STATUS AND REMUNERATION OF CERTAIN OFFICERS AND SERVANTS

HC Deb 24 January 1978 vol 942 cc1195-281

4.19 p.m.

Mr. Tam Dalyell (West Lothian)

On a point of order, of which I have given you notice, Mr. Murton. You have very helpfully had posted on the board your selection for tomorrow's amendments. May I ask you to reconsider your decision not to allow Amendment No. 556, in Clause 82, page 37, line 39, at end insert 'but in the event of a General Election being announced before the holding of such referendum the latter shall not take place until a period of not less than three months from the polling date of the Election has elapsed'. The political editor of The Times, Fred Emery, wrote on 14th January: Consideration is also being given to having election and referendum on the same day. There may be many hon. Members on both sides of the Committee who want to give an opinion on what would be a totally new feature of British government—the notion of a referendum and election on the same day. Further, should the referendum be scrambled up with a General Election, many people would not be voting on the merits or otherwise of 150 Assemblymen or Assemblywomen in Edinburgh but would naturally react to party loyalties.

The Government may care to give a categorical assurance that they would never contemplate such a thing as having an election and referendum on the same day, but in the absence of any such undertaking, I ask you to reconsider the amendment for selection, Mr. Murton.

The Chairman

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving me notice of his point of order.

When I considered the amendment, it seemed to me that its substance would more appropriately be placed in Schedule 17 than in Clause 82. Therefore, I felt that on balance it was out of order as being offered at a wrong place in the Bill. Reference to that point is to be found on page 523 in "Erskine May".

However, I understand that the hon. Gentleman received some advice from the authorities of the House about the terms of his amendment, and it may well be that his wishes regarding its position in the Bill were not completely understood.

I would point out to the hon. Gentleman that Schedule 17 does not fall to be considered by the Committee until tomorrow. Although in general I am disinclined to select starred amendments, I think that I can assure the hon. Gentleman that in the circumstances I would not rule out on that ground alone, an orderly amendment in the right place.

Mr. Dalyell

As usual, Mr. Murton, you have been very helpful. I should not like to cast any reflection on the distinguished Officer of the House who gave me advice. Perhaps there was a misunderstanding between us.

The Chairman

I am sure that that is so.

Mr. George Cunningham (Islington, South and Finsbury)

The point that I was going to raise, Mr. Murton, I would have raised in any case, but it is particularly appropriate following the point of order of my hon. Friend the Member for West Lothian (Mr. Dalyell).

You have already posted your provisional selection of amendments for tomorrow, Mr. Murton, and you did so at a time when the arrangement of the business tomorrow was as provided for in a previous business motion. You will have heard the exchanges in the House before we went into Committee, from which it is clear that there will be a proposal to alter the business tomorrow, cutting it up into different short sections.

I do not seek any answer now, Mr. Murton, and I think that it would be improper for you to give me one now. but I put it to you that if there is an alteration of the guillotined sections you would be entitled and almost obliged at least to reconsider your selection of amendments, because the time available for the consideration of amendments is one of the factors that you must take into account in deciding whether to select an amendment.

Therefore, Mr. Murton, I ask you to consider the point and see whether in the light of the new arrangements, as they will be, you will look again at your selection.

The Chairman

The hon. Gentleman knows my position in this matter. He also knows that the list of selections made by me is provisional, and I am always prepared to consider the matter in the light of all the circumstances prevailing at any particular time.

Mr. Leon Brittan (Cleveland and Whitby)

I beg to move Amendment No. 602, in page 30, line 13, leave out 'accordingly' and insert: 'subject to the consent and approval of the Minister for the Civil Service and subject to such conditions as he may from time to time impose'. The amendment is of great importance, because it seeks to ensure, in a way that the Bill does not, that no separate Civil Service is created owing loyalties exclusively to a devolved Scottish Government, and controlled by them, and that all civil servants, whether working for the Scottish Executive, the Scottish Office or another United Kingdom Department, are clearly members of a service operating as a United Kingdom service, with appointments to it and within it made by the United Kingdom Government, subject to conditions determined by the United Kingdom Government.

One of our fundamental objections to the Bill is that the creation of a separate Government for Scotland, and not merely an elected Assembly, puts at risk the maintenance of the United Kingdom. The attempt to create a separate Executive within a unitary State is an attempt to square the circle. The tremendous strains imposed upon the whole structure of the government of the United Kingdom brought about by the creation of a system of devolution of the kind set out in the Bill is nowhere made clearer than in the role of the Civil Service if and when a Scottish Executive, as well as a Scottish Assembly, is set up. The basic question can be summed up very simply: whose Civil Service will it be and who will control it?

There are two alternative approaches if one starts out on the road of setting up an Executive for Scotland. The first, and in some ways the most logical, is to say "If we are having a Scottish Executive which is responsible to the Scottish Assembly, dependent on a majority in the Assembly for its existence, it is right that those who carry out the Executive's policy—the civil servants—should constitute a separate Civil Service for Scotland. That would be a logical resolution of the dilemma, but it has not been chosen by the Government. At least, they pretend that it has not.

I suggest that there are two reasons why that approach has not been followed. First, the Civil Service would loathe that solution. It would not like the creation of a separate Civil Service for Scotland, which would impose upon it the difficult choice of deciding where its allegiances lay.

Secondly—and I suspect that, sensitive as the Government are to the feelings of the Civil Service, this reason has been dominant in the decision—by creating overtly, clearly and expressly a separate Civil Service the Government would be taking a clear step on the path towards separation. With the creation of not only a separate Assembly and separate political Executive but a separate Civil Service, all the machinery, the infrastructure, of a separate Scottish State would be ready-made, available and at the disposal of Scotland. All that would be necessary would be a simple cut of the knot between the United Kingdom and Scotland for that separate Scottish State to come into existence. Therefore, the Government, claiming as they do that they believe in devolution and not in separatism, have eschewed that path, in form at least.

The alternative that the Government believe in, as they have told us in previous debates on the Scottish Executive, is set out in the Bill. It is a single Civil Service serving both the Secretary of State for Scotland and a Scottish Executive, presumably with a common system of entrance, a common promotion ladder and a single system of switching about from one section of the Civil Service to the other. That is what the Government's path purports to be. It is easy to state that in theory.

The purpose of this amendment is to illustrate, and to attempt to rectify, the fact that this solution of the problem of the loyalties of the Civil Service is full of unresolved questions and that in practice it consists of a series of extremely nasty and sharp hidden rocks which the Government seek to obscure with a few bland, legislative words.

The realities of the situation keep creeping out. Given the unacceptable choices posed concerning what rôle the Civil Service should perform, we certainly prefer, if it were possible, that there should continue to be as a single Civil Service, loyal to the Assembly, the Executive and to the United Kingdom Government. I say, frankly, that I am doubtful whether the tremendous strains that would be imposed on such a Civil Service would make for a practicable and viable operation. At least let us make the necessary amendment to ensure that the Government's preferred solution, or the solution that the Government pretend to prefer, has some air of reality instead of being expressed in such gossamer-like threads which are obviously liable to break at the first strain.

As the Bill stands, there is nominally a single Civil Service. In practice, it would be all too easy for a separate Civil Service to be built up with a loyalty to the Scottish Executive which would be the obvious precursor to the creation of an independent, separate Scottish State. This is not a purely theoretical question because the numbers are pretty considerable. If the Bill is to be believed, we are talking about a staff of 240 for the Scottish Assembly and 750 extra civil servants. Some of us have great doubts about the accuracy of those figures and suspect that when it comes to it there will be rather more than that. But if the Government are to be taken at face value, it is a question of 240 extra staff for the Assembly and 750 extra civil servants.

At the moment we are loftily told by the Government that the Scotland Bill does not involve the creation of an extra tier of government. All suggestions that it does anything of the kind are treated as woeful distortions of the Government's intentions. This is not an extra tier of government, we are told. It is a question of the transfer of powers from central Government to a Scottish Assembly and Executive. We are told that this is not a question of local government reform. That can only mean a tremendous amount of duplication, with the Scottish Executive doing the work and the Scottish Office providing in large part—except for those few non-devolved functions—a team of "shadow" civil servants making sure that the real civil servants with the Scottish Executive behave themselves and do not exceed their powers. If ever there was a recipe for conflict it lies in the creation of this dual structure which provides a conflict that is not just latent but patent.

If we examine this position a little further, the problem becomes even clearer. Clause 21 (3) says: Such of Her Majesty's prerogative and other executive powers as would otherwise be exercisable on behalf of Her Majesty by a Minister of the Crown shall, if they relate to devolved matters and are exercisable in or as regards Scotland, be exercisable on behalf of Her Majesty by a Scottish Secretary. That is the clear creation of executive devolution. If we examine Clause 21 (9). we find that: A Scottish Secretary may appoint such officers and servants as he may think appropriate for the exercise of such of the powers mentioned in subsection (3) of this section as are for the time being exercised by him. The Scottish Secretary is given the right to appoint officers and servants whom he thinks appropriate. Presumably not only does he appoint whom he likes, but if we read Clause 21(9), he decides how many people, and of what kind, are appropriate for that purpose. Those officers and servants are then by definition acting under him and are his agents.

That is the part of the Bill that is meant to be read by the devolutionists. But, as always, this Bill is two-faced. That is the bit for the people who want devolution. For the people who are not so keen on it, the non-devolutionist bit of the Bill comes in Clause 64, which we are now debating, conveniently separated by 43 clauses from that earlier clause, so that those who are not so keen on devolution might, with a bit of luck, forget what appeared in Clause 21.

In Clause 64, we are told, on the face of it, that: Service as an officer or servant of a Scottish Secretary or of the Scottish Comptroller and Auditor General shall be service in the home civil service of the state, and appointments to any position as such an officer or servant shall be made accordingly; What does that word "accordingly" mean? How does that square with the statement in Clause 21(9) that: A Scottish Secretary may appoint such officers and servants as he may think appropriate"? Does "accordingly" mean that, in spite of what Clause 21 says, the Scottish Secretary will be bound by the rules of the Civil Service, and he cannot have whom he wants, when he wants, and cannot pay them what he wants? Who is to do the appointing? If the idea is that the hierarchial structure of careers and appointments in the Civil Service generally is to be maintained, in spite of Clause 21(9), that is entirely dependent on the meaning to be given to the word "accordingly". Everything depends on that word.

In my submission the Committee will not be satisfied that the word "accordingly" is sufficient to do the trick. The problems are real. Will "accordingly" be sufficient to stop the Scottish Secretary exercising the powers that appear to be given to him by Clause 27(9) to choose whom he likes? As the hon. Member for West Lothian (Mr. Dalyell) has often said, the key position in many ways is that of the permanent undersecretary to the Scottish Office. What will he do? Will he stay in the Scottish Office or go and work for the new Scottish Executive? Apart from his personal preferences, who is to decide? Will that be a personal decision on his part? Does he have to go where the head of the Home Civil Service tells him, or may the Scottish Secretary refer to Clause 21(9), which says: A Scottish Secretary may appoint such officers and servants as he may think appropriate and say "I want that man"? If that man is prepared to go, is that an end to it? It will not do to say that the word "accordingly" determines that everything would be service in the Home Service of the state and that that solves everything.

Mr. Dalyell

It would create great difficulty, even for the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, if it had to rule on such a matter—as it might. In relation to the permanent undersecretary, can the hon. Member imagine a situation where a permanent secretary could, even if he wanted, opt for any- thing other than the Prime Minister of Scotland's service?

Mr. Brittan

I will not join the hon. Gentleman in his speculation of what the permanent under-secretary might do. That seems to be almost as difficult a question to answer as his first point about what the Judicial Committee would make of these two clauses. It seems to me to be an insoluble problem. There is not only the question of what the permanent under-secretary would do. Who is to decide the pay? What about the questions of transferability? Are they to be decided by the head of the Home Civil Service or by the Scottish Secretary?

This is typical of the whole approach of the Bill, and the point I stress to the Committee is that this is very much more than a question of inadequacy of drafting. I should not have taken up so much time if it were just that. The problem of loyalty is very real. What happens if a civil servant who is, for the time being, working for the Scottish Executive, is required to give information by the Secretary of State as to the operations of the Scottish Secretary? Does he then have to provide it, and does he have to provide it in the form dictated by the Scottish Secretary, or can he be required to do what the Secretary of State says because it is an appointment made by the Home Civil Service of the State?

These are very real and unresolved questions. It may be said that there are often interdepartmental disputes within United Kingdom Government Departments. There may be a civil servant who has loyalty to the Treasury and another civil servant who has loyalty to the Department of Education and Science or to the Department of the Environment, and there may be a dispute between the two. But that goes to illustrate the difference between what happens within the United Kingdom and what is proposed here.

If there is a conflict of loyalty between different Government Departments in the United Kingdom, there is clearly a machinery for resolving any dispute. At the end of the day there is one hierarchy, both administratively and politically. Administratively it leads to the apex of the permanent head of the Civil Service, and politically it leads to the Prime Minister. If the disagreement or dispute is sufficiently important, it is resolved at that level.

Here an attempt is being made to square the circle. Nominally there is one administrative hierarchy—the bald statement about service in the Home Civil Service of the State would seem to imply that—but there are two quite separate political bosses. On the one hand, there is the Secretary of State for Scotland, with the United Kingdom Government behind him. On the other hand, there is the new First Secretary or Prime Minister of Scotland.

Whereas the resolution of conflicts of loyalty between different Government Departments of the United Kingdom can at the end of the day be achieved within a single administrative and political hierarchy and pyramid, that is not true when there is the possibility—and perhaps even the probability—of a political clash between the political heads of the two Departments. The unfortunate civil servants will be pulled between the two and they will have nothing to point to in the Bill which will give them the slightest assistance in determining what to do in a clash of that kind—and nor will the Judicial Committee, as the hon. Member for West Lothian has pointed out.

This is a vivid illustration of the dilemmas and the essential fallacy arising from the Government's whole structure and system of devolution. Once again, when we explore a particular aspect of it, whether it is the legislative powers of the Assembly or the political nature of the Executive, or the Civil Service, the inherent unviability and illogicality of the whole structure become apparent.

Mr. Dalyell

Ministers will point out that the bodies representing the civil and public servants have said that there is not a problem of double loyalties, because each civil servant will be responsible to one Minister. What we have is a problem of duplication.

4.45 p.m.

Mr. Brittan

There is certainly a problem of duplication, which I illustrated earlier. There may not be a problem of loyalty in the sense that, while working for a particular Minister, a civil servant may feel that the problem does not arise—although one would venture to disagree on that—but there is in any event an ambiguity as to the question of control. Clause 21(9) states that A Scottish Secretary may appoint such officers and servants as he may think appropriate". Clause 64 does not square with that, because it all hangs on the meaning of the word "accordingly" in that clause, and that is a pretty thin peg on which to hang the maintenance of the unity of the United Kingdom, if that is what one wants.

I suggest to the Committee that the whole problem—which I have sought to treat as being an illustration of the more widespread disease that is endemic to all the clauses of the Bill—is typical of the short-sighted politically motivated approach of the Government, and the pusillanimous way in which the Government seek, at best, to evade the problem, and to provide, alternatively, a half-sized solution to a double-sized problem.

I am not at all sure that the problem is soluble, but the amendment at least seeks to make it clear that the Scottish Executive can indeed make its appointments. Those are not dictated to it by Whitehall. It is right that Whitehall should not be able to foist particular civil servants on a Scottish Executive to which they are unacceptable. But, at the same time, if we are to retain a Civil Service which is genuinely the Home Civil Service of the State, the United Kingdom as a whole, it is not unreasonable that there should be inserted the provision that such appointments should be subject to the consent and approval of the Minister for the Civil Service and subject to such conditions as he may from time to time impose". That means that he can say "I will not have Mr. X and Mr. Y poached from me by the exercise of the Scottish Secretary's powers under Clause 21(9)." He can say "I am not having more favourable conditions of service, whether in terms of pay or otherwise, granted by the Scottish Assembly." He can generally take whatever steps are necessary to ensure that, within the context of the choice of civil servants, genuinely made by the Scottish Executive, the unity of the Home Civil Service is maintained.

It seems to me that an amendment on these lines would be an entirely reasonable way in which to ensure the unity of the Home Civil Service. In that way at least we should be attempting to secure the unity of the United Kingdom, in spite of the stresses and strains that this scheme of devolution will eventually be imposing upon it. I do not necessarily suggest that it would solve the problem—I have tried to indicate that there are elements of the problem to which I do not see a solution—but at least it is an attempt to retain the unity of the Civil Service against all the heavy odds imposed upon it by this wretched Bill.

It cannot be said that requiring the Minister for the Civil Service to consent and approve or impose conditions is fettering the power of the Scottish Executive in an unreasonable way, for later in the same clause we find powers for the Minister for the Civil Service in relation to financial matters, and elsewhere in the Bill—I will not take up time by exemplifying them—there are several provisions requiring the consent and approval of United Kingdom Ministers to acts of the Scottish Executive.

