MACHINERY OF GOVERNMENT AND DEPARTMENTAL RESPONSIBILITIES (Hansard, 13 October 1969)

§ The Prime Minister (Mr. Harold Wilson)
With permission, Mr. Speaker, I wish to make a statement.
As the House knows, I announced a few days ago certain changes in the machinery of government and departmental responsibilities, and I am taking this first opportunity of informing the House about them.
There are two main areas where the responsibilities affecting a number of Departments are concentrated under a senior Minister, following the principle which has already been applied in the fields of defence, overseas affairs and social security.
In the industrial field a great deal more responsibility will now be concentrated under the Minister of Technology. He will take over the duties of the Minister of Power, and, subject to the approval by Parliament of an Order which is being laid today, the two Ministries will become a single Department. The Ministry will also take over from the Board of Trade responsibility for the remaining principal manufacturing industries of which the Board of Trade has been the sponsoring Department. The expanded Ministry will also take over the responsibilities of the Department of Economic Affairs in the field of industrial policy, including the statutory responsibility for the Industrial Reorganisation Corporation.
The responsibility for the distribution of industry, including industrial development certificates, advance factories, industrial estates in development areas, building grants and loans will also pass from the Board of Trade to the Ministry of Technology, as will the responsibility for paying investment grants to industry.
This change means that the same Department, a sponsoring Department, dealing with the greater part of private and public industry, will also be responsible for executive decisions concerning the location of industry.
As a result of these changes, the same Ministry will now be responsible for electricity generation as well as nuclear power and the electrical plant industries, for gas and oil as well as chemicals, for 32 the steel using industries as well as for the production of steel, for the whole range of mineral development, for textiles as well as textile machinery.
With the transfer of many industrial functions from the Board of Trade to the Ministry of Technology, the Board will concentrate the greater part of its energies on overseas trade and export promotion including a considerable proportion of the sectors responsible for invisible earnings. In addition to its responsibilities for external commercial policy—including tariff policy—and export policy and services the Board of Trade will remain responsible for civil aviation, shipping, tourism, hotels and insurance.
On the home side, its work will be primarily related to commerce, including the administration of the insurance and Companies Acts, patents and copyright. It will continue to be responsible for consumer protection, for the distributive and service trades, including retail distribution, for newspapers, printing, publishing and films, these being more in the field of communications than in industries as normally conceived. My right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade and my noble Friend the Minister of State will be able to spend more of their time in direct contact on exports with industry throughout the regions, in addition to promoting the sales of British exports overseas. The regional export organisation will be strengthened.
I shall continue to take the chair at meetings of N.E.D.C. and, following the disappearance of the D.E.A., the responsibility for N.E.D.C. in connection with the agenda and consultations thereon with industry, and also the vote and establishment of the National Economic Development Office, will be in the Cabinet Office.
Certain other aspects of the change in responsibilities will be set out in the statement, which, with permission, I will circulate in the OFFICIAL REPORT. This deals with the question of extractive industries, certain aspects of the work of N.E.D.C., and with the transfer of a number of productivity services from the Board of Trade to the Department of Employment and Productivity.
The other area of government where a concentration of responsibilities is taking place lies in the field of housing, local government, regional planning, land use, 33 transport and the environment generally. This will be particularly important in connection with the consultations on the Redcliffe-Maud Report, and the work which will follow those consultations. The House will, I think, have drawn from the Maud Report the clear conclusion that in the modern world the work of local government and the range of decisions concerned with planning, land use and transport, social and environmental development cannot, in practice, be separated. A Secretary of State for Local Government and Regional Planning has, therefore, been appointed. He will have working under his general direction the existing Ministers of Housing and Local Government, and Transport. My right hon. Friend will take personal charge of the local government negotiations, following the Redcliffe-Maud. Report.
My right hon. Friend, assisted by my hon. Friend the former Minister of State for the Department of Economic Affairs, will be responsible for the Government's regional policy as a whole, taking over the work in this field previously carried out by the Department of Economic Affairs, including responsibility for the Regional Economic Planning Boards and Economic Planning Councils, as well as the follow-up to the Maud recommendations for greated devolution to the regions. My hon. Friend the Minister of State will act, in particular, as Minister concerned with Northern Region affairs with direct responsibility to the Secretary of State.
To an increasing extent, as the House knows, the work, reports and plans of the Regional Economic Planning Councils are not confined to purely economic development, but are concerned with transport planning and social development, urban renewal, the removal of pit heaps and other amenity questions covering the wide range of environmental problems.
I have asked the new Secretary of State to go urgently into the question of environmental pollution in all its forms and to make proposals to me on how this should be dealt with, including any changes he may feel it right to recommend in the machinery of government or the law. His responsibilities, of course, extend only to England, but in this matter of pollution he will, of course, make his recommendations in consultation with the 34 Secretaries of State for Scotland and for Wales, who will retain all their present responsibilities and statutory functions.
The House will be aware that for the time being the existing Ministries of Housing and Local Government and Transport will continue, with the same statutory functions, but working under the general direction of the Secretary of State. I have, however, asked him to report to me on the changes which, in his view, should be made at a later date with a view to creating a more integrated Department.
The House will be further aware that with the appointment of my hon. Friend the former Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Education and Science, as Minister of State in Housing and Local Government, the very valuable work he has been doing on sport, local and national, will now pass, with him, to the Ministry of Housing and Local Government, which, I feel, is now the right place for these duties to be exercised.
The other change in Ministerial responsibilities which I should report to the House is that my right hon. Friend the former Minister without Portfolio, now Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, moves to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, where he will be the deputy to my right hon. Friend the Foreign and Commonwealth Secretary over the whole range of duties of that Office. In addition, he will take personal charge under the Foreign and Commonwealth Secretary on all questions affecting relations with Europe, including the conduct of negotiations with the European Communities.
The draft Order in Council providing for the formal merger of the Ministries of Technology and Power and certain other transfers of functions in the industrial and economic field is being laid today, and will require prior parliamentary approval. A separate Transfer of Functions Order relating to statutory responsibilities for sport will be laid before the House shortly. As the House knows, this will be subject to the negative Resolution procedure.
These changes in Ministerial responsibilities will involve some alterations in the arrangements for answering Questions in this House.
35 Where the changes in responsibility have not required parliamentary approval interim arrangements for the remainder of this Session have already been made after discussions through the usual channels. Discussions will be held about the roster for the new Session.

