HC Deb 04 August 1976 vol 916 cc1704-6
11. Mr. Michael McNair-Wilson

asked the Secretary of State for the Environment if he proposes to take any measures to reduce the level of staff in his Department.

Mr. Shore

My Department's contributions to savings in Civil Service manpower and related expenditure announced last week are £3.9 million in 1977–78 and £13.4 million in 1978–79. This will lead to a saving of up to 1,000 posts in 1977–78 and about another 2,000 posts in 1978–79 over the levels originally planned.

Mr. McNair-Wilson

Are they cuts in the recruiting of fresh staff, or is the right hon. Gentleman making an across-the-board assessment of the staffing of individual parts of his Department to ensure that there is no wastage of manpower?

Mr. Shore

We have carefully considered, as did all my colleagues when faced with this exercise, the whole range of activities of our Departments. We have put forward proposals that in our view would be the least damaging to the public service. The posts that we have identified obviously fall into the category that we consider to be the less essential of the services that we provide.

Mr. Dalyell

Is my right hon. Friend aware that some of us are unhappy about what appears to be the increasingly fashionable activity of attacking civil servants, who do as honourable and hard a day's work as the rest of us?

Mr. Shore

I am grateful to my hon. Friend, as I think that needs to be said. I shall not give any encouragement to the general witch-hunt that appears to be developing in the public service in national and local government.

Mr. Rathbone

In view of the cuts in staff that the Secretary of State has indicated, will he explain why his Department is planning to buy St. Anne's House, in Lewes, at a price that is £6,000 more than that for which it could have been bought only a few weeks ago?

Mr. Shore

I think that the hon. Gentleman and the House would be surprised if I had an answer to that question at my fingertips. However, I shall be happy to look into the matter for the hon. Gentleman. I put it to him that he must make some distinction between current expenditure and capital expenditure. The Question was about manpower, which affects current expenditure.

Mr. Ioan Evans

I do not wish to join the beating of civil servants by the Opposition, who would be the first to complain if there were delays in replying to their correspondence, but will my right hon. Friend note the representations that have been made by the railway unions, namely, that in the transport section of the Department there are too many advisers on road transport policies and too few on rail transport policies?

Mr. Shore

That is almost inevitable in terms of the number of people employed, as it is the fact that British Rail is a hived-off, separate nationalised industry. That means that there will be an imbalance in the number of road advisers compared with the number of rail advisers. However, I understand my hon. Friend's point, and I can assure him that railway matters will be given the most careful consideration by myself and my Department in the course of the transport review.

Mr. Speed

When will the number of non-industrial civil servants in the Secretary of State's Department be back to the level of 1st April 1974?

Mr. Shores

If we were to decide to reduce the functions of the Department to the levels that were operating on 1st April 1974, we could bring about that sort of reduction, but the Department, with the approval of the House, has extended its activities into many spheres, including the control of pollution—a control that is most valued by industry—and the many other areas and services that we shall sustain.