The amendment is in no sense subversive of the structure of the Government's Bill but it flushes the Government out, because it makes them stand up and show themselves in their true colours. Do they want to preserve the unity of the United Kingdom and give more than lip service to their belief in a single Civil Service, or do they wish to continue, as the Bill does in its present form, to face both ways, with Clause 21 as a devolutionist clause and Clause 64 as an anti-devolutionist clause?

The Government cannot fool all the people all the time. Let us try to reach a sensible solution to this dilemma, if it can be reached, and one which furthers and favours the continuation of the United Kingdom.

The Minister of State, Privy Council Office (Mr. John Smith)

It may be for the convenience of the Committee if I make a short intervention at this stage because there are several Government amendments to be discussed later. Perhaps I can deal with them in detail then. But for the moment it may be suitable to reply to one or two of the points that have been raised.

The hon. Member for Cleveland and Whitby (Mr. Brittan) said his argument was not a drafting one but rather one or more substance. However, we got the usual set of adjectives from him that we have heard on nearly every clause. The same objections are made to all the clauses which the hon. Gentleman discusses from time to time.

We would maintain resolutely that the clause under discussion does maintain the unity of the United Kingdom Civil Service. A clear decision has been taken by the Government that there will be a unified Civil Service. That is achieved by Clause 64(1) and other parts of the Bill.

The hon. Gentleman argued that Clause 21(9), which provides that A Scottish Secretary may appoint such officers and servants as he may think appropriate for the exercise of such of the powers…", was inconsistent in some way with Clause 64(1). At least, the gist of his argument was that they sat uncomfortably together.

If the hon. Gentleman is arguing that the power of appointment conferred by Clause 21(9), when read with the devolution of ministerial powers in Clause 21(3), somehow means that the need for consent or approval of the Minister for the Civil Service flies off, I think that he is wrong. We must read the Bill as a whole in order to ascertain its intention and effect.

In this respect, and in accordance with the ordinary principles of construction, the later provisions in the Bill take account of the earlier provisions. Thus Clause 64(1) serves not to confuse but to clarify the intention that officers appointed by the Scottish Secretary will be members of the Home Civil Service and that the normal procedures of appointment to that service shall apply to such officers. There are other clauses which the hon. Member for Cleveland and Whitby has not touched upon.

Mr. Timothy Raison (Aylesbury)

Can the Scottish Secretary appoint someone as a career civil servant to the United Kingdom Civil Service, so that that someone has the normal security of tenure, or is it merely intended that he should be in a position of a temporary civil servant?

Mr. Smith

This will be done in the normal way through the normal entrance to the Home Civil Service. Conditions, salaries and the like will be dealt with in the normal way if the Minister responsible is the Minister for the Civil Service. It is said in Clause 64(1) that appointments "shall be made accordingly". That means that they will be appointed in the normal way as members of the Home Civil Service. The hon. Member for Cleveland and Whitby made far too much of that point. It is quite clear.

So far as I am aware, no questions were raised by the Civil Service unions when they gave their opinion in response to remarks made by my hon. Friend the Member for West Lothian (Mr. Dalyell). They dealt clearly with the question of divided loyalty and rebutted it.

Mr. James Sillars (South Ayrshire)

Is not the difference between a lawyer and a trade unionist the fact that the trade unionist does know what "accordingly" means?

Mr. Smith

There are lawyers and lawyers just as, I suppose, there are trade unionists and trade unionists.

The main point made by the hon. Member for Cleveland and Whitby was that there was some inconsistency between these two clauses. There is not. The number of people employed by the Scottish Executive is a matter for the Scottish Executive to determine. The Scottish Secretary will make appointments in the way in which Ministers can make appointments within the United Kingdom Government. But the salaries and conditions of the integrated United Kingdom Civil Service will continue to be dealt with in the way in which they are at present.

Mr. Dalyell

If the salaries are a matter for the United Kingdom Government, and the numbers a matter for the Assembly, is it not likely that there will be a situation where proportionately there will be a far greater cost with regard to the Scottish Assembly as it will have more civil servants than in the rest of the United Kingdom?

Mr. Smith

My hon. Friend's capacity for imagining all sorts of things that will happen as a result of devolution is almost unlimited. I cannot deal in detail with all the fantasies which he creates.

The point at the heart of this discussion is who shall determine the size or number of the Civil Service to work with the Scottish Executive. The Executive will decide that. After all, the salaries that will be paid will come out of the block fund. It is for the Scottish Administration to decide how many civil servants are employed. But the conditions of service and the normal conditions surrounding the employment of civil servants will be those of the Home Civil Service.

There are two alternatives, as the hon. Member for Cleveland and Whitby said, if we move towards legislative and executive devolution. Either we retain the United Kingdom Home Civil Service or we have a separate Civil Service. We are not in favour of having a separate Civil Service. I understand that there is no dispute on that point and that the hon. Gentleman accepts the need for having a unified Civil Service. There are clear advantages in having that.

Especially in the beginning years of the new structure a unified service is likely to be more economical and efficient. If we had a separate service we would need more staff and greater expenditure on recruitment and training. A single service would provide the devolved Administration with a wide range of talent and experience that it might not otherwise attract. It would also provide a more proper and flexible career structure. This would be especially true of specialists who are employed in small numbers and who would otherwise have a limited chance of obtaining job experience.

Mr. Teddy Taylor (Glasgow, Cathcart)

I am neither a lawyer nor a trade unionist and I am rather confused by this whole argument. If a new post is created, say in the Department of Energy or the Department of Education and Science, who will decide on what particular scale it should be or on what particular designation of job? Will there be a separate Scottish Civil Service Department to choose what particular grade should be given to a particular new post in the Scottish Civil Service?

Mr. Smith

As I understand it, these matters within the United Kingdom Government are normally done in consultation with the Civil Service Department. In the case of the Scottish Department the same situation would arise because we want to keep posts on the same grades. With regard to creating a post, that would be a matter which would be dealt with in the normal way by the Home Civil Service. It would not be a case of the Scottish Administration creating new grades. That must be so because there must be easy transferability for people who work in the Scottish Department and who might want to transfer to the Department of the Secretary of State or to another part of the British Civil Service.

The necessity for having this transfer in and out is desirable. It will increase the range of talent available to the Scottish Administration. That is very important, particularly in the initial years of the new system of devolution.

Mr. Teddy Taylor

Where in the Bill is there any obligation whatever on the Scottish Executive to consult the Civil Service Department on the question of grading? I have not been able to find it. If the Executive took the view that a particular post which it chose to establish deserved a higher grade, there is nothing in the Bill to prevent it doing so. It is all very well for the Minister to say that this will be done in the normal way, but is there any obligation on the Executive to consult the Civil Service Department about the proper grading for a particular post?

5.0 p.m.

Mr. Smith

The United Kingdom Government will not operate central control over the number of civil servants. The Scottish Secretaries would be free to create posts in respect of the Scottish Assembly, subject only to the approval of the United Kingdom Government as to the correctness of the grade in which those posts are set. That is contained in the power under Article 5 of the 1969 Order in Council controlling Civil Service classifications. It is not necessary to have this in the Bill because the normal controls operated by the Civil Service in respect of the Home Civil Service applies in this case.

Mr. Teddy Taylor

Is the Minister certain of that?

Mr. Smith

I am certain. If the hon. Gentleman doubts the accuracy of that statement, I will check it and let him know whether I am wrong in any way.

Mr. Brittan

May I intervene at this point because it may save time? If the Minister is saying that all is sweet reason, why does he object to our amendment which merely spells out the situation clearly?

Mr. Smith

Perhaps the hon Gentleman will allow me to make my case in my own way. I intend to refer to Amendment No. 602, but there are other hon. Members who have asked me questions. On the subject of a unified Civil Service, there was initially a great deal of argument about divided loyalties. That argument now seems to have disappeared. My hon. Friend the Member for West Lothian, diligent and persistent though he is, is not flogging that dead horse. He is now on the question of duplication—that is his theme.

Mr. Dalyell

It is either a matter of duplication or double loyalties.

Mr. Smith

I think that it is neither. In regard to double loyalties, I see no connection either conceptually or in practical terms. They are two distinct matters.

The fact that there will be devolution means that there will be more civil servants, although this will not amount to an enormous extra number. The figure has been put at 750. One of the reasons that the increase in the number of civil servants is not higher than it is—it is a fairly moderate increase—is that the practice of administrative devolution has already gone a long way in the Scottish Office. For example, there is already a Scottish Education Department operating in Edinburgh. Devolution will mean for that Department that it will have a new political head, and it will be responsible to the Scottish Secretary instead of to the House of Commons. It will be responsible to the Scottish Assembly for the accountability which the Scottish Secretary will exercise through his Department.

Mr. Nicholas Fairbairn (Kinross and West Perthshire)

On a point of information, can the Minister say how many civil servants there are in St. Andrew's House or in the new St. Andrew's House who have already been devolved?

Mr. Smith

After devolution there will be about 11,500 civil servants, taking into account the Prison Service, which is a large element in that amount. I am not sure of the exact figure, but that is the kind of number involved. Therefore administrative devolution has gone quite far already. That will ease the problem. I concede that this is a more complicated system of government than that which is operated through a unitary State with its own legislature, and certain extra work is involved. However, it is greatly outweighed by the increase in the amount of democratic accountability which will exist in the Scottish Assembly because that body will have more time to consider properly legislation in devolved matters. It will be possible for Assembly Members to scrutinise Executive activities in Scotland more closely than we are able to do in this House. With the best will in the world, we in this House, because of various pressures, are unable to give the same amount of attention to those matters.

If I may now deal specifically with Amendment No. 602, I believe that the amendment would make very little difference to the situation. The effect of the amendment would be to qualify the Scottish Secretary's power under Clause 21(9) to appoint such officers as he thinks appropriate, subject to the approval of the Minister for the Civil Service. It is interesting to note that the amendment does not extend to recruitment or status.

Mr. James Dempsey (Coatbridge and Airdrie)

Will my hon. Friend give me a little guidance? When he talks of the Scottish Secretary appointing such officers as he thinks fit, will he give me some idea of the type of officers he has in mind?

Mr. Smith

We are talking about the powers of a Scottish Secretary, a person who will be a member of the Administration after devolution. Those he appoints to the Administration will be members of the Home Civil Service. I expect that substantially the people who will be employed in, for example, the Scottish Education Department, will be largely the same people who are now employed there. No doubt the vast majority will want to continue to undertake that useful public work.

The hon. Gentleman's amendment does not extend to recruitment or status. The civil servant as a member of the Home Civil Service would still be required under the Order in Council passed in 1969 to be certificated by the Civil Service Commissioners and would have to meet the normal criteria of classification. The amendment would take away from the Scottish Secretaries their freedom to appoint particular people to particular posts. They will be able to do so only with the consent of the Minister for the Civil Service. Secondly, the amendment would enable the Minister for the Civil Service to control the number of civil servants serving in a devolved Administration. I do not know which is the primary purpose of the hon. Gentleman, but his amendment would have that effect.

Mr. Brittan

On the subject of appointment, in the absence of such power of veto does the Minister agree that on the face of it, provided that the right kind of person is appointed from within the category approved, and provided he is paid the right amount, the Scottish Secretary will be able, in the absence of our amendment, to pick absolutely anybody he likes because he will have a statutory right to do so? If the answer to that question is "Yes", is it not unacceptable that he should make such appointments throughout the entire range of the Civil Service? If the answer is "No", what is the objection to the amendment?

Mr. Smith

The hon. Gentleman is now slightly changing his tack. The effect of his amendment would bring in control by a Westminster Minister. That would have to happen before a Scottish Secretary made appointments in the Civil Service. The Scottish Secretary has power to make appointments but that is qualified by Clause 64, which says that civil servants who serve the Assembly and a Scottish Administration will be in the Home Civil Service—namely, the United Kingdom Civil Service. In other words, Amendment No. 602 would mean that the Scottish Administration would lose control over the number of civil servants who serve a Scottish Administration. More civil servants might be required in some areas, and fewer in other areas. This depends on the capacity and policies of those who will be elected to the Administration. When we consider how many civil servants will be appointed by a particular Department, we must remember that they will be paid from the block fund, and that this will be determined by Westminster. The Opposition appear constantly to be seeking further Westminster control. They want to control the finances and also the number of staff. That is our objection to the Westminster attitude adopted by the Opposition.

Mr. Brittan

I am sorry to intervene yet again, but the Minister uncharacteristically has not answered the question. He appears to be asking me questions about numbers. I am concerned about the right of the Scottish Secretary to choose whom he wishes out of the pool of the Home Civil Service. Is the Minister saying that he is content that the Scottish Secretary should have the right to appoint any person he wishes to appoint, subject to that person's consent, without the Home Civil Service having any say as to whether a senior civil servant in, say, a United Kingdom ministry should be kicked out? If he recognises that such a course would be unworkable, unrealistic and wrong within a unified Civil Service, why does he object to the amendment?

Mr. Smith

I am trying to explain my objection to the amendment. I am saying that it would mean Westminster control over the number of civil servants employed by the Administration.

How will the Scottish Secretary go about appointing people to the Administration? He will do so in the way in which Ministers of the United Kingdom Government deal with these matters. We shall expect there to be close co-operation between those concerned in the devolved Administration and the Civil Service Department. It is reasonable to expect people to co-operate. Every time this matter comes up, I am told that every provision in the Bill is a recipe for conflict, but I cannot understand why there should be so many unreasonable people on the United Kingdom side of the line and on the Scottish administration side.

Mr. Ian MacCormick (Argyll)

Is not the point of all this that the Conservative Front Bench would like to appoint the Ministers in the Assembly as well? Is the amendment not simply an extension of that outlook?

Mr. Smith

It is difficult to know what the Conservatives want because their policy on devolution is unclear. They are very good at telling us what they do not want, but they are remarkably unclear when it comes to producing a policy on devolution.

I notice that the right hon. Member for Cambridgeshire (Mr. Pym) wants Select Committees to deal with parts of the Bill. He imagines that the process of framing a devolution Bill will take three years. Speed is obviously not one of the characteristics in determining how their policy on devolution is arrived at. However, it is difficult enough being responsible for the handling of this Bill without being asked to take responsibility for the Opposition's confused position and I hope that the hon. Member for Argyll (Mr. MacCormick) will forgive me if I do not stray into that territory.

Mr. Ian Gow (Eastbourne)

Can the Minister clarify one point before he leaves Clause 21(9)? Is he saying that we should add to that clause, which says that the Scottish Secretary may appoint such officers and servants as he may think appropriate, the words "being members of the Home Civil Service"?

Mr. Smith

I am saying that Clause 21(9) should be read together with Clause 64. It is common for two clauses to be read together. The later provision takes account of the earlier.

The hon. Member for Cleveland and Whitby insists that his amendment is desirable. If carried, it would mean Westminster control over matters which can reasonably be left to the Scottish Administration, including such matters as the number of civil servants required. We should bear in mind that the Assembly will be paying their salaries.

That is our serious objection to the amendment. The hon. Gentleman moved it with some extravagant arguments and fairly flowery adjectives, but I think that he put it forward in a reasoned way and I am trying to give a reasoned rebuttal and explain why I do not think that it would be a reasonable way of dealing with this matter.

The fundamental point is the concept of a unified Civil Service. There may be some hon. Members who think that there should be a separate Civil Service, but, for all the reasons that I have given, I believe that this would be undesirable and that we should have a common Civil Service.

Perhaps I have spoken for long enough. I shall be glad to deal later with contributions from other hon. Members.

Mr. Teddy Taylor

Can the Minister of State tell us where in the Bill it provides that standards of entry to the Civil Service of the Assembly will be the same as those in the United Kingdom? As far as I can see, Clause 64(1) refers to people appointed by the Scottish Secretary being servants of the Home Civil Service, but I can find no provision relating to the standards of entry.

Mr. Smith

Clause 64(1) refers to servants and officers serving in the Home Civil Service. Their appointments will be made accordingly and that means that the normal rules of entry into the Home Civil Service will apply. That is a perfectly adequate provision.

5.15 p.m.

Mr. Russell Johnston (Inverness)

When politicians discuss civil servants and their rôle and place in our structure of government, we generally hear a fair amount of gobbledegook. Before discussing the amendment, I should like to make some general assertions to bear out my contention.

The political inhibitions laid on civil servants are wildly excessive and I would go much further in freeing them than do the suggestions of the recent committee. I realise that this may not appear entirely germane to the amendment, but it is germane to what the hon. Member for West Lothian (Mr. Dalyell) has said about the possibility of conflict. At the risk of irritating the hon. Gentleman—

Mr. Dalyell

Impossible.

Mr. Johnston

I think that the hon. Gentleman must have a latent level of irritability due to having to go through this whole process. He has chided the hon. Member for Berwick and East Lothian (Mr. Mackintosh) and myself for daring to mention Germany in the context of the Bill. But these references were entirely appropriate because the German example in regard to the treatment of political views of civil servants deserves serious consideration in this country.