§ Mr. Heath
The changes which the Prime Minister has announced are, of course, complicated and far-reaching. We should like to consider the statement which will be published in the OFFICIAL REPORT and also to take time to debate them in the House. I therefore confine myself to three questions now.
First, on the question of the changes for the Board of Trade and the Department of Technology. Is not this the first occasion on which the home and overseas aspects of British industry have been separated? Is this not an important change to make, because one of the advantages we have always had in the governmental organisation is that trading activities of industry which may demand overseas tariff negotiations of great importance, and home aspects of industry which may result in heavy protectionist pressures, have been handled together by the Board of Trade? Now they are to be separated, with the possibility of conflict such as we have seen in other governmental administrations becoming very evident.
Secondly, on the arrangement for the Ministry of Housing and Local Government and the Ministry of Transport—I do not comment on the fact that there are two separate Departments with an overlord arrangement for the time being—is not this the first occasion on which responsibility for economic policy in the regions is to be transferred to local government, with heavy emphasis on land use and local government facilities instead of on the economic aspects of regional development? Again, this is a major decision which certainly wants very careful consideration by the House as it has been given careful consideration by previous Administrations.
The third question is on the abolition of the Department of Economic Affairs. Naturally, the Prime Minister will recognise that we welcome this. He himself will recall that less than a year ago in this House, on 21st November last, he said that the creation of this Department was 36 right, continued to be right, and was a permanent, continuing and essential part of the machinery of modern government. Perhaps the Prime Minister could now explain what has happened since last November to make it an inessential, nonpermanent part of government, to be abolished?

