HC Deb 24 January 1967 vol 739 cc1267-8
Q10. Mr. Strauss

asked the Prime Minister what is his policy regarding the implementation of the proposals for the reform of the Civil Service made to the Fulton Committee by the Executive of the Labour Party.

Mr. M. Stewart

I have been asked to reply.

The Government's policy on all these matters will be formed in the light of the Committee's report which my right hon. Friend hopes to receive at about the end of the year.

Mr. Strauss

Is my right hon. Friend aware that evidence submitted by the National Executive of the Labour Party contains a grave accusation against civil servants which is much resented, because the Prime Minister and some of his Cabinet colleagues are members of the National Executive. Will my right hon. Friend ask the Prime Minister to dissociate himself and his colleagues from the offensive suggestion that civil servants often deliberately conceal their activities from Ministers?

Mr. Stewart

I think that my right hon. Friend the Member for Vauxhall (Mr. Strauss) is overstating the case, but in fact the Prime Minister made it clear in a television interview recently that he did not share the view that was put forward in that evidence.

Mr. Hastings

Has the right hon. Gentleman the First Secretary read the comments of civil servants about the Leader of the House as reported in the Sunday Telegraph.

Mr. Stewart

I sometimes think that those who claim to know the views of unnamed civil servants are really the equivalent of the astrology columns one finds in the less pretentious newspapers.