Mr. Iain Sproat (Aberdeen, South)

I presume the hon. Gentleman means West Germany.

Mr. Johnston

Yes, indeed. I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman's intervention. It is not regarded in West Germany as wrong or prejudicial to the promotion of an individual civil servant for him openly to be a member of one of the main political parties. That is something we should bear in mind.

The position of civil servants as administrators is no different from that of any other set of administrators. There is a fair amount of myth surrounding this point. Whether we talk of administrators in the Civil Service or in industry, education or anywhere else, the problems are essentially the same and I do not believe that difficulties should arise because of the personal views of civil servants. Indeed, they would be serving their superiors inadequately if they concealed those views.

Clearly, problems would arise if a civil servant were made simultaneously responsible to two people, for example, the First Secretary of the Scottish Assembly and the Secretary of State for Scotland, who might spend their time in dispute. In such circumstances, a good civil servant might end us as the mediator, although that would give far too much power to the bureaucrat. People sometimes forget that the mediator is in a better position to project his views than are the contestants and I would not wish to put Mr. Kerr Fraser, who has been referred to by the hon. Member for West Lothian, into that position, however estimable his qualities may be.

Given the need for civil servants to have only one master, we should remember that we are talking about only one master at one time. It is quite common for civil servants to change masters. The hon. Member for West Lothian has got into quite a froth about the terrible dilemmas which would rack and rend Mr. Kerr Fraser as he tossed and grunted in his bed trying to decide to whom he was responsible—the First Secretary of the Assembly or the Secretary of State for Scotland. However, the hon. Member said implicitly that he did not see any problem in Mr. Fraser rendering due obeisance and sterling service to the First Secretary from February to July and to the Secretary of State from August to December. Apparently that is not difficult, but to do both those things at once is difficult. People are able to change from one circumstance to another and that happens now. The problem is really one of timing and occasion rather than one of principle.

It is against that background that I should like to comment on the amendment. I agree with what the Minister has said. The amendment seeks to dilute, as one might expect considering its source, the basic object of devolution. It seeks to remove certain powers of decision from Edinburgh and to retain them here. That has been the consistent objective of the Opposition Front Bench throughout consideration of the Bill, and I do not complain about that. In that respect there has been no inconsistency on the part of the Opposition Front Bench. However, that is not a matter of serving the purpose of the Bill.

Secondly, the hon. Member for Cleveland and Whitby (Mr. Brittan) spent some time suggesting that the amendment is all about making things smoother and easier, whereas I think that it would be more likely to create conflict than the situation contained in the Bill. As the Minister of State said, and as the hon. Gentleman confirmed—the hon. Gentleman was the first to use the word "veto"—the purpose of the amendment is to enable the Minister for the Civil Service to exercise the power of veto in respect of appointments.

The hon. Gentleman suggested, in his admirably emollient fashion, that the idea that there might be conflict was an exaggeration. He said that the issue was simply about equivalent standards and other such matters, and that the likelihood of conflict between the Minister for the Civil Service and the First Secretary of the Assembly as regards the appointment of any person was remote.

Surely that was an odd inversion of the normal run of argument. As the Minister of State said in responding to one of the not infrequent interjections from the hon. Member for West Lothian, the hon. Gentleman has apparently a limitless capacity for imagining dire events taking place and terrible conflicts emerging between the Assembly and Westminster. The hon. Member for Cleveland and Whitby said that such conflicts would not take place. In that way we had an odd inversion of the traditional approach of the opponents of the Bill and devolution as a whole.

Mr. Brittan

I think that the hon. Gentleman has misunderstood my argu ment, or that I was guilty of not explaining myself sufficiently clearly. I was not arguing that which he suggests. I am saying that it should be made clear whether the Scottish Secretary may pick and choose whomever he wants from the Home Civil Service. I asked the question repeatedly of the Minister and he kept obfuscating the point. The Minister kept telling me that the amendment had consequences in terms of numbers. The problem about the Bill, never mind the amendment, is that it is not clear whether the Scottish Secretary may take anyone he likes from the pool of the Home Civil Service. That point has not been answered.

Mr. Johnston

It is hardly for me to adjudicate on the obfuscatory qualities of the Minister. However, it appeared from his remarks that it is clear that the proposition contained in the Bill is that the First Secretary has the right of appointment as regards individuals and numbers, and that the consequence of the amendment would be that before the First Secretary made appointments, either in the case of individuals or total numbers, they would have to be approved by the Minister for the Civil Service.

Mr. Brittan

The hon. Gentleman seems to be opposing the amendment. Is the hon. Gentleman content with a situation in which the Scottish Secretary may chose anyone from a United Kingdom Department, whatever his position may be, and say "Pursuant to my powers under Clause 21(9), I am appointing him to the Scotish Civil Service"?

Mr. Johnston

It is not a question of ordering individuals from any point throughout the United Kingdom to take up a position within the Scottish Civil Service. The system does not work that way, as well the hon. Gentleman knows. If a person is available for service in Scotland and the First Secretary wishes to appoint him, he does so without having to go through the Minister for the Civil Service to ask for his approval.

Mr. Brittan

What does "available for service" mean? That is the issue that has not been resolved. I am trying to get an answer to that question, if not from the Minister, at least from the hon. Gentleman.

Mr. Johnston

It is not for me to answer the question. However, I shall put my answer in the form of a question, being a naturally modest chap.

Mr. John Smith

The hon. Member for Cleveland and Whitby (Mr. Brittan) is using the hon. Member for Inverness (Mr. Johnston) as an in-off to put questions to me. The hon. Member for Cleveland and Whitby will recollect that I said clearly that the Scottish Secretary would make appointments, and that that would be done in the normal Civil Service way. There are ways in which posts are advertised and people are consulted. That is the way in which it will be done. The normal rules of grading and application will apply. I suggest that the hon. Gentleman takes advice from his hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Cathcart (Mr. Taylor), who has been in office and who knows how these things are done.

Mr. Raison

rose—

Mr. Johnston

I am grateful to the Minister for his intervention. It confirms what I had said originally to the hon. Member for Cleveland and Whitby. The issue is nothing like as recondite as he was trying to represent.

Mr. Raison

I shall introduce the intervention that I wished to make in my speech, if I catch your eye, Mr. Murton.

Mr. MacCormick

rose—

Mr. Johnston

I do not wish to prolong my speech.

Mr. MacCormick

I take up the Ministers point about the hon. Member for Cleveland and Whitby (Mr. Brittan) taking advice from the hon. Member for Glasgow, Cathcart (Mr. Taylor). The hon. Gentleman will remember that the hon. Member for Cathcart is always jumping up and down to ask questions about Civil Service jobs coming to Scotland. However, it seems that many civil servants are unwilling to come.

Mr. Teddy Taylor

Will the hon. Member for Inverness (Mr. Johnston) ask the Scottish National Party, and the hon. Member for Argyll (Mr. MacCormick) in particular, to give the Committee some guidance? We know that there are about 203,000 unemployed in Scotland. Precisely what will happen to civil servants in the Post Office Savings Bank, for ex- ample, if the nationalists have their way and we have to send them south again?

Mr. Johnston

With respect, I do not intend that my speech should cast me in the rôle of a catalyst in bringing together the hon. Members for Glasgow, Cathcart (Mr. Taylor) and Argyll (Mr. MacCormick). I shall continue in my own way, although I do not have a great deal more to say. However, I think that what I have said thus far has borne out the unacceptability of the amendment as it stands.

As the Minister of State will confirm, the Liberal position from the beginning was that the logical position was to establish a separate Scottish Civil Service. That was our view. I was interested in the remarks of the hon. Member for Cleveland and Whitby, who agreed that that represented "the most logical approach". That remains Liberal opinion.

I was disappointed by the Minister's brief reference to the issue of a separate Civil Service when, turning away from his own original comment, he turned to his supplied brief and read out a few traditional reasons for it being undesirable to have a separate Civil Service. The hon. Gentleman argued that a single service is more efficient and economical. He did so without a blink. He then said that it would provide a better career structure. He did so again without a blink. Both those arguments are arguments against devolution per se. They are against the duplication that in some degree the hon. Member for West Lothian is right to argue will happen. In some degree it is inevitable that duplication will take place, but the argument is that because of that duplication a better, more sensitive and more efficient method of Government will ensue.

Mr. Dalyell

Is it fair to say that Liberal Members of a Scottish Assembly would strongly argue that the Civil Service in Scotland should be a Scottish service responsible to the Assembly? Is it fair to say that Liberal Members in an Assembly would argue for the fragmentation of the Home Civil Service?

Mr. Johnston

I stated it as the opinion of Liberals now that their position was to establish a separate Civil Service, yes. Any Liberal group in the future Assembly would accept what is set out in the Bill for a period. We would not seek changes immediately after the establishment of the Assembly.

Mr. Raison

I understand that the Liberal Party believes that there should be a separate Civil Service. Will the hon. Gentleman explain why his party has not put down an amendment to that effect? Has it been browbeaten by the Government into not putting down such an amendment? Why not put forward that point of view?

5.30 p.m.

Mr. Johnston

I am putting forward my point of view. I am aware that such an amendment would not gain acceptance. I am also aware of resistance within the Civil Service unions to any such proposition. Therefore, it did not seem a useful exercise to go through the procedure of putting down an amendment to that effect. We have discussed the matter at some length with the Government. It does not mean that we have been browbeaten. If I had been browbeaten, I would not be expressing any view. I am expressing the view that it is a logical position. I do not see the point of putting down amendments which would inevitably be rejected.

The Administration within the Assembly will have the right to choose its own civil servants and there will remain the opportunity for interchangeability within the United Kingdom Civil Service. If we had a separate Civil Service, interchangeability, which is the crucial factor, could be retained just as it will be retained in future in the European context. We shall have a flow in and out of the Community of British and other European civil servants. That is not an impossible situation. The amendment is unnecessarily restrictive. It reflects the general restrictiveness of the attitude of the Conservative Party towards the whole question of devolution.

Mr. Sillars

I had not intended to speak in the debate. Indeed, I did not think that it would last for any great time.

I tend to approach this matter as a trade unionist. The word "accordingly" struck me as being eminently sensible shorthand for what most trade unionists understand to be the normal conditions of service that will apply to any group within a bargaining unit, whether it be a small or a large bargaining unit. It is part of the normal negotiating machinery. The agreed conditions of service which operate for the whole of the Civil Service will apply to those employed by the Scottish Assembly. The conditions governing which grades may engage in local and national politics will apply in Scotland as they do elsewhere. The question of hours, conditions of service, and so on, is covered by the normally recognised trade union word "accordingly". My hon. Friend the Minister of State received no objections to this part of the Bill from the Civil Service unions, because we all understand the meaning of "accordingly".

When the hon. Member for Cleveland and Whitby (Mr. Brittan) moved the amendment, I was transported back in time to the Industrial Relations Bill. On the first day we had four lawyers from different parts of the Committee giving different interpretations of the word "reasonable". However, every industrialist and trade unionist had a fair idea of what it meant in practice. The difference between the two Front Benchers is that one is a Labour lawyer and the other is a Tory lawyer, and the Labour lawyer understands what "accordingly" means.

If we were foolish enough to accept the amendment, the position of those employed by the Scottish Assembly would be somewhat different from those employed by, for example, the United Kingdom Department of the Environment. The word "accordingly" gives the same negotiating power and coverage to those employed by the Scottish Assembly as to those employed by the Department of the Environment. If the amendment were carried, it would be left to the absolute discretion of the Minister for the Civil Service. I believe that the Civil Service unions would go hammering on the door of the Privy Council wanting to know what the Government and Labour Members of Parliament proposed to do about the matter on Report, because trade unions would want their members to be protected in future just as they are now.

Mr. Dalyell

If my hon. Friend were the Minister in a Scottish Assembly, would he meekly and mildly accept from the Minister for the Civil Service in London an instruction on how to react to problems and conflicts which would inevitably arise in his Department? Would he meekly and mildly accept the diktat of a right hon. Friend in the United Kingdom Government?

Mr. Sillars

I should be surprised if any United Kingdom Minister were to be so politically foolish as to issue a diktat to a senior member of the Scottish Administration in Edinburgh. My hon. Friend the Member for West Lothian (Mr. Dalyell) and others make the mistake of forgetting that we are dealing with the realm of democratic politics. We are all well accustomed to the resolution of conflicts by the normal procedure of dialogue and the exchange of views. If we ever reached the stage where a United Kingdom Minister isued strong diktats to Members of the Scottish Executive, we would indeed be at the parting of the ways. It would not matter two whits whether the civil servants were controlled absolutely by the Minister in Edinburgh or the Minister in Westminster. I think that my hon. Friend makes far too much of what the Minister of State described as one of his nightmare fantasies. I interpose the word "nightmare", but I think that is what my hon. Friend meant.

Mr. Teddy Taylor

I think that the hon. Gentleman and I agree that we have been through quite a few nightmares with this Government. If we had a financial crises and instructions were issued to reduce the numbers of civil servants by 2 per cent., would the hon. Gentleman say that it would make for a unified Civil Service if the United Kingdom Secretary of State's Department, or whatever it might be called, had to reduce the numbers of staff and the Scottish Assembly Department, or whatever it might be called, did not have to apply similar reductions? Does he believe that it would make for a unified Civil Service if economic restrictions of that kind were to apply only to the United Kingdom Secretary of State's Department?

Mr. Sillars

I do not believe that that would alter the character of a unified Civil Service. The basic fundamental characteristics of a unified Civil Service are whether similar conditions of employment and service apply from John o'Groats to the tip of Shetland when any body enters the Civil Service in Edinburgh, Glasgow, Dumfries, Carlisle, Liverpool or London. That is what makes for basic unification.

It does not worry me that there might be a different policy regarding numbers in the Civil Service in Scotland as opposed to England and, indeed, Wales any more than it worries me that we have a different approach to regional employment premium in Scotland as opposed to any other part of the United Kingdom. The whole essence of devolution is that different solutions may apply to different parts of the United Kingdom. Jobs in the Civil Service in Scotland are as much a part of the labour market as jobs in the engineering and shipbuilding industries.

Many people make far too much of the allegation that there will be a conflict of loyalties. Let us boil the situation down to hard, day-to-day facts. All those who work in the Scottish Home and Health Department have a prime loyalty to that Department. That has always been so and always will be so. If there is a political conflict between Edinburgh and Westminster, it is wrong to expect civil servants, irrespective of their grades, to try to resolve that problem, because that would invite them into the political arena. The way to resolve the conflict is by political dialogue between the politicians.

As I see it, the rôle of the Civil Service is to supply the information that is required and to administer policies. It would be undemocratic by definition to allow civil servants to impose their political view.

I do not see what all the problems are. Let us consider the hypothetical situation—and it is one that should cheer the hon. Member for Glasgow, Cathcart (Mr. Taylor)—that an election is to take place in a month's time and that there is a change of Government. In the Scottish Office civil servants who had given all their support to my right hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Craigton (Mr. Millan) would transfer their loyalties to the hon. Member for Cathcart within the space of 24 hours. One of those men is on the left of the spectrum and the other on the far right. Nobody believes that it is impossible for civil servants to transfer their support in this way.

If this debate were broadcast north of the border on the day that 203,000 people have been declared unemployed in Scotland most Scots would wonder why so many of them were unemployed while people here were drawing a salary.

Mr. John Stokes (Halesowen and Stourbridge)

I am not satisfied that the Minister has answered the doubts that have been expressed from both sides of the Committee about the appointment of civil servants in Scotland. I shall deal with the wider aspects of the amendment. Each day when we consider clauses and amendments to this complicated Bill we find new areas where there will be confusion and conflict.

The independence and integrity of the British Civil Service has been the proud boast of this country for a long time. However, under the proposals in the Bill an intolerable strain of loyalties will be placed upon Scottish civil servants who will be pulled this way and that, on the one hand by their loyalty to the Secretary of State here and on the other by their loyalty to the new Assembly. If the Assembly makes claims for greater independence—which it is bound to do beginning on day one, whichever party is in control—the unfortunate civil servants in Scotland will be placed in an almost impossible position. Naturally they will be concerned about their future and career prospects. They are bound to be under strain if relations between the House of Commons and the new Assembly grow worse, as I fear they will. Giving unbiased advice will place an almost intolerable burden upon the civil servants.

I remember the strains and stresses which beset French officials in 1940 after the collapse of France when they had to decide whether they would stay with the Vichy Government or risk their all and join de Gaulle. We do not want that sort of conflict of interests here in this peaceful and, until now, united United Kingdom. If the activities of the Assembly are such that they have to be curbed by the Westminster Parliament it will place the Scottish civil servants in the most embarrassing and difficult situation. They will find that they are pawns in a political power struggle, the outcome of which no one can foresee.

5.45 p.m.

All these fears lead me to believe that in this clause we are embarking on the most dangerous course. One may say that it is all right if we play ducks and drakes with our own lives and powers in this Chamber, but it is another matter to place the careers and the whole future of our civil servants at risk, particularly when they have no say in their destiny. Nothing less than the fundamental unity of the United Kingdom is at stake. If we put these sorts of pressures on civil servants nothing short of anarchy and chaos will break out. Who knows where the repercussions may end.