§ The Prime Minister
The right hon. Gentleman is correct in saying that this announcement raises a very wide subject and he is right, of course, in saying that the House will have an opportunity to debate some of these issues on the draft Order which is being laid today.
Taking the right hon. Gentleman's three points, first, on the transfer of certain functions from the Board of Trade to the Ministry of Technology, progressively over a period of time more and more industries in the sponsorship responsibility have been transferred away from the Board of Trade despite the Board of Trade's responsibility for the creation of conditions in which exports can be achieved. Most of the engineering industries, for example, shipbuilding and others, have been under the Ministry of Technology now for several years. It is true that it is separate from the Board of Trade's responsibility for exports, but the right hon. Gentleman will not, I think, feel that in the light of the figures for exports, published recently, that exports have suffered as a result of that Ministry helping to modernise some of these industries.
On the regional development point, I felt that it was right—it is a debatable point—that the Department responsible for sponsorship of industries and dealing every day with the motor car industry and engineering industry should be the one with executive functions of managing distribution of industry policy. These decisions by ex-Presidents of the Board of Trade—and we both have held that office—are not taken lightly. The right hon. Gentleman seems a little concerned about the fact that the Secretary of State for Local Government and Regional Planning will now be concerned more directly with location of industry and will not also be administering I.D.C.'s or doing the executive function, but I think it right. It surely follows from the Maud Report and all our studies on regional development that all these questions—land use, transport, housing, environment and amenities—should be 37 in the area which determines the precise location of new industries.
In regard to the D.E.A., there has always been some little disagreement between the right hon. Gentleman and me, but I think that he has always failed to show the customary generosity that he usually displays on other questions to a Department which has tackled a lot of problems which he left undone five years ago. For example, he himself fought hard in two Parliaments and one election against the establishment of the I.R.C. which was one of the creations of the D.E.A.
Of course, without the I.R.C. we would not be getting the kind of export deals we are getting today. [An HON. MEMBER: "Ask industry."] Industry knows it perfectly well. Hon. Members opposite should talk to some of the top industrialists on the I.R.C. who regard it as doing a useful job. They know what has been achieved in our principal export industries—industrialists whom the right hon. Gentleman never bothered to consult on these matters at all.
One of the great achievements of the D.E.A. has also been its regional work, including the establishment [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh!"]—perhaps I might be allowed to finish this by saying—including the establishment of regional economic boards and planning councils which the right hon. Gentleman's Administration never bothered to set up. After their 13 years in office we did not have these vitally important bodies. In the new situation, post-Maud, this work is more appropriate to the Secretary of State and once the regional work of D.E.A. has gone to the Secretary of State, there is the strongest case for concentrating the industrial work in technology. Everything I said on 21st November about D.E.A. functions will now continue in a strengthened form.

§ Mr. Thorpe
Since the newly-announced Ministry of Technology will have an enormous number of new responsibilities and perhaps as many as 30,000 non-industrial civil servants, and since it is the experience of this House that the larger the Ministry the greater the need for parliamentary control, will the Prime Minister confirm that the terms of reference of the Select Committee on Science and Technology are sufficient to 38 cover every aspect within the remit of the new Ministry? Secondly, in view of the necessity for a real debate on Redcliffe-Maud and Wheatley, will the Prime Minister consider setting up a similar Select Committee to cover responsibilities of the new Ministries of Housing and Local Government and Regional Planning?

§ The Prime Minister
I will look at the question of Select Committees. I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman but he knows that the Select Committee on Science and Technology is not related to a particular Department. It has responsibility in addition to technology for scientific functions in the Department of Education and Science.
With regard to the question of the Ministry of Power, which now, subject to approval by Parliament, is to be amalgamated with Technology, there is another Select Committee operating in that field, the Select Committee on Nationalised Industries. Again, its functions could go beyond the Ministry of Power field. This could well be discussed through the usual channels when we consider not only the question of Parliamentary Questions, but also other parliamentary aspects.

§ Mr. Shinwell
Does my right hon. Friend agree that the structural adjustments have led to changes in Government personnel? In view of the changes, are we to understand that in any future Labour Government anybody over the age of 60 need not apply? Does not he realise this causes me great distress?

§ The Prime Minister
My right hon. Friend will understand that these positions are not filled on the basis of applications. There are always distinguished exceptions. One thing which worries me about my increasingly youthful right hon. Friend is that he seems to have given notice somewhere that he will not he a Member of the House in the next Parliament, and that rather cramps my style for the 1970s.

§ Mr. Dickens
In view of the well-founded suspicions which some of us unrepentant expansionists have about the effect of the dead hand of the Treasury on British economic policy, would my right hon. Friend make clear the responsibilities of the Ministry of Technology 39 on such crucial questions as the rate of economic expansion, the rate of investment in the public and private sectors and in generally encouraging economic policies designed to restore full employment in this country?

§ The Prime Minister
My hon. Friend, who has expressed anxieties about this matter in the past, will be happy to see the figures which show that not only exports and the balance of payments surplus are increasing, but that industrial production and industrial investment are increasing, despite some of his forebodings to the contrary.
As the House knows, the rate of industrial expansion which we can achieve in this country depends on our success in exports and in productivity. The enlarged Ministry of Technology will have still more responsibilities to achieve that increased export-led growth because it will be covering a wider field of industry and will be able to take decisions more directly with less need for consultation with other Departments.

