the initial statement. If one thinks about it, it will presumably be true for future statements that the mission period should be
“not … shorter than five years”.
If after a general election, the new Administration chose to issue a new statement, it must be not shorter than five years, which means, by definition, that the
mission period is beyond the subsequent general election. I do not see that as sensible at all. I would have thought it was perfectly sensible to say “four years”, and have the prospect that the mission period and the scrutiny of whether missions have been achieved should be able to be achieved before the subsequent general election and not automatically left to a period beyond it. I know how these things work: saying, “Ah, but the mission period has not finished” is a very easy way out.
The final thing I want to say at this point on the scrutiny of missions is about the reporting process and Ministers of the Crown. I cannot see where there is any indication—and of course, Ministers never do this; they never say, “Well, which Minister?”—but I think it is a fair question to ask. We have missions for which different government departments ought, in truth, to be the lead. The White Paper feels sometimes as if it were written by the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities without necessarily the complete sign-up of other departments to the mission concerned. For example, where innovation, research and development is concerned, which matters a great deal to me, we have a new department and it is clearly that department’s mission to achieve levelling-up in relation to science, research, innovation and the like.
I would say that when we talk about levelling up, the emphasis should be on the word “up”. We have been here before. I remember doing it myself when, in the coalition Government, we talked about the improvement of health and the reduction of health disparities: it is about achieving a rate of growth in innovation, for example, greater in those places where innovation has lagged in the past. The same would be true for productivity—but, in my view, it should not be to the detriment of maximising the level of innovation in places that have comparative advantage.
I come from Cambridgeshire and I live outside Cambridge. If we want to compete in this global arena, we have to take places such as London, Oxford and Cambridge and build on them. We cannot seek to shift activity to other parts of the country in the fond expectation that the rest of the world will say, “Well, that is marvellous. You have diminished the international comparative advantage of Cambridge by locating government research activity somewhere else”. I will come on to that a bit more later. I certainly feel strongly that it is about “up”, not just about “levelling”.
My final point is on this advisory council. We have an advisory council. I am not quite sure I understand what we are trying to achieve by legislating for the fact that the Government have created one. However, though we seem to have one, and we even know who is on it, I cannot for the life of me find out what it has done—apart from Andy Haldane, who is making speeches. That is great, but when has the council met? Do we know what it has looked at? Do we know if it has any view on the metrics and the missions? Does it have any view on progress so far? When will it report and to whom? Shall we see it or shall we not? I would be very grateful if my noble friend—no doubt in resisting the idea of a statutory advisory council—will at least ensure that there is sufficient transparency.
Talking of transparency, the noble Lord, Lord Stunell, quite correctly referred to what the White Paper said about transparency. Included in that section, on page 156, is that
“Policy-making needs to be institutionalised in statute where possible. This provides longevity and consistency, helping boost credibility.”
That seems to lead us precisely in the direction of an amendment such as Amendment 25, where Parliament and the statutory processes would help to institutionalise the missions and the statement that the Government have brought forward. Anything less, I fear, gives Ministers too great a freedom to move from one mission to another and from one priority to another without regard to Parliament. I hope that Amendment 25 will commend itself to my noble friends.