Mr. Dalyell

The hon. Member for Halesowen and Stourbridge (Mr. Stokes) asked a rhetorical question—where will it all end? I shall ask him a question. He comes from the West Midlands. Many Scots have important positions in the West Midlands. If there were this kind of break-up, what would be their reaction?

Mr. Stokes

I have met not a Scot in the West Midlands, and few in Scotland, who is in favour of the Bill or even of an Assembly.

The Committee should really be concerning itself with the appalling and disgraceful figures for unemployment in Scotland and every part of the United Kingdom. It should not indulge in this dangerous tomfoolery. It is incredible that the Government, presumably for political ends, are prepared to risk the foundation of the State in this way.

Our Civil Service is the envy of the world. We may have failed in responsibility in government, we may not have produced the leaders that we used to produce—and we were reminded of that today—but in our administration we have something which no other country has. Why disturb it? Why make hundreds of civil servants anxious about their futures? What is it all for? What are we trying to do? What advantages will there be? I say again that we are playing with fire with this Bill.

Mr. Dempsey

The Committee is anxious to make progress, so I shall not detain it for long. I am at a loss to understand the persistent dogmatism of the hon. Member for Cleveland and Whitby (Mr. Brittan) in making the case for this amendment, particularly since time after time he has received positive replies from the Minister.

What surprises me is that he argues that one cannot have conditions of service for the Civil Service unless the Minister becomes involved responsibly in the application of these conditions in Government agencies throughout the country. The hon. Member says that unless the Minister becomes directly responsible for this aspect of Assembly administration it simply cannot work. This seems to be the hon. Member's argument, and it is completely illogical.

Surely we can have an Assembly with its own office bearers making appointments in accordance with the conditions that have been approved, not only by the Minister but by the Civil Service unions. They have not yet been mentioned. They are as deeply interested and as much involved as is any Minister in England. I listened very carefully to ascertain from the hon. Member for Cleveland and Whitby just how his dilemma arises regarding the relationship between the Minister and the operation of the conditions of service.

I have spent a long time arguing for and advocating national negotiations in which conditions of service covering the entire United Kingdom, should be laid down. They are applied not only nationally but locally without London being involved, and to argue that any Minister should be responsible for the employment, the placing and the salaries of staff is totally absurd, especially when an English Minister might exercise such responsibilities in respect of Scotland. That really amazes me.

The hon. Member should have done his homework. If he had done it correctly, he would have known of the devolved facilities for the health services in Scotland. I spent years in health services administration employing persons on the basis of the United Kingdom Civil Service scales and conditions of service without the involvement of an English Minister. Those people were moving from office to office and travelling between Scotland and England.

I have never heard so much nonsense as that spoken about the apprehension of civil servants as to what is to happen. They are moving between Scotland and England at present, and they will continue to do that after devolution, pro- vided the salary is right, provided that the conditions of service are equally attractive and provided that they can get a suitable home, and so on.

At this stage, therefore, I advise the hon. Member that he is trying to take a sledgehammer to crack a nut. It has been made unquestionably clear by the Minister that any such engagements by the Scottish Secretary shall be in accordance with the conditions of service laid down by the Government for the Civil Service throughout the United Kingdom. Since that assurance has been given, I cannot understand for the life of me why it should not be accepted. When the Scottish Assembly becomes operative, all the protection that is necessary for civil servants will be evident to all who wish to appreciate that in this clause the Government are leaving no stone unturned to protect the conditions of service of such people and to give the responsibility of engagement, and so on, to the Assembly.

After all, the Assembly Members will be elected democratically, just as we are elected here. They will be answerable just as we are answerable to the general public. They will employ office bearers just as we employ them. If the Assembly is to pay the necessary salary, it is entitled to engage those it regards as the most suitable and able, and those people will be answerable to it and not to any English Minister. We in Scotland use the saying "He who pays the piper calls the tune". The Scottish Assembly will be paying the piper.

From the block grant which the tax-payer will pay—and that includes the Scottish taxpayer—sums of money will be made available in order to manage the Assembly. Part of the management will involve the engagement of suitably qualified staff to carry out administrative work. If those staff are to be responsible to the Scottish Assembly, the Scottish Assembly should employ them. Having listened to my hon. Friend the Minister of State, I am satisfied that they will be employed according to the conditions of service drawn up for the Civil Service throughout the United Kingdom.

Miss Harvie Anderson (Renfrewshire, East)

We are losing sight of some of what lies behind this Bill, of matters that are fundamentally of the utmost importance. The amendment seeks to improve on a position which can lead to very grave difficulty. The Civil Service is inevitably silent during a debate in this Chamber, and partly because of that I feel obliged to record my personal view. It is that the part of the Bill devoted to the future of the Civil Service is extremely small. I should have thought it appropriate for both Front Benches—I do not excuse my own—to have had on them the senior Ministers and their "Shadow" counterparts, who depend upon the Civil Service.

I believe that they would leave the debate knowing of the real difficulties that we are presenting to the Civil Service for the first time by introducing into the Home Civil Service a conflict, be it large or small, which we must resolve as best we can. Our duty is to resolve it by saying that the wording of the Bill should embrace as little difficulty for the future as possible. It is quite unrealistic and over-optimistic to suggest that there will not be difficulty through asking the Home Civil Service to uphold two points of view within the same appointment bracket. That is what the Minister suggested, although he did it pleasantly. He said he did not believe that people were unreasonable.

Mr. Dalyell

This is not only a question of people being unreasonable. It is also a question of a whole powerful group in the Assembly wanting something totally different. That is neither honourable nor dishonourable. This group will be striving for something which is across the chasm and, therefore, the question of reasonableness does not enter into it.

Miss Harvie Anderson

That is the point I am trying to make. It is not a question of being unreasonable.

It is over-optimistic to expect that there will not be occasions when two sets of perfectly honourable civil servants will have to provide advice which will conflict. The conflict will not be of their making. It would be quite improper, as the hon. Member for South Ayrshire (Mr. Sillars) said, for the civil servants to be involved in the political aspects. We shall be asking two groups of civil servants, recruited from the same source, to serve different masters in Scotland.

6.0 p.m

Mr. John Smith

Let me take the hypothetical example of an official employed in the Scottish Education Department but answerable to the Scottish Administration. What conflict of loyalties would arise?

Miss Harvie Anderson

With respect, the Minister continues to narrow the matter, and I think that he is unrealistic in so doing. The official to whom he refers may quite properly put forward the point of view of his Department and his Minister. I was not quite sure whether the Minister was referring to the old Secretary of State or the new Scottish Secretary, but I assume that he meant the new Assembly Secretary of State. The Scottish Secretary has an advisory civil servant. The Secretary of State has an advisory civil servant. There are bound to be areas of conflict, whether they be in education or in some other matters.

Mr. John Smith

Why conflict?

Miss Harvie Anderson

All right—there will be differences of opinion in some areas, to put it no higher than that. On such occasions, there will not be divided loyalty, because each set of civil servants will be loyal to their own masters, but their masters themselves will have conflict between them, and that situation will prove very difficult.

The Minister may argue that there can be no such difficulty, but I am sure that in reality there will be, and that is what some of us are trying to prevent. We are asking the Government, therefore, to take this matter far more seriously and to examine the question much more closely than they appear at present to be doing.

Mr. Dalyell

I do not want to take advantage of the Minister, but he mutters sotto voce that these things are resolved in the Cabinet.

Mr. John Smith

No. My hon. Friend should not listen to conversations.

Mr. Dalyell

I am not listening to any conversation.

Mr. John Smith

My hon. Friend has repeated one.

Mr. Dalyell

The Minister said quite loudly—

The First Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means (Sir Myer Galpern)

Order. The right hon. Lady has given way to the hon. Member for West Lothian (Mr. Dalyell). He ought not to make a speech or have arguments with the Minister.

Mr. Dalyell

Of course, in the present system they are resolved in the Cabinet, but in the system which we are discussing there could be difficulty. There could be the hon. Member for Glasgow, Cathcart (Mr. Taylor) in power in one place and my hon. Friends on the Front Bench in power in another place. Therefore, Cabinet resolution does not come into it.

Miss Harvie Anderson

Perhaps I may take the matter on from what the hon. Gentleman has said. It is difficult, Sir Myer, to avoid listening to other people's conversations because there are always about six going on, and the one which is most easy to listen to happens to be the one on the Government Front Bench—

The First Deputy Chairman

Order. The safest way is to look at the Chair and address the Chair.

Miss Harvie Anderson

Now that you have so skilfully brought the Committee to order, Sir Myer, I shall gladly do so.

I take up the point just made by the hon. Member for West Lothian (Mr. Dalyell). We are not dealing with a situation which we have ever experienced before, although we keep trying to pretend that we are. In fact, we are dealing with a totally new situation in which, sitting in Edinburgh, there will be two sets of people perhaps with conflicting views. I say "perhaps", but when there are conflicting views difficulties will arise. We are talking of the same set of civil servants. I cannot express it more clearly. I know that they will be different people, but each will be recruited from the Home Civil Service. They will advise their masters and they will do so impartially. But in some areas a point of conflict will inevitably arise, and we are asking the Minister to take that into account.

The Minister is being terribly touchy about it. He says that it will be all right on the day. All we are saying is that it will not be all right on the day, and we are asking the Minister to take heed now and try to improve the arrangements. If he does not like our amendment, let him think of a better and more convincing way to go about it. He must acknowledge the difficulty, and there is, or will be, an opportunity for him to improve matters.

Our plea is that the Government should make the rôle of the Civil Service possible, but many of us fear that we are about to pass a part of the Bill which will make the position of at least some civil servants very nearly impossible.

Mr. Gerry Fowler (The Wrekin)

I hope that no one will use my brief remarks as a reflecting wall from which to bounce off questions to my hon. Friends on the Front Bench. I assure the Committee that, if anyone does that, I shall not respond, or, in so far as I might respond on behalf of my hon. Friends, I might mislead the Committee, so I hope that the practice which seems to have grown up in this debate will now stop.

I wish, first, to take up the line of argument advanced by the right hon. Lady the Member for Renfrewshire, East (Miss Harvie Anderson) and to say a few words about the problem of double loyalty and, indeed, of duplication, to which my hon. Friend the Member for West Lothian (Mr. Dalyell) referred.

When he opened the debate, the hon. Member for Cleveland and Whitby (Mr. Brittan) suggested that there was no parallel to the situation which we should have after the creation of a Scottish Assembly, saying that the situation as between two Government Departments was in no sense a parallel. One can take a much closer parallel, that of civil servants in the service of a quasi-governmental body. I shall draw on my own experience and refer to the University Grants Committee.

There are civil servants on secondment to the University Grants Committee from the Department of Education and Science and other Departments. Many of them subsequently return to their Department of origin or to other Government Departments. Never once in my many dealings with that body have I seen any problem of conflict of loyalty. When a civil servant is on secondment to the University Grants Committee, there is no doubt about where his loyalty lies; it lies to that Committee and to that Committee alone.

If the hon. Member for Cleveland and Whitby thinks that that situation is not parallel because we shall have a political body in Scotland—perhaps even a body dominated by the Scottish National Party—I assure him that a body composed primarily of academics is just as difficult to serve and just as difficult to deal with as is any gaggle of politicians.

Mr. Dalyell

This is not a rhetorical question. My hon. Friend refers to the time when he was a Minister at the Department of Education and Science. With respect, that is not an exact parallel—

The First Deputy Chairman

Order. The Chair is here, and I should be obliged if the hon. Gentleman would address the Chair.

Mr. Dalyell

The parallel is not with a Labour Minister in a Scottish Assembly. It is a question not of University Grants Committee officials being loyal to a Labour colleague but of their being loyal, say, to the right hon. Lady the Member for Finchley (Mrs. Thatcher), as Secretary of State. That is the parallel, and herein lies the difficulty.

Mr. Fowler

That is the point I am making. Officials on secondment to the University Grants Committee are loyal to the Committee, not to the Secretary of State, whoever the Secretary of State may be. Indeed, there are often conflicts of opinion, and there have been conflicts of opinion between the University Grants Committee and the Department of Education and Science and the Secretary of State who heads that Department.

We know of one such conflict in recent years, and I give nothing away when I refer to it since the dispute was at least semi-public. It was over the proper level of fees for students in higher education. I saw not the slightest evidence at that time that officials of the University Grants Committee were not totally loyal to the Committee. Nor did I see any evidence that their colleagues within the Department, or within other central Government Departments, attempting to browbeat them or threatening them that their career in the Home Civil Service would be damaged were they to remain loyal to the viewpoint of the University Grants Committee. No one else has seen any such evidence. It does not exist.

Mr. Fairbairn

The parallel which the hon. Gentleman uses is utterly absurd, because the University Grants Committee is inevitably subject to the constraints of the Department of Education and Science. If the Department says "We intend to reduce university expenditure", the UGC is subject to that and has to find a way of carrying out that policy, so the Committee and its officials are just as much the servants of the political master.

Here, however, we are envisaging a situation in which there are two different political masters pulling in opposite directions. For example, if Westminster says that the school leaving age shall be raised and the Assembly says that it wants to lower it, how are the civil servants who have to deal with that conflict to resolve it?

Mr. Fowler

With respect to the hon. and learned Gentleman, that is a much easier situation than the one which I have described, since in the one I have described the officials serving the University Grants Committee have simultaneously, on the occasion of a general cut in university expenditure, to advise the Committee on how that may be implemented—the hon. and learned Gentleman is right as regards the general level of university expenditure in that it is the Government who in the last analysis decide that and to advise the Committee how best it may continue to present its own case against that decision. That is a much more difficult situation than the one which the hon. and learned Gentleman postulates, in which officials in the service of the Scottish Assembly have merely to advise their own Executive as to the implementation of their own policy—not of somebody else's policy.

I have chosen a peculiarly difficult example which more than makes the point that I was trying to make, and indeed, what the hon. Member for Cleveland and Whitby is worrying about. It is a chimera—a problem that does not exist in the real world.

As for duplication, let us take the same example. It has been the consistent policy of the Department of Education and Science that its university branch shall be very small. So it has remained over the years. It is of a size sufficient to perform only its own proper functions that are concerned with the determination of university expenditure as a whole, and to act as a link with the University Grants Committee. I see no evidence, on that parallel, that we shall see a massive growth of the Civil Service in order to duplicate effort in both the Assembly and central Government.

Before I conclude, I want to comment on the amendment directly. Part of the argument of the hon. Member for Cleveland and Whitby was that the amendment was desirable in order to tie in the careers structure and membership of the Scottish Civil Service more closely with the Home Civil Service. The hon. Member painted a picture which I thought was quite remarkable. It was a picture of the Scottish Executive conducting a massive head hunt throughout the Home Civil Service looking for the most talented or the most biased members of that Home Civil Service and recruiting them under the noses of the Civil Service Department. I have rarely heard anything so absurd.

There is no possibility—and the Bill brings it no nearer because it does not repeal the principles of the legislation that already governs the Civil Service—that the Scottish Executive would be able to recruit in this head-hunting fashion. In the first place, it is extremely unlikely that civil servants at any level would be transferred to the service of the Scottish Executive against their will, without their consent. In the second place, it is inconceivable that any senior civil servant would be transferred—recruited, as the hon. Gentleman would say—to the service of the Scottish Executive without the consent of the Civil Service Department.

How is that supposed to happen? Here is a man in post in a central Government Department in London, and we are asked to imagine that a head hunter from the Scottish Executive descends on him and tells him that he will offer him an appointment next week in his service, and the Civil Service Department simply sits back and says "Oh, heavens, what a disaster. That is nothing to do with us, as the Department responsible in central Government for the employment of civil servants. You can just snatch him away from this Department and attach him to your own service." Of course, we cannot do that. If a civil servant were simply to desert his present post, which is what hon. Gentleman implies, he would be dismissed from the Home Civil Service.

Mr. Brittan

That is the point that I was making. The hon. Member for The Wrekin (Mr. Fowler) ought to be supporting the amendment, because Clause 21(9) provides: A Scottish Secretary may appoint such officers and servants as he may think appropriate. There is nothing to stop him doing what has just been described in somewhat graphic terms. It would be very difficult to sack a civil servant in the face of an express statutory provision of that kind.

If the hon. Gentleman wants the position to be as he describes it and for that to be made clear, he should vote for the amendment, which gives effect to exactly the procedure that he has described, namely, subject to the consent and the approval of the Minister for the Civil Service. Those are virtually the words he used a second or two ago.

Mr. Fowler

The hon. Gentleman says that I am being graphic. I am merely describing the situation that he sketched in for us earlier. The hon. Gentleman invented it, not I. I am saying what has already been said from the Government side of the Committee—that it will in practice be requisite for there to be consultation with the Civil Service Department. That is absolutely inescapable, whatever gory fantasies the hon. Member may invent.

6.15 p.m.

Turning to what the hon. Gentleman wants to see, it is quite clear that his amendment would produce Civil Service Department control in detail of the civil servants serving the Scottish Assembly and Executive, including control of numbers. The importance of that is that it is another financial control. It is a way of telling the Scottish Assembly how it shall spend its money.

Indeed, it is a way of telling it how it shall do that in a peculiar fashion which disjoins policy from the staffing necessary to implement that policy. To say that the Scottish Assembly shall determine its own policy in a series of areas, as we are saying in the Bill, and that it shall have no control over the number of civil servants who will implement and administer that policy appears to be nonsensical. That is exactly what the hon. Gentleman is saying.

The hon. Member for Glasgow, Cathcart (Mr. Taylor) seemed to go further. He suggested that we should have the control built into the amendment so that when there was a reduction imposed by economic necessity in the size of the United Kingdom Civil Service, that reduction should bite upon the Scottish Assembly as well as upon all the home Government Departments. Yet the hon. Member for Cathcart knows perfectly well that no such control is applied to local authorities in that crude and direct fashion. What happens is that the rate support grant is adjusted. What would happen here is quite obvious. The block grant would be adjusted.

That would be devolution, because then it remains for the Assembly, on the advice of its Executive, to determine its priorities for the expenditure of the money at its disposal. Perhaps its priority will be—I should think that it would be an unpopular priority in Scotland were it to be adopted—that in conditions of severe economic restraint it should increase the number of civil servants who service it in the Executive. Were the Assembly to do so, it would be simultaneously deciding that there would be less money for other services, and perhaps its priority, more reasonably, would be the reverse. So the control would bite indirectly.

If we adopt the amendment, with the gloss put upon it by the hon. Member for Cathcart, we should again be saying that the Scottish Assembly and the Executive shall be subject to more detailed Whitehall and Wesminster control than any local authority in the realm. We would again be saying, as we have heard so often from the Opposition Front Bench, that the Scottish Assembly is to be a body that has less control over its own policies and their implementation than any local authority in the land.

I tire of hearing from the Opposition Front Bench the proposition that we should have devolution and that the Conservative Party is entirely in favour of the principle of devolution, but that in every detail of devolution which we debate we must observe the principle of giving no freedom of action to any elected body in Scotland. That is what the Opposition stand for. It sticks in the gullet of many English Members as well as in those of many Scottish Members. It is perfectly honourable to be opposed to the principle of devolution. What is not tolerable is to advocate acceptance of the principle but to deny in every detail the practice of devolution. I very much hope that the amendment will be rejected.

Mr. Raison

I think that the hon. Member for The Wrekin (Mr. Fowler) has missed the point, because we are not talking about a scheme put forward by the Government which is analogous to local government. We are talking about a scheme under which the Government themselves say that servants of the Scottish Assembly shall be members of the State Civil Service. That is a different position. The hon. Member's passionate words on devolution seem to be irrelevant.

The Minister in his speech earlier this afternoon grumbled about the fact that we on the Opposition Benches and some Government Members spend a lot of time looking for flaws, looking for possible areas of friction, problems and so on. Of course we do, partly because we believe that that is what Committee stages are about, but much more fundamentally because we believe that the Bill is a scheme fraught with possibilities of friction and that it is our duty to bring it to the public and to the Committee. The fundamental reason why it is fraught with possibilities of friction is that it is a scheme that is welcomed and endorsed, in an ambivalent way perhaps, by the Scottish National Party which has said again and again that it sees it purely as a stepping stone on the path of a separate Scottish State.

One of my right hon. Friends was asked to give an example of where this dilemma of divided loyalties in education might lie. I suppose that it could run something like this. It is perfectly possible—perish the thought—that the SNP could get a majority in the Scottish Assembly, could form the Scottish Government and could then adopt an education policy to the effect, roughly, that what was taught in schools should be devoted to the creation of a separate Scottish State. In other words, the SNP might use the Scottish education system in order to advance its political objectives. I do not know whether it would, but as education is to be a devolved power, it would be perfectly possible for the Scottish Assembly to use every possible means, not only through the education system but through anything else, to advance political objectives.

The Minister says blandly that this would pose no problems for the civil servants who would, as it were, be temporarily assigned perhaps to the Scottish Assembly. But they would be administering a policy which was completely at variance with the policy of the United Kingdom Government as a whole and with the policy of Parliament as a whole, and profoundly antipathetic to the views of those particular civil servants. It seems to me quite evident that there could be a very serious conflict of loyalty. One might say that it would still be the duty of those civil servants to do what their masters in the Assembly told them to do.

Mr. MacCormick

We in the SNP would never dream of turning people's minds towards a Scottish State through education. We do not have to do that. If the hon. Gentleman came to Scotland more often, he could do the job far better than any of us can do it.

Mr. Raison

That intervention seems hardly worthy of comment.

However, I do not know why Labour supporters of devolution seem to be completely committed to the view that they should make a speech and then completely disappear from the Chamber as quickly as possible. I suppose that it is to avoid defeat in argument, which they find painful.

I was about to say to the hon. Member for The Wrekin, who has just left the Chamber, that when he talked about the UGC he was talking about a very different sort of circumstance from that which I have described. It is a QUANGO, a semi-independent body. By and large, it pursues its own line. No doubt, by and large, the civil servants assigned to it do what it was said that they do. But they are really a different kind of thing from an Assembly that might be controlled by the SNP.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Cleveland and Whitby (Mr. Brittan) made a powerful case from the Opposition Front Bench, the most useful thing that I can do is to return to the starting point of the debate.

Mr. John Smith

The hon. Gentleman has used the education example. Will he explain, without fanciful examples about someone trying to brainwash people through the education system, how an official working for the Scottish Education Department and responsible to a Secretary for Education, a member of the Administration, will have a conflict of loyalties?

Mr. Raison

Yes. As I say, the Scottish Secretary, the Scottish Assembly and the Scottish Executive might decide, first, to move away from the tradition that we have in England, anyway, that the curriculum should not be centrally laid down, and go to the other system, which is widely used in other parts of the world. There is nothing unusual about the notion of a centrally determined curriculum in education. They might make that decision and then construct the curriculum in such a way as to put repeatedly and explicitly the clear political objectives of the groups that build up the notion of Scotland as a separate country. Given that we then have a centrally laid down curriculum, the civil servants would have to administer it.

Mr. John Smith

I think that the hon. Gentleman does not understand what the proposals are. Education is devolved to the Scottish Assembly—and the decisions. It may be wildly different from what takes place in England. That is the whole point of devolution. One can have different choices. As the hon. Gentleman will know, the Scottish education system is radically different from the English education system. But where is the conflict? The official will be carrying out the instructions of the Secretary in the Scottish Administration. He will not have a relationship with the United Kingdom Government.

Mr. Raison

I am saying that the Minister is being quite impractical and quite unreasonable in thinking that that will happen. No doubt that will be the correct constitutional position. No doubt these civil servants will be meant to do what they are told to do by their immediate masters of the moment, namely, the Scottish Executive and so on. I do not dispute that. Nevertheless, the Minister is being blind if he does not see that there will be profound conflict where those civil servants are ultimately the servants of the United Kingdom Government, because that is really the position.

Mr. John Smith

I just do not understand the hon. Gentleman.

Mr. Raison

If the Minister does not understand it, I cannot help that. The civil servants will be in the service of the Home Civil Service of the State. They are members of the United Kingdom Civil Service. Ultimately, their career prospects will depend upon their membership of the Civil Service of the State as a whole. Ultimately, too, they will have a profound loyalty to the United Kingdom. I hope that they will still have a profound loyalty to this Parliament. Our civil servants are imbued with a very deep sense of loyalty to not only the United Kingdom but this Parliament.

As a matter of hard fact, I believe that civil servants temporarily assigned to the Scottish Assembly will find it not only distasteful but, in some cases, morally impossible to carry out a policy that is in total opposition to that of the United Kingdom Parliament.

It is no good the Minister making faces, because what I am saying is true.

Mr. John Smith

No, it is not true.

Mr. MacCormick

Does the hon. Member for Aylesbury (Mr. Raison) appreciate that we already have in Scotland a total administrative devolution of education and that no conflict arises at present? I cannot see, first, how such a conflict would arise in the future, and secondly, why some people should try to constrict the civil servants even more in the future than they are constricted at present.

Mr. Raison

The hon. Gentleman would be wiser not to intervene, because he has just made the most fatuous observation. As the hon. Gentleman says, a very great level of administrative devolution and, indeed, a form of political devolution obtains at present in Scottish education. That is right and admirable. I am delighted that it exists. I should like that to continue. But that is a totally different thing from the circumstances that would prevail with the Scottish Assembly. After all, the Scottish Office is still a part of the United Kingdom. It has a lot of administrative power, but it is still bound by United Kingdom policy as a whole.

Mr. John Smith

I have been trying to follow the hon. Gentleman's point. Education is a good example of something that is destructive of his point. After devolution, the Scottish Assembly is to have sole responsibility for education. The hon. Gentleman might have a case if the United Kingdom Parliament were to have some responsibility for education. There might be a clash then. However, when it is clear that education is a devolved matter, I cannot understand the hon. Gentleman's point that the civil servants carrying out the policy of the Secretary for Education would have a divided loyalty, because I do not see that there is a conflict of loyalty. To which other Minister will they have responsibility?

Mr. Raison

I do not often accuse the Minister of being legalistic, but he is now being ridiculously legalistic. I conceded earlier that the civil servant who, for the time being, is working for the Assembly has a duty to carry out the wishes of the Assembly. That is the full legal position. But I also said that there was far more to it than that. If one reaches the stage that the Scottish Assembly, because of there having been elected an SNP majority, uses every endeavour to try to create a separate Scottish country, quite separate from the United Kingdom, those civil servants will be placed in a position of most profound unease, and I believe that in some cases the position will be intolerable for them.

The idea that civil servants do not chat to each other and that there is no kind of Civil Service network, stretched across the Civil Service, as opposed to the political network via Departments, is a myth.

6.30 p.m.

Mr. Malcolm Rifkind: (Edinburgh, Pentlands)

Cannot the example that my hon. Friend is trying to give be found in Quebec, where, if the civil servants were still part of a Canadian Civil Service, there would be conflict over a matter such as the Quebec languages Bill? There would be a direct conflict not simply in terms of devolved powers but over the Canadian constitution, which the civil servants are also pledged to uphold.

Mr. Raison

I agree. I do not know enough about the position of the civil servants in Canada, but it seems to me that there might be a position in which the consciences of civil servants would be tortured.

For some reason the Minister is in a bad temper today, but I should like to try to explain to him why we on the Conservative Benches believe that at the very least the scheme he is putting forward is hard to follow and very confusing. Clause 21(9) says: A Scottish Secretary may appoint such officers and servants as he may think appropriate for the exercise of such of the powers mentioned in subsection (3) of this section as are for the time being exercised by him. That is a clear statement that the Scottish Secretary may appoint. We then jump to Clause 64(1), which says: Service as an officer or servant of a Scottish Secretary or of the Scottish Comptroller and Auditor General shall be service in the home civil service of the state, and appointments to any position as such an officer or servant shall be made accordingly. What the Minister is saying is that the second clause qualifies or explains the first. But at the very least to use the word "appoint" in this way is a source of considerable confusion. What do we think when we read that A Scottish Secretary may appoint", with the qualification in Clause 64 covered simply by the word "accordingly"?

The Minister and other hon. Members who support his point of view have said that "accordingly" means that everything must be on the same basis as for the Civil Service in the rest of the United Kingdom. The hon. Member for South Ayrshire (Mr. Sillars) lectured us because we were not trade unionists and did not understand that "accordingly" meant that all terms and conditions had to be exactly the same wherever the civil servants were, and so on. If the Minister does not think that our amendment is the right answer, he might at least concede that there is cause of confusion and that it would be helpful to make clear to the country by another amendment—perhaps even his own amendment—what this all means.

I am not a lawyer, but I believe that courts called upon to construe "accordingly" might have the greatest difficulty. They might well come up with very different answers, which would cause all kinds of confusion. "Accordingly" is made to carry an excessive load. I know that the Minister touched on these matters, but we need a clear idea how the word can be construed as covering the following matters. It is not enough for him to say "this is what it covers". He must explain how.

For example, how does the word make sure that the Assembly could not suddenly decide that the civil servants in Scotland should be paid an extra 20 per cent, or that they should be paid less than civil servants in the rest of the United Kingdom? How does it determine the process of selection and training for the Civil Service? The Assembly might want a separate college in Scotland for training Scottish civil servants in particular attitudes of mind, perhaps to do with approaching independence.

Mr. Dalyell

It is not simply a question of the Scottish Assembly wanting a separate Civil Service college in Scotland. Surely, if the Assembly is to be as different as all that, it will have to have a Scottish Civil Service college which serves its own needs.

Mr. Raison

That is a fair point. There is a problem, which would disappear if there were a separate Scottish Civil Service. I do not want there to be a separate Scottish Civil Service, but if it existed there would be a different answer. We can get into a tremendous muddle over this.

There are other very important problems, but the problem on which we are particularly entitled to ask for elucidation is that of temporary appointments by the Scottish Secretary. The assumption so far has been that those who serve the Assembly will be drawn from the national pool of civil servants. I can see that nobody will force people to work for the Assembly if they do not want to, but the Executive may say, for example, "We wish to appoint policy advisers". It may want to have them on a bigger scale than the present Government have policy advisers, and on different conditions. It may say "We want more experts—more engineers, scientists, doctors".

It seems to me that those people, having been appointed by the Scottish Secretary, then become a part of the State Civil Service. When I read those two clauses in conjunction, that is what they appear to mean. If that is not so, the Minister must show not merely that it is his intention that that shall not be so but that the Bill ordains that it shall not be so.

The Minister has not explained the position over temporary appointments, certainly not adequately. He has a duty to tell us what it all adds up to. Can the Scottish Secretary say "I wish to appoint so-and-so"? As I understand it the hon. Gentleman will tell us that the Scottish Secretary can say that, that he can say "I wish to appoint Mr. McTavish to a particular position, maybe as my special adviser on this or that matter". Mr. McTavish might be a man of questionable security background. I imagine that the portmanteau word "accordingly" includes some kind of security vetting of Mr. McTavish. It could mean anything under the sun.

Let us suppose that the Scottish Secretary says "I wish to appoint Mr. McTavish to this sensitive post" and then the Civil Service Minister says "I can't have that. He is a security risk." That might well all be done in a gentlemanly way, with nothing ever coming out, with everything very peaceful and taking place with the kind of co-operation that the Minister believes will always prevail. But the whole thing could boil up into a flaming political row, and then somebody would be in an impossible position.

The Minister must tell us exactly what he has in mind about these difficult matters. We are trying to produce examples of things going wrong. That is what Committee stages are all about.

My hon. Friend the Member for Cleveland and Whitby, who made an excellent speech, put his arguments with great force and clarity. He showed—and this is always the theme—that there are anomalies and discrepancies, that the whole matter is fundamentally a mess because we are trying to graft this devolved thing on to a unitary State and it cannot work.

Mr. Dalyell

The hon. Member for Aylesbury (Mr. Raison) and other speakers have revealed the fundamental truth about the nature of a unitary State, that we cannot have our cake and eat it, that we cannot have in the Civil Service, as in so many other aspects, only part of a unitary State and a subordinate Parliament.

Before I come to the details of the amendment, I want to refer to one other matter raised by my hon. Friend the Minister of State. He is for ever saying that of course we shall be dealing with reasonable people, that we should assume a sense of co-operation. I wish that we could, but it is not a question of individuals being reasonable or unreasonable or being co-operative or unco-operative. In the very nature of the situation in which we find ourselves, there are deep differences of opinion. There are a lot of people, not only in the SNP, who want something different from that which I and the Government Front Bench want. There is no way of reconciling these views and being reasonable and co-operative.

It is possible that a great many Members of the Assembly would be reasonable, on the proviso that we acquiesce in what they want. What they want is a separate State. They will be co-operative provided they get what they want. Such demands are unacceptable to a great many of my right hon. and hon. Friends. In parenthesis, I should say that my right hon. and hon. Friends should be acquitted on one score. Hon. Members may know that there is a crucial meeting of the Parliamentary Labour Party going on and I do not believe that those who have spoken from the Labour Benches should be attacked on the ground that they have subsequently deserted the Committee.

I wish to put a direct question to the Minister of State, a question to which I genuinely do not know the answer. If civil servants are to be paid out of the Scottish Consolidated Fund, does that in any way affect the contract on which they entered when they entered the Civil Service? This is a new situation. I ask this direct legal question. Has any adjustment to be made in the terms of the contracts of those who entered the Home Civil Service, albeit many years ago?

Mr. John Smith

The answer to that is "No."

Mr. Dalyell

I am grateful.

I thought that the hon. Member for Cleveland and Whitby (Mr. Brittan) made a thoughtful and pertinent speech. But I do not support his amendment and I wish to explain why. Basically, I do not think that the amendment would come near to achieving what the hon. Gentleman seeks. Even if the amendment were carried it would simply paper over the cracks in the unity of the Home Civil Service, cracks which are far deeper and far more structurally significant than many hon. Members have yet realised. The hon. Member spoke of an air of reality and I suspect, by the way he is looking at me, that he perhaps agrees with what I am saying.

The reality is that this amendment, even if it were carried, could not be delivered by a United Kingdom Government, even in good faith. On previous occasions I have expressed fears concerning the problems of double loyalties in the Civil Service. The Civil Service cannot serve both God and Mammon, Whitehall and Westminster or old and new St. Andrew's House. A little to the gleeful satisfaction of the Minister of State, I had to accept, and I did it willingly, from Norman Ellis of the First Division Association and Leslie Christie of the Civil and Public Services Association that they did not see the problem of double loyalties arising since each of their members would be working to a Minister, either a Whitehall Minister or Secretary, or an Assembly Cabinet Minister or other Assembly Minister.

Once the Committee accepts that there is no problem of double loyalties we have a problem of duplication with a vengence. The hon. Member for Cleveland and Whitby put it in terms of "shadow" civil servants within Scotland. Never will so many cooks have been paid so much to stir so frequently the Scots broth. The Assembly will have its retinue of civil servants as will, presumably, the Secretary of State. I do not accept for one moment that in those circumstances the parallel drawn by my hon. Friend the Member for The Wrekin (Mr. Fowler) concerning the small number of civil servants who work for the University Grants Committee is in any way valid. That is a totally different situation. If anyone says that the Secretary of State will not have a retinue I am entitled to ask, from whom will the Secretary of State get his advice and information?

6.45 p.m.

Mr. Raison

Can I give an example of something which might conceivably happen and which is topical? The Select Committees of the House have the power to send for persons and papers. Such a Committee could say that it wished to examine something happening in Scotland and could summon civil servants in the employ of the Scottish Assembly to give evidence. It may be that the SNP, or some other party controlling the Assembly, might say to the civil servants "No, you must not go and give evidence." Can anyone dispute that at the least such civil servants will be faced with the most appalling problem of divided loyalties? This is something which no words of the Minister of State can brush away.

Mr. Dalyell

Presumably the civil servants in question would ask their Scottish Assembly Minister, or the Scottish Prime Minister, according to the importance of the issue, whether they should give evidence and what information they should give. That may create conflict between Royal High School Ministers and Westminster Ministers. The conflict may be a ministerial one rather than one involving the Civil Service. It is simply transferring the conflict from the Civil Service to Ministers.

Mr. Brittan

That is true in a constitutional sense but would the hon. Gentleman not agree that there is an extra dimension to this in that it is not just a question of the civil servant saying that he does what the Royal High School Ministers says? He also knows that he is a member of the Home Civil Service and may in two, three or five years' time be in a United Kingdom Department. What sort of effect would his resisting the command of a Select Committee have on his future prospects?

Mr. Dalyell

I am not, perhaps, the man to ask, because I have to get into the position of devil's advocate. My reply to the hon. Gentleman would be that such a person would have to ask about his future relations with, for instance, those in the Treasury and the Civil Service Department on whom his future would have to depend. One thing that is true about most civil servants is that, understandably, they are naturally extremely concerned about what their senior colleagues think of their performance. It may be that senior colleagues will be generous and say of someone who was fighting for a Scottish Minister that he was only doing his job. This raises the most delicate questions of career structure. Any civil servant in this position would be, to say the least, in a quandry. Like everyone else, he has to be concerned about his future.

Mr. Raison

Is it necessarily the case that civil servants summoned to appear before a Select Committee, have to go to their superiors and ask permission? Is there some Act which says that a civil servant is bound, under those circumstances, to turn to his Secretary of State, his boss, rather than obey the summons of the House? What would he fall back on to justify turning to his boss rather than obeying the will of Parliament?

Mr. Dalyell

I do not know the rules but I imagine that if a situation arose in which a civil servant in Edinburgh, loyal to the hon. Member for Dundee, East (Mr. Wilson), as a member of a Scottish Government, coalition or otherwise, decided off his own bat to give controversial evidence to a Select Committee of this House without so much as a by-your leave from his Minister, it would be human and natural for the hon. Member to have something to say about that—or the hon. Members for Argyll (Mr. MacCormick) and Dunbartonshire, East (Mrs. Bain) if they were similarly placed.

Mr. MacCormick

Clearly, if we are to have in the Scottish Assembly a position in which members of the Scottish Executive appoint civil servants, they will also have a responsibility to dismiss them should the occasion arise. In such a case I would certainly sack them at once.

Mr. Dalyell

This is very revealing—that the Minister would sack the civil servants. The civil servants, having heard what was said, would naturally be concerned, and therefore perhaps it would be a very unwary civil servant in Scotland who came to this House to give evidence to a Select Committee. But that raises very considerable problems for the House—

Mr. John Smith

I do not think that my hon. Friend can fairly attack the Government and the Bill in that way, merely because of some of the odd answers given by Members of the Scottish National Party. As the Bill stands, a Minister cannot sack a civil servant, nor would a Scottish Secretary be able to do that.

Mr. Dalyell

Yes, but a Scottish Prime Minister would surely want some say as to his own most senior advisers.

Mr. John Smith

But not in regard to sacking.

Mr. Sillars

Is my hon. Friend suggesting that the hypothetical civil servant will give his own personal opinion or a departmental opinion? There would be a difference if he gave the departmental opinion, which is what tends to happen before Select Committees. Which set of circumstances is my hon. Friend talking about? If he is talking of someone coming to give his own personal opinion and revealing damaging information—to use my hon. Friend's own words—that would cause problems in relation to the present unified United Kingdom Departments.

Mr. Dalyell

Then bang goes his loyalty to the Home Civil Service, and here again it is a question of trying to have one's cake and eating it. I think that my hon. Friend the Member for South Ayrshire (Mr. Sillars) is on a very real point here. In these circumstances, we cannot surely talk about loyalty to the Home Civil Service, and that is the break-up.

Let my hon. Friend imagine, if he will, the position that would arise if he had a post of senior responsibility in a Scottish Administration. Would he tolerate for a moment civil servants who were not loyal primarily to himself? Indeed, would he not be concerned to choose certain civil servants who, shall we say, were not unsympathetic to his point of view? I am not saying that he would want toadies, but the truth is that most senior Ministers are concerned to have around them not political supporters necessarily but people who are not unfriendly to what they are trying to do. That has implications for a Scottish Assembly.

Mr. Sillars

Would it not be the case that, in both the present circumstances and in a future devolved situation, if a senior civil servant went to a Select Committee of this House and revealed damaging information from his departmental knowledge, there would be problems, whether he was a member of the Department of the Environment or a member of the devolved Administration?

Bearing in mind my hon. Friend's second point, is it not the case that under the Bill it is perfectly possible for members of the Scottish Executive, like members of the present Cabinet, to employ as civil servants their own political advisers? Of course, one would be liable to choose as political advisers those who were closest to one in terms of political ideology.

Mr. Dalyell

I hope that I shall be acquitted, for time reasons, of not going into that point. I will simply say that the question of political advisers is a little different.

Mr. John Smith

My hon. Friend made a remark about Ministers having friendly people around them. I deduced an implication that Ministers in Government like to have, as their most immediately involved civil servants, people of a similar political persuasion. I do not know whether my hon. Friend is in a position to know about this, but from my experience in this Government this is a completely absurd proposition. I think that my comment would be true of nearly every Government.

Mr. Dalyell

I have not sought to put it quite like that. What I say is that if there are Ministers committed to the idea and concept of a separate Scottish State, or to more devolution—the idea of maxi-devolution—they would not find it tolerable to have as their most immediate and close advisers those who were absolutely committed to a United Kingdom view. There are shades of meaning here which are rather important. The impression I wish to convey is not that Ministers want to have friends around them. It is that they do not want to have people around them who are intellectually deeply unfriendly to their point of view.

Mr. Raison

I think that there is another dimension to this and that we have to face up to it. Very sadly, there have been instances recently of civil servants applying political pressure. One of the most shameful things to happen during the life of the present Government, in my view, was the way in which civil servants at Swansea said that they would not handle cherished number plates. I do not care a fig about these number plates, but I am very worried that civil servants in the Department said that they would not process them. For several months they were not processed. It was not the Government who said that it would not be done. It was the civil servants who said that they would not do it. That was, I think, the first ugly glimmering of something that I hope we shall not see again. It seems to me to be the kind of thing that is more likely to happen in the sort of general situation that we are talking about here.

Mr. Dalyell

In the absence of my hon. Friend the Member for Berwick and East Lothian (Mr. Mackintosh), I have to try to beware of not taking over his mantle and conducting a seminar. All I can say is that I listened to the hon. Gentleman's comment with interest. If it is contended that the Secretary of State will have a tiny number of civil servants, I suggest that his days in the Cabinet will be numbered, partly because he will not be anchored in Whitehall and will be known by his colleagues to have to depend for basic information on the civil servants responsible to the Scottish Prime Minister and his Cabinet colleagues in Edinburgh. "Why deal with the monkey", the London Cabinet members might say, "when we can talk directly to the organ grinder?".

In these circumstances, the office of Secretary of State—to which apparently my Front Bench attaches considerable importance, and to which considerable importance has been attached in every Labour document on this issue—will almost certainly wither away. I suspect that in that proposition I have the support of my hon. Friend the Member for South Ayrshire.

I say to the hon. Member for Cleveland and Whitby that inextricably and inevitably, if an Assembly is established, Scottish civil servants will look to that Assembly more and more and to the Secretary of State less and less. The hon. Gentleman asked whose civil servants they are. There are issues here such as a common promotion ladder. I wonder how selection is to be done on the basis of the present Civil Service examinations. I am not quite sure that this promotion ladder and the promotion system can continue to exist. But when the hon. Gentleman asks this kind of question, surely he must recognise that his amendment, even if it is passed, will form no kind of lasting constraint in regard to the unity of the Home Civil Service.

It is at this point that we should consider the unreality of the amendment. Supposing there were an English Conservative Minister for the Civil Service—perhaps the hon. Member for St. Marylebone (Mr. Baker). Supposing there were a Government on the Left, sustained—heaven help us—by coalition support from the Scottish National Party in Edinburgh. The Edinburgh civil servants would have a loyalty to their Minister in Edinburgh and they would see their future, provided they wanted to remain in Scotland, as being on the side of Edinburgh. I do not like the word "masters" which is sometimes used to describe those for whom civil servants work, but certainly they would acquiesce with Scottish Ministers, and in any conflict they would cock the proverbial snook at the English Minister for the Civil Service. There would be very little that the Minister could do about it.

It is all very well for my hon. Friend the Minister of State to say that there is a clear decision by the Government that in 1978 there will be a unified Civil Service, and that this will be carried out by Clause 64. It is fine to make those assertions, but the very reality of the situation will bring about a position of flux where inevitably civil servants in Edinburgh will have to choose between the one or the other. My guess is that in terms of their future they will choose to work with the Edinburgh Assembly and put their eggs in the Assembly basket.

7.0 p.m.

No less than my hon. Friends I feel that the whistling-in-the-wind assertions in Clause 64 about servants of a Scottish Assembly being in the Home Civil Service of the State are wishful thinking. So, no less, is the amendment of the hon. Member for Cleveland and Whitby. The idea that there can be control by the Minister for the Civil Service is just another of those notions that could not possibly endure in the real world.

Mr. Brittan

I hope the hon. Gentleman will do me the justice of accepting that I said it was an attempt to square the circle and that I have the gravest reservations about this solution. I said that if an attempt were made to make it work, it would be necesasry to change the wholly inchoate, vague and inexpressive form contained in the present Bill. In my speech I did not set out any high hopes that this solution would be a durable one because I do not believe that the Bill is a durable one.

Mr. Dalyell

This is a probing amendment which ought to be developed, because the hon. Gentleman has fairly outlined his position.

I am also charged by my hon. Friend the Minister of State with having fantasies. I want to get the matter straight. I may be thick about this, but we are told that the salaries will be decided by the United Kingdom Government and that the numbers will be decided by the Assembly and that this will come out of the Consolidated Fund for which the Scottish Assembly is responsible. We are then told that the Minister for the Civil Service could control numbers.

Mr. John Smith

I never said that the Minister would control the numbers. Indeed, I said precisely the opposite. I am afraid that my hon. Friend has misunderstood me in a very basic way.

Mr. Dalyell

I hope that we shall get some clarification on this point. If the salaries are decided by the United Kingdom Government and the numbers decided by the Assembly, the extra moneys will be found out of the Consolidated Fund at the expense of other matters.

Mr. John Smith

Perhaps my hon. Friend will recall that I said precisely that. I said that the salaries would be paid for out of the block fund. My hon. Friend is asking me questions which I answered in my speech.

Mr. Dalyell

In that case the cost of all those extra civil servants, be it 750 or whatever, will come out of the Consolidated Fund. One of the results of our great devolution caper is that more civil servants will have to be paid out of the Consolidated Fund at the expense of existing services in Scotland. One thinks of all the different services which exist, such as home helps and others. If we are saying that there will be more civil servants and fewer home helps, that ought to be made clear, at any rate by the time we come to the referendum.

Mr. Sillars

This is an important point and I am sure that my hon. Friend does not wish to be unfair to the future Assembly. Is it not just as fair to argue that once the Assembly administration examines the structure of the Scottish Civil Service it might well reduce the numbers? What we are talking about at the moment is a Civil Service in Scotland that is run basically from the Whitehall end of the United Kingdom. Things could get better instead of worse.

Mr. Dalyell

I do not see the prospect of the Assembly reducing the numbers, especially when one thinks of the great Assembly committees on health, education and housing that are to be set up and all the functionaries who will have to serve those committees. The Government themselves concede that there will be many hundreds of extra civil servants in Scotland and Wales. Presumably, they will be paid for out of the existing allocation. Incidentally, I believe that the allocation will be far more to the disadvantage of Scotland because people will scrutinise the pro rata basis on which it is made.

The point is that we shall have more civil servants and be less well off as a result of our devolution plans. That does not seem to be a very challengeable proposition.

Reference was also made to the question of "in and out". The Minister of State said that this was an extremely important matter. That brings us to the whole issue of the Scots who want a United Kingdom Civil Service career. Surely questions have to be asked about what, an entrant to the Civil Service opts for. For example, one of the options will be to the Scottish Assembly Civil Service, even given that this Act sticks, which I do not think it will.

In passing I should point out that careers such as we have seen at the end of this decade of people such as Sir William Armstrong, Sir Matthew Stevenson and Sir Alexander Johnston will be impossible if the Bill is passed, because there will surely be some kind of separation between those who go for the different system of an Assembly and the rest of the Home Civil Service. I believe that the hon. Member for Aylesbury was quite right in saying that many civil servants will be tortured in their consciences in this matter.

For time reasons I shall not raise the whole question of the Foreign Office, on which I have asked the Foreign Secretary various questions. I go on to reflect that a devolved Scotland will be a very internal place. I ask the SNP whether it would not want civil servants who were not basically unsympathetic—I put it in the form of a double negative—to its basic aims. If there were an SNP Government, or if the SNP at any future date formed part of a governing coalition, would it not be tempted to promote those civil servants, or further the careers of those civil servants, whom it deemed shared its beliefs? I do not ask this as in any way a smearing question. I believe that it is the reality of the position.

Ministers surely have the right to have people around them who are not uncongenial—I put this point by way of a rather careful double negative—and to have civil servants who have some sympathy with what they are trying to do. What happens when what they are trying to do is contrary to the continuation of a British State in general and the unity of the Home Civil Service in particular?

Therefore, by a different route, I arrive at the same conclusion as the hon. Member for Aylesbury. It is one thing to ask civil servants to be loyal to political masters who may have particular political policies at the time. It is quite another to ask civil servants to be loyal both to the Home Civil Service and at the same time to Ministers whose very raison d'être is the break up of the British State. Therefore, can it not be said that the very possibility of separatist Ministers in Edinburgh alters the basis of the discussion that we are having?

Yet again, as so often, we find ourselves driven to the heart of the matter —that one cannot have a subordinate Parliament in one part, though only one part, of a unitary State and, as a rider to that proposition, one cannot have a Civil Service that will come more and more to depend on one Parliament and expect that it can be obedient to and integrated with the ministerial orders of a Minister in another Parliament. Like it or not, this clause is the thin end of the wedge in the break-up of the Home Civil Service. We cannot have loyalties to one while at the same time having loyalties to the other.

Finally—and I am seeking to be brief —I hope that when the Bill reaches another place a great deal of attention will be devoted to this clause. I hope that the noble Lords Lord Armstrong, Lord Allen and Lord Trend, who have had distinguished careers in the Civil Service, will regard it as a sacred duty to pay great regard to the provisions of the Bill. I hope that those noble Lords, who have been senior permanent secretaries in the British Civil Service, will give their minds to these matters when they are dealt with in the other place.

Mr. Alick Buchanan-Smith (North Angus and Mearns)

I shall not detain the House for more than a few minutes in dealing with this important amendment on which the argument has ranged widely.

I do not subscribe to some of the higher nights of fantasy which have been indulged in on both sides of the Committee about the workings of the Civil Service in relation to the Assembly. I share some of the Minister's optimism rather than some of the pessimistic thoughts which have been expressed as to the degree of co-operation. Some hon. Members thought that there would be an utter lack of such co-operation. However, I believe that the Civil Service, by virtue of its experience and traditions, will show its ability to adapt itself to this new situation.

I do not believe that the situation is as serious or as desperate as some hon. Members make out. However, we shall be entering a completely new dimension in terms of Civil service loyalty when the Scottish Assembly is established. The Civil Service must work with the Scottish Assembly and also with the United Kingdom Parliament. I believe that there will be a split in loyalty. The hon. Member for The Wrekin (Mr. Fowler) instanced the analogy of civil servants who work on the one hand for the University Grants Committee and on the other hand for a Government Department. However, I do not believe that that argument stands up. The crucial difference that we are now discussing is that civil servants will be answerable to two different Executives. The moment that one introduces an Executive into the form of devolution one intends to set up, one also brings in certain strains. I do not think that the Government sufficiently recognise the strains that will be introduced.

However, I do not think the situation will be as bad as some have made out. I do not question the impartiality of the Civil Service, or indeed of individual civil servants, and to some extent the system may work despite what I am arguing. But the strains will arise on practical grounds, such as in career prospects. I see that the Minister does not agree with that remark, but it must not be shrugged off.

The moment that one has civil servants operating in two different Administrations when those Administrations can be of two different political complexions, one is dealing with a new situation and a new dimension. It is one thing to have a Civil Service that is answerable to one form of Administration before a General Election and then to cope with an Administration of a different political complexion after the election, but in this case we are asking civil servants simultaneously to be loyal to two Administrations which could be of a different political colour.

7.15 p.m.

I should not be quite so worried about the situation if we had a clearer division of responsibility, but we do not have such a division in the Scottish Assembly. I would be more sanguine if we had a better idea of the division of responsibility, but we do not even have that at present. Drawing on my own experience in Government—and I served in Departments connected with agriculture and fisheries—I came to learn that the agricultural colleges, for example, in Scotland are administered by one division in the Scottish Office. That subject will now be part of a split responsibility. The same argument applies to teaching and to the educational aspects of agriculture and fisheries and also to research and advisory matters. This process is sure to lead to duplication. One division will have to be sub-divided in answering on the one hand to the Scottish Assembly and on the other hand to the Secretary of State.

If I may take the question of fisheries as an example, the freshwater aspect will be the responsibility of the Assembly, while sea fishing will be the responsibility of the United Kingdom Parliament. That is an important division of responsibility. But that is bound to lead to the kind of duplication envisaged by the hon. Member for West Lothian (Mr. Dalyell). It will lead to a clash of responsibilities. In regard to the functions of the agricultural colleges as between the Assembly and the United Kingdom Parliament, there will be some overlapping and an increase in areas of possible conflict. The same argument applies to fishing. The fact is that certain freshwater fish do not confine themselves to fresh water. There will be an overlap in that responsibility, and that conflict will extend to the Civil Service.

I should like to deal with some of the arguments deployed by the Minister in favour of the Government's proposals. He said that the Bill would ease recruitment and smooth the transfer from the present system to the new one. However, we should not look at only the short-term advantages of moving into a new system. The question of continuity is most important, but the ease of transfer should not be made the main reason for change.

I do not accept the Minister's argument that a unified Civil Services gives better promotional and career prospects. I cannot help remembering wryly what happened when we discussed police amalgamation. It was proposed that the police force in Shetland should be amalgamated into the police force in the northern counties. It was said that such a move would increase promotional prospects for constables in Shetland because they would be joining a larger police force. But the opportunity to become chief constable in the northern counties was assessed as one in 200, whereas the opportunity of making a similar promotion in Shetland was one in 14. Therefore, that argument can be easily stood on its head.

I come to the nub of the matter. The Minister said that his method of proceed ing was the easiest and most straightforward solution to service the Scottish Assembly. I do not regard that as the right approach. I believe that an approach that is based on what is easy will eventually lead to an unstable system. I do not wish to support an unstable process. If we are to undertake this course, the only sure answer is to have a Civil Service that is particular to Scotland and to the Scottish Executive and Assembly.

If we are to have an Assembly with an Executive, this is the logical way to proceed and the logical conclusion of most of the arguments that we have heard. The Minister argued strongly against that view. If we do not proceed in this way, we are pushed back to the amendment. We must reduce the difficulties and the areas of conflict, and although the amendment may be second best, it may still be the best option before us.

Mr. Sproat

I have listened with great interest to the arguments deployed on the question of the loyalty of civil servants. As so often, the hon. Member for West Lothian (Mr. Dalyell) has thrown up interesting and unusual nuggets which could almost have come only from him. The idea of those in another place who have had experience as permanent under-secretaries giving the closest attention to this part of the Bill is a particularly useful suggestion and I hope that they will follow it up.

I am more open minded on the question of loyalty than on any other part of the Bill. On almost every other amendment, my natural inclination is to take issue with the Minister and to support anyone who can find a way of blocking this ridiculous Assembly. However, I am about to undermine the Minister's intellectual self-confidence by saying that I slightly agree with him on this issue.

I do not accept that there will be a tug of loyalties between two masters. Each civil servant will have only one master, and it is the clear duty of civil servants to obey the politicians to whom they are attached at any time. There will, of course, be differing political views which must bind the Civil Service as a whole.

My hon. Friend the Member for Aylesbury (Mr. Raison) mentioned the example of Select Committees. Difficulties could arise there, but this is a one-off, ad hoc question and I do not think that it will be beyond the ability of this House to say, if a Select Committee summons a civil servant, that he must attend or that he need not attend. Indeed, there may already be an answer to this problem. I do not think that such a one-off argument should draw in the wider issue of the loyalty of civil servants.

The hon. Member for West Lothian thought that there would be a slight problem over whether civil servants would look more to the Scottish Assembly or to the rest of the United Kingdom Civil Service. Surely if people are interested in, say, housing or education they will want wider fields for their efforts.

Mr. Dalyell

If that is so, they will have to serve outside Scotland.

Mr. Sproat

Indeed, but they are wholly interchangeable at present. If there is a magnet, I do not think that it will be the Scottish Assembly.

As for the problem of conscience, surely civil servants already face that difficulty. No doubt some of the civil servants who drafted the Bill to nationalise the oil industry thought that it was a load of rubbish. This is one of the problems that they have to face when they become civil servants. They know that the chances are that they will have to serve Ministers with whose political views they disagree. I do not accept that serving a Labour Minister in Edinburgh and being switched to a Department in Westminster under a Conservative Government would place intolerable strains on the loyalty of civil servants.

However, there can be no doubt that within Government circles in Edinburgh there will be civil servants responding to Socialist pressures from the Assembly and Conservative pressures from a Conservative Secretary of State. There will not be individual tugs of loyalty, but there will be confusion over the general differences of loyalties between those responsible to a Conservative Secretary of State and those responsible to a Socialist Scottish Secretary.

There are problems over loyalty which cannot be dismissed out of hand, though I slightly side with the Minister, and there is also the problem of duplication which we have not touched on yet. However, we can say that whatever else happens, there will be more bureaucrats and they will be receiving higher salaries. This is one of the arguments that will weigh strongly in Scotland against the Bill in the referendum campaign. We are not talking about piffling numbers. The Scotland and Wales Bills together account for more than 2,000 extra civil servants as things stand, and we all know that Government estimates tend to be underestimates. The possibility of another 2,000 civil servants cannot be just brushed aside.

Mr. Dalyell

They will be paid for out of the Scottish Consolidated Fund and that will therefore be to the disadvantage of other services in Scotland.

Mr. Sproat

I was coming to that point. The Minister said that the Assembly will pay for these extra civil servants. In one sense, they will. The Assembly will pay for them out of the Consolidated Fund, but, in reality, it will not be the Assembly which is paying but the taxpayers of the United Kingdom, and that is why my hon. Friend the Member for Halesowen and Stourbridge (Mr. Stokes) is right when he seeks to put the view of someone speaking for an English constituency. What would SNP Members say if it were proposed to set up a Parliament for Mercia, the name of the ancient Kingdom, as ancient as Scotland, for the area my hon. Friend the Member for Halesowen and Stourbridge (Mr. Stokes) represents, and the Scottish taxpayers had to pay out more money from their pockets? Everyone in Scotland would rightly feel indignant, and the people in the rest of the United Kingdom should be feeling indignant that they are being asked to pay more taxes to set up a useless Parliament for Scotland alone.

As the hon. Member for West Lothian said, Scotland will be receiving overall less funds as a result of the Bill. At present, we get £500 million a year, which is more than our per capita entitlement. We are likely to lose this because of the attention that the Bill has focused on Scotland's financial advantages. Indeed, this decreased amount will be further decreased because the extra civil servants will have to be paid for out of it.

The Minister criticised some of us for saying that conflict arises out of every clause. But it is our duty to point out that fact. Let me show him how conflict arises out of this clause. The Scottish Secretary may ask for more civil servants if he wants them. They will have to be paid for out of the Scottish Consolidated Fund. Suppose the Scottish Secretary demands more civil servants and they are granted. He will then say that when the Consolidated Fund was allocated, the Assembly did not know that it would have the extra civil servants and it therefore needed more money. The Assembly would then come to this House and to the taxpayers of the rest of the United Kingdom for more funds. Either those funds would be granted, in which case my hon. Friend the Member for Halesowen and Stourbridge would have the right to feel aggrieved, or else they would be not granted, in which case another financial conflict would arise. That would be a conflict of the worst sort between the Scottish Assembly and Westminster. Once again a conflict inevitably arises from the amendment.

7.30 p.m.

My hon. Friend the Member for Cleveland and Whitby (Mr. Brittan) candidly acknowledged that the amendment is not ideal. However, I shall support anything that gives Westminster more control. Ultimately it is Westminster that should have control as it is Westminster that is providing the money. As the hon. Member for Coatbridge and Airdrie (Mr. Dempsey) said, the man who pays the piper calls the tune. That is as it should be. I do not see why a civil servant from the Assembly should be treated any differently from any other home civil servant if those in Scotland are to remain part of the Home Civil Service.

Mr. Russell Johnston

Surely the hon. Gentleman will accept that the whole point and purpose of the Bill is to give greater democratic control over the bureaucracy in Scotland than presently exists. I am sure that as an English Member he will accept that the degree of control that we have over St. Andrew's House through this House is inadequate.

Mr. Sproat

Rubbish. The purpose of the Bill is to try to buy off a few Scottish National votes. That is the fons et origo of the entire Bill, and everybody knows it.

The proposition of my hon. Friend the Member for Cleveland and Whitby would give Westminster more control. It may not be a proposition that I would have put before the Committee, but it would give the British people more control, and it is the British people who are providing the money. Therefore, the British people through their British Members of Parliament, should have the right of control. I support my hon. Friend's amendment on the ground that it goes at least some way down that road.

Mr. Fairbairn

I shall be brief—[HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."] Do not taunt me. There are those who put the constitution before dinner or, shall we say, the British constitution before their constitution.

This section of the Bill probably illustrates as well as any other that the Bill is false and a fundamental political lie. If we are to have, as the hon. Member for Inverness (Mr. Johnston) calls it, more democratic control over the civil servants in the Scottish Office, and if we wanted that, we would have Parliaments in Inverness-shire and Perthshire, and no doubt in Brecon. If we are to have a separate Executive with a separate Prime Minister, a separate Government and a separate Parliament, which is what they would be and which is what the Scottish National Party intends them to become—that is, utterly independent—but which in the meantime will be temporarily disguised with such idiotic expressions as Scottish Secretary, First Minister and all the rubbishy terms that have been invented to disguise reality, and if there is a division of power, it is utterly improper not to have the logical and properly inevitable result of a Scottish Civil Service.

Why does the Minister not want a Scottish Civil Service? It is not because he does not think it is sensible in logic or in terms of power but because the Civil Service does not want a Scottish Civil Service. It is in the interests of the Civil Service that Assembly civil servants remain part of the United Kingdom Civil Service. That compels a conflict, and that is the fallacy of not dividing the Civil Service in two.

Once again we have a total political falsehood. We have a situation in which the Government would inevitably introduce a Scottish Civil Service if they had the slightest faith and belief in this constitutional measure. They would undoubtedly divide the Civil Service into two parts. Instead of having civil servants who have to render unto Caesar the things that are Emperor Westminster's and unto God the things that are Assembly God's, they would have to represent only their own commander.

I know that the Minister of State has a simple mind and that he has frequently been unable to understand where I would end, especially when he was my junior at the Bar. However, it is important that the Committee should not overlook the fact that if we are to go along this road the only justifiable course is to have a separate Scottish Civil Service, which the civil servants themselves reject and the Government funk introducing. That might in itself lead us further along the road to independence, but let us understand that that is where we are going if we go along with the Bill.

Why disguise that which will inevitably result from the conflict of two parliaments and two nations? It is inevitable that there will be a conflict of loyalties. My hon. Friend the Member for North Angus and Mearns (Mr. Buchanan-Smith) properly said that it is inevitable that the conflict will be between those who have to try to behave loyally to the different requirements of two political Executives.

I raise another matter which has not been overlooked and which emerged from the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for North Angus and Mearns—job opportunities. If there is a dispute whether a certain power lies with the Assembly or with Westminster, it is inevitable that the Assembly will claim it.

Civil servants are not other than human beings, and the enlargement of their power and influence, their office and staff, as regionalisation has shown, is something that occurs, however unmotivated it may be. If an example is required, it is necessary only to consider the Fife region. On reorganisation the region did not alter, but the chief executive of the region, the chief constable, the head of planning and the head of education managed, by doing the same job in the same region, to increase their salaries considerably.

That is what will happen if there is devolution. There will be an urge for more responsibility, more offices and more power. That will inevitably result in a pull by the civil servants who happen to be employed in Scotland to draw back power unto themselves.

The logic that there should be a separate Civil Service with its own responsibilities, sailing in its own boat and, if necessary, sinking in its own boat, is one which civil servants do not dare to risk, and which the Government do not I dare to undertake. It is that dishonesty; that arises from the clause that causes me to feel that the conflicts of responsibility and interest that the clause demonstrates indicate the rottenness and corruption of the Bill as it stands.

Mr. Gow

A terrible misfortune has befallen you today, Sir Myer, in that you did not hear the cogent speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Cleveland and Whitby (Mr. Brittan). An even more grievous misfortune has befallen us, Sir Myer, in that it seems as if twice on the same amendment we shall hear the Minister replying to clauses that he appears not to understand. It might have been an appropriate occasion to have the intermittent presence of the Lord Advocate. The right hon. and learned Gentleman might have had a greater grasp of the clauses.

Mr. Fairbairn

We did have the intermittent presence of the Lord Advocate, but, as always, it was silent.

Mr. Gow

The Minister of State sought to explain Clause 64, but as it is impossible to follow his explanation in the light of the devastating criticism of my hon. Friend the Member for Cleveland and Whitby, it is necessary to refer to the Explanatory and Financial Memorandum. It states: The staff of the Scottish Secretaries and of the Scottish Comptroller and Auditor General are to be members of the home civil service and their salaries will be paid out of the Scottish Consolidated Fund. But something quite different appears in Clause 64—a distinction upon which no comment has yet been made. There is the phrase, which I have not come across in any other document, home civil service of the state". What is the difference between Home Civil Service and home civil service of the state"? I suggest that the use of the word "state" implies that we are talking about an independent Scottish State. Otherwise, I do not understand the purpose of including "of the state".

Again, as was pointed out by my hon. Friend the Member for Cleveland and Whitby, Clause 21(9) places no limitation upon those whom the Scottish Secretary may appoint to be officers and servants. The only qualification is anybody "he may think appropriate".

The Minister of State appears to believe that the wording of Clause 64 is such as to allow the Secretary of State to appoint as an officer or servant only someone who is a member of the Home Civil Service. Manifestly, that is not so. It would be possible for a Scottish Secretary to appoint as a special adviser someone who was not a member of the Home Civil Service. Indeed, Ministers in this Government have appointed special advisers who are not members of the Home Civil Service. I do not believe that Professor Lord Kaldor, who was special adviser to the Chancellor of the Exchequer during his worst period at the Treasury, was a member of the Home Civil Service. Is the Minister of State telling the Committee that it will be impossible for a Scottish Secretary to appoint as a special adviser someone who is not a member of the home civil service of the state"? I believe that the amendment will improve an incomprehensible clause. I hope that my hon. Friend will therefore press it to a Division.

Mr. Teddy Taylor

I think that almost all who have spoken in the debate, which has been quite lengthy, have made clear that, unless we seek to amend the clause and clear up the confusion, we shall have an administrative nonsense in Scotland and a ludicrous situation which will be a recipe for conflict.

The Minister of State indicated that no great problems would arise if we accepted the clause as drafted. That advice was given on the basis of experience in dealing with problems between different Government Departments. I hope that he accepts that we are dealing with liaison not between one Government Department and another but between civil servants serving different Governments. Indeed, as my hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen, South (Mr. Sproat) pointed out, those Governments may comprise different parties pursuing totally different policies. The idea of having the kind of non-liaison that we have between Departments existing between two separate Governments is a nonsense.

This would be a difficult problem to resolve in any event, but the Government have tried to arrive at a halfway house which is not a logical constitutional stopping point. The Minister, in his initial reply, tried to create confusion about the responsibility of the Civil Service. First, he told us that the numbers of civil servants employed by the Scottish Assembly would be determined only by the Assembly, that wages for those civil servants would be determined by United Kingdom arrangements and that gradings would be determined by the Civil Service Department.

Is the Minister seriously suggesting that the Assembly will be entirely free to decide the numbers of civil servants, which will be variable, and that the CSD will come in on the basis of job specification, presumably applied by the Scottish Executive, and say what is the appropriate grading for the job? How is the CSD meant to do that without detailed knowledge not only of policies but of the staff complement and prospects of the Scottish Executive? My hon. Friend the Member for North Angus and Mearns (Mr. Buchanan-Smith) said that there could be a logical argument for a separate Scottish Civil Service but that there is no logical argument for this halfway house, which will be very messy.

If the Assembly is to be responsible for determining the numbers of civil servants to be employed in the Scottish offices, who will be responsible for supervising the efficiency of those sections and for making sure that the numbers are right for the appropriate responsibilities?

7.45 p.m.

Despite what has been said by some of my hon. Friends, Ministers do not employ and make sure that civil servants work hard and do not waste time. Ministers have nothing to do with such matters. At least, that was my experience. Unfortunately, Ministers do not decide the numbers or determine who goes into different jobs. We assume that the Civil Service Department and other experts ensure that we do not have too many people doing the jobs that have to be done.

Are we to have a separate Scottish Civil Service Department to supervise the civil servants employed in the Scottish Office and to ensure that the numbers are right for the appropriate responsibilities? Will the Minister advise those who are employed in the Scottish Office now how matters will work out should this constitutional nonsense come into effect?

Will there be a separate building for the Secretary of State's Department and separate buildings for those civil servants who will be answerable to the Scottish Secretaries?

What will happen in areas of shared responsibility? For example, part of the responsibility for the appointment of members to the Scottish Development Agency will lie with the Scottish Assembly. The guidelines setting out what the SDA is to do are laid down by the United Kingdom Administration. The SDA has shared responsibilities in many areas of Government activity. We shall have civil servants with divided loyalties.

Civil servants employed by the Scottish Assembly, which will not be similar to any other Department, will be answerable to the Scottish Secretary. The Bill provides that any Minister of the Crown may ask any Scottish Secretary for information that he may require. That appears in Clause 34. What will be the position of civil servants employed by and answerable to a Scottish Secretary who are asked to prepare a brief for a big block grant—I am sure the Minister accepts that civil servants working for Scottish Secretaries will be asked to prepare briefs for a big block grant—and civil servants in the Treasury who will undoubtedly want the necessary information to argue for a smaller block grant? There is bound to be haggling over such a matter as the block grant. Where will the Treasury get information about the needs of the Scottish Executive but from civil servants employed by the Scottish Administration? Does the Minister accept that civil servants will be asked by Scottish Secretaries to prepare a brief for a big block grant and that, on the other hand, others may be asked by the Treasury to prepare a brief for not such a big block grant? There is bound to be a conflict of loyalty in that event.

I hope that the Minister will at least accept that, irrespective of his assurances, we are dealing with a clause that is far from specific. It appears that the Scottish Executive will have power to appoint anyone that it wishes and that, having done so, the appointment will be made "accordingly". Unless we improve the clause by accepting the amendment, we shall create a constitutional nonsense.

Mr. Dalyell

How can we improve the clause? Is there any way of doing so? The amendment is extremely wooly. The Opposition had better explain how we can improve the clause.

Mr. Taylor

Acceptance of the amendment would remove one obvious problem. As the Minister of State said, the numbers of civil servants will be determined by the Assembly, the gradings will be decided on the advice of the Civil Service Department and salaries will be fixed in United Kingdom negotiations. Acceptance of the amendment will to some degree achieve uniformity between Government Departments and the Scottish Office. This will make things a great deal easier and I am sure that the civil servants, whether they are working for the Scottish Assembly or for other Government Departments, will be thinking along the same lines.

The Government are creating a constitutional nonsense. They are about to appoint 1,000 extra civil servants which will cost a great deal of money and create more confusion and expense. This problem shows once again that the Government have arrived at legislation which does not make sense, which will create confusion and which will lead to constant strife and misunderstanding. That will not help Scotland.

It is sad that we are discussing this nonsense on a day when Scotland has been told that it has 203,000 unemployed —the highest figure since the peak of the depression in the 1930s.

Mr. John Smith

Hon. Members have asked a number of specific questions and I shall do my best to answer them—as quickly as I can because I sense that the Committee wishes to reach a conclusion as soon as possible.

The hon. Member for Aylesbury (Mr. Raison) described a fantastic scenario of an SNP-dominated Assembly trying, with its education policy, to poison the minds of the children of Scotland with nationalist propaganda. He ought to give more credit to the Scottish people. He must know that they would not put up with such a situation for long. It is a democratic society, and I do not see anyone, of whatever political persuasion, getting away with that. To be fair to the Scottish National Party, I do not believe that even it believes that that would be a wise policy.

My hon. Friend the Member for West Lothian (Mr. Dalyell) is always talking about an SNP-dominated Assembly. He should have more confidence in the capacity of the Labour Party to win seats in the Assembly. It is our intention to do that. I do not know whether his distaste for an Assembly is such that he would be prevented from supporting the election of Labour Members to the Assembly. It is unrealistic to talk in terms of an SNP-dominated Assembly. The Assembly will be constituted according to the wishes of the electorate.

My hon. Friend tends to argue against separatism rather than devolution. He tries to switch the argument so that it corresponds with his feelings, but he went far too far, even for him, when he suggested that civil servants would be tortured in their consciences because of the conflicts. That does not square with his submission that there is no conflict of loyalties. My hon. Friend the Member for West Lothian latches on to a certain speech which he repeats whether or not it is relevant to a particular amendment. He overdid his argument about conflict.

I asked a number of hon. Members what would be the conflict for a civil servant working for the Scottish Education Department, post-devolution. I have not received an answer that convinced me that this will create conflict. This has been a parrot cry.

Compared with some of our other debates this has been relatively interesting and balanced. Not only did the amendment take a fair pounding but it emerged that the supposed conflict is more chimerical than real.

Mr. Dalyell

rose—

The First Deputy Chairman

The hon. Member for West Lothian (Mr. Dalyell) has already spoken for half an hour or more on this subject.

Mr. Dalyell

I wanted to ask a specific question on the issue of the block grant. Is not a civil servant's responsibility to a Minister in the Assembly when preparing a submission on the block grant in conflict with what he might have to submit to a United Kingdom Minister?

Mr. Smith

I shall try to answer my hon. Friend briefly. I do not believe that there would be conflict because those civil servants involved in compiling financial statistics for the Scottish Administration would be answerable to the Scottish Secretary for whom they worked, and not to other Ministers. With one or two minor exceptions, such as freshwater fishing and sea fishing, the big Departments' civil servants will be responsible to one member of the Executive and not to two. Only if their responsibility were to two sections of the Government would such a conflict arise.

Mr Teddy Taylor

The civil servants would be responsible to two Departments because of the right of United Kingdom Ministers to ask for information. Where will the Treasury get its information on the block grant unless it is from the civil servants?

Mr. Smith

That does not mean that there will be a double responsibility. The proposition that it would mean a double responsibility stretches the situation beyond the imagination of even the hon. Member for Glasgow, Cathcart (Mr. Taylor).

The hon. Member for Cathcart asked a number of questions about the rôle of the Civil Service Department. Civil servants are normally delegated by the Civil Service Department to different Departments under the supervision and control of the Civil Service Department. We expect that to continue after devolution. There will be discussions with the Civil Service Department about it. We expect the Scottish Administration to have its own staff. We intend that there shall be discussions with the CSD staff institutions about that matter.

There has been much argument about the appointment of civil servants by Ministers. There was a difference between the allegations of those who speculated about how it is done and the experience of those who have been in Government. Ministers have little influence over the civil servants who serve them. It is not possible for Ministers to dismiss civil servants without going through the agreed procedures. My hon. Friend the Member for West Lothian asked whether civil servants' contracts would be affected if they elected to go to the Scottish Assembly rather than to the Treasury for instance. Their contracts would not be affected because they would be members of the United Kingdom Civil Service.

I was asked if it would be possible for the Scottish Secretary to appoint political advisers. Yes, it would be possible. It would also be possible for the Scottish Secretary to appoint civil servants for five years on a temporary basis according to procedures which recognise short-term appointments. This could be done on the same basis as it is done by Whitehall Departments.

The basic point is how we organise the Civil Service for the Scottish Administration following devolution. It must be either a unified Civil Service or a separate Civil Service, as was argued by the hon. Members for North Angus and Mearns (Mr. Buchanan-Smith) and Inverness (Mr. Johnston).

Mr. Raison

The Minister has devoted some minutes to explaining what this thing is all about. Does he really think that the single word "accordingly" provides an adequate summary of all that he has had to compress in his two speeches?

Mr. Smith

I have had to compress my remarks because of the time. It is not just a question of the word "accordingly". There is more to it than that. The word "accordingly" is just the last word in the sentence which ends and appointments to any position as such an officer or servant shall be made accordingly". It does not hang on the word "accordingly". My hon. Friend the Member for South Ayrshire (Mr. Sillars) made an interesting speech. He understood the purpose of the clause. I believe, and I am certainly advised, that the effect of the clause would be that each person who was appointed would require to have a certificate of qualification issued by the Civil Service Commissioners under the procedures we adopt.

8.0 p.m.

It is possible to consider a separate Civil Service. Stormont had separate civil servants, but I do not know whether that made a great deal of difference, given the common grades and entrance qualifications with those of United Kingdom civil servants. I discussed this matter with former civil servants of the Stormont Administration, and opinions amongst them were divided. Some of them preferred a unified system and others separate systems. It is difficult to be dogmatic about this.

Without being uncharitable to the hon. Member for North Angus and Mearns, I must say that he was being a little bit too hard on some aspects of the proposal. The question of career prospects is a reasonable point. There is the difficulty with a separate Civil Service of the young person who, entering it, knows that he will have to work within that Scottish Civil Service and will not be able to move, if successful, to the Treasury or Foreign Office. He will not have the whole of the Civil Service open to him as it is open to those who do not serve under the Scottish Administration.

Some hon. Members said that one of the reasons the Government did not want a separate Civil Service was that the Civil Service was against it. We took into account the views of the professional associations and the trade unions which represent the civil servants. That was an elementary thing for a Government concerned with good industrial relations to do. They were strongly of the opinion that there should be a unified Civil Service. That view was not a determining factor, but was one that the Government took into account.

The absurdity of hon. Members' fantasies was shown when they were pressed to give practical examples of conflicts that would arise. The tone of the debate reinforces my recommendation to the Committee that we should retain the clause and reject the amendment.

Question put, That the amendment be made: —

The Committee divided: Ayes 159, Noes 175.

Division No. 73]	AYES	[8.04 p.m.
Adley, Robert	Hamilton, Michael (Salisbury)	Parkinson, Cecil
Alison, Michael	Hampson, Dr Keith	Percival, Ian
Atkins, Rt Hon H. (Spelthorne)	Harvie Anderson, Rt Hon Miss	Pink, R. Bonner
Atkinson, David (Bournemouth, East)	Haselhurst, Alan	Powell, Rt Hon J. Enoch
Bell, Ronald	Havers, Rt Hon Sir Michael	Prentice, Rt Hon Reg
Benyon, W.	Holland, Philip	Price, David (Eastleigh)
Berry, Hon Anthony	Hordern, Peter	Pym, Rt Hon Francis
Biffen, John	Howe, Rt Hon Sir Geoffrey	Raison, Timothy
Blaker, Peter	Hunt, David (Wirral)	Rees, Peter (Dover & Deal)
Boscawen, Hon Robert	Hunt, John (Ravensbourne)	Rees-Davies, W. R.
Boyson, Dr Rhodes (Brent)	Hurd, Douglas	Renton, Rt Hon Sir D. (Hunts)
Bradford, Rev Robert	Hutchison, Michael Clark	Renton, Tim (Mid-Sussex)
Braine, Sir Bernard	James, David	Rhodes James, R.
Brittan, Leon	Jenkin, Rt Hon P. (Wanst'd&W'df'd)	Ridsdale, Julian
Brocklebank-Fowler, C.	Johnson Smith, G. (E Grinstead)	Rifkind, Malcolm
Brooke, Peter	Jopling, Michael	Roberts, Michael (Cardiff NW)
Brotherton, Michael	Joseph, Rt Hon Sir Keith	Roberts, Wyn (Conway)
Bryan, Sir Paul	Kaberry, Sir Donald	Ross, William (Londonderry)
Buchanan-Smith, Alick	King, Evelyn (South Dorset)	Rossi, Hugh (Hornsey)
Buck, Antony	Knox, David	Rost, Peter (SE Derbyshire)
Budgen, Nick	Lamont, Norman	Sainsbury, Tim
Bulmer, Esmond	Lawrence, Ivan	St. John-Stevas, Norman
Carlisle, Mark	Le Marchant, Spencer	Shepherd, Colin
Churchill, W. S.	Lester, Jim (Beeston)	Silvester, Fred
Clark, Alan (Plymouth, Sutton)	Lewis, Kenneth (Rutland)	Sinclair, Sir George
Clark, William (Croydon S)	Lloyd, Ian	Skeet, T. H. H.
Clarke, Kenneth (Rushcliffe)	Luce, Richard	Smith, Timothy John (Ashfield)
Clegg, Walter	McCrindle, Robert	Spence, John
Cooke, Robert (Bristol W)	Macfarlane, Neil	Spicer, Michael (S Worcester)
Cope, John	McNair-Wilson, M. (Newbury)	Sproat, Iain
Cormack, Patrick	McNair-Wilson, P. (New Forest)	Stanbrook, Ivor
Corrie, John	Marten, Neil	Steen, Anthony (Wavertree)
Dean, Paul (N Somerset)	Mates, Michael	Stewart, Ian (Hitchin)
Douglas-Hamilton, Lord James	Mather, Carol	Stokes, John
Dunlop, John	Mawby, Ray	Stradling Thomas, J.
Durant, Tony	Maxwell-Hyslop, Robin	Tapsell, Peter
Emery, peter	Mayhew, Patrick	Taylor, Teddy (Cathcart)
Eyre, Reginald	Meyer, Sir Anthony	Tebbit, Norman
Fairbairn, Nicholas	Miller, Hal (Bromsgrove)	Temple-Morris, Peter
Fairgrieve, Russell	Mitchell, David (Basingstoke)	Townsend, Cyril D.
Finsberg, Geoffrey	Moate, Roger	van Straubenzee, W. R.
Fisher, Sir Nigel	Molyneaux, James	Viggers, Peter
Fookes, Miss Janet	Moore, John (Croydon C)	Wakeham, John
Forman, Nigel	More, Jasper (Ludlow)	Walder, David (Clitheroe)
Fowler, Norman (Sutton C'f'd)	Morgan-Giles, Rear-Admiral	Weatherill, Bernard
Gilmour, Sir John (East Fife)	Morris, Michael (Northampton S)	Wells, John
Glyn, Dr Alan	Morrison, Charles (Devizes)	Wiggin, Jerry
Goodhew, Victor	Mudd, David	Winterton, Nicholas
Gorst, John	Nelson, Anthony	Young, Sir G. (Ealing, Acton)
Gow, Ian (Eastbourne)	Neubert, Michael	Younger, Hon George
Gower, Sir Raymond (Barry)	Nott, John
Gray, Hamish	Osborn, John	TELLERS FOR THE AYES:
Griffiths, Eldon	Page, Rt Hon R. Graham (Crosby)	Mr. Peter Morrison and
Grist, Ian	Page, Richard (Workington)	Mr. John MacGregor.
Hall-Davis, A. G. F.
NOES
Allaun, Frank	Carmichael, Neil	Deakins, Eric
Anderson, Donald	Cartwright, John	Dempsey, James
Armstrong, Ernest	Castle, Rt Hon Barbara	Doig, Peter
Ashley, Jack	Clemitson, Ivor	Dormand, J. D.
Ashton, Joe	Cocks, Rt Hon Michael (Bristol S)	Dunn, James A.
Atkins, Ronald (