§ Mr. Boyd-Carpenter
Can the Prime Minister say which responsibilities of the Department of Economic Affairs will revert to the Treasury and how many of the staff will go back to the Treasury? Does he now accept that it was always a mistake to seek to divide departmental responsibility from economic policy?

§ The Prime Minister
There is a very clear and heavy responsibility on the Treasury and on my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who must be the Minister responsible for the general conduct of financial and economic policy. He has vast responsibilities in monetary control, public expenditure, taxation, the foreign balance and the rest, but his job, and the job of any Chancellor, is made a great deal easier if there is a really vigorous Department for industry which helps to create the conditions in which our balance of payments can improve. I therefore do not accept the right hon. Gentleman's general conclusion.
With regard to the reversion of functions from the Department of Economic Affairs to the Treasury, the right hon. Gentleman will no doubt have seen the statement issued from 10 Downing Street eight days ago, which will be repeated 40 in the more detailed statement I am, with permission, circulating in the OFFICIAL REPORT, which relates mainly to medium- and long-term forecasting and certain functions for the co-ordination of departmental work in relation to N.E.D.C.

§ Mr. Rankin
Would my right hon. Friend agree that one way of testing the efficiency of a renovated machine is to see how it works? Can he guarantee that we shall have sufficient time to see how this machine works?

§ The Prime Minister
Yes, Sir. Any change in the machinery of government, any attempt to restructure industry, in many cases takes two or three years. Certainly industrial reorganisation does. My hon. Friend will have plenty of opportunity to see how this works under successive Labour Governments.

§ Dame Irene Ward
In view of this remuddle, may I ask what advantage the Tyne will have since at present it is being battered to death by this dotty Government?

§ The Prime Minister
I am very sorry if the hon. Lady is still remuddled. I do not think that she has ever very clearly understood what has been done for shipbuilding on the Tyne. Perhaps she will call on her memory to discover how many years she has to go back in history to find the Tyne shipbuilding industry thriving as it is today.

§ Mr. Blenkinsop
Would my right hon. Friend agree that it is vitally necessary, especially in the development areas, to have the closest possible link between land use planning and economic industrial planning? Now that the Department of Economic Affairs has gone out of existence, who will be responsible for the link between the two?

§ The Prime Minister
My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State. I agree with my hon. Friend about the close link which is necessary, and that is one of the reasons for these changes.

§ Sir H. Legge-Bourke
Referring to the responsibilities for pollution which have been given to the Secretary of State for Local Government and Regional Planning, would the Prime Minister say what is to happen to the Natural Environment Research Council, which is at present 41 under the Department of Education and Science and about which the Select Committee on Science and Technology published a Report last week?

§ The Prime Minister
Yes. The work of the hon. Gentleman and his colleagues on the Select Committee is much appreciated by the House. In addition to the N.E.R.C., the supreme council on scientific policy, the Central Advisory Council, has been working in this field. At present, no change is proposed or contemplated in the departmental and interdepartmental arrangements, but, as the hon. Gentleman heard me say, I have asked the Secretary of State to look urgently into the matter of pollution to see whether he feels, when he has completed the survey, that any changes are needed in the machinery of government or even in the law on this matter.

§ Mr. Pavitt
With regard to the changes in foreign and Commonwealth affairs, is there still a Minister responsible for disarmament? If so, who is he, and does he still have a Department within that office?

§ The Prime Minister
Yes, Sir. The House has paid tribute, and I have heard other people pay tribute, to my right hon. Friend who is now Minister of Transport for what he has achieved in his initiatives concerning chemical and biological warfare and the Non-Proliferation Treaty. There is still a Minister of Disarmament. The work will be taken over, once again, by my noble Friend, Lord Chalfont—[Laughter.]—who is always capable of arousing ignorant titters among hon. Members opposite who would, in their more sober moments, wish to pay tribute to him for what he did in making possible the Non-Proliferation Treaty.

Mr. Gresham Cooke
Is it not rather extraordinary that such an important Ministry as the Ministry of Transport should become a subsidiary department of regional planning, particularly as it has many other functions in movement and communications besides building roads, and in view of the fact that the Minister of Transport has been a member of the Cabinet ever since Mr. HoreBelisha was made a member of the Cabinet in 1936?

§ The Prime Minister
I think that there have been periods when he was outside the Cabinet. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State will represent all the interests and concerns of transport, including the much wider interests which go beyond road building and regional problems. But the House will agree that it is impossible adequately to deal with physical and economic planning without bringing regional policy, local government policy and transport policy under one hat.

Several Hon. Members
rose—

§ Mr. Speaker
Order. I must protect the business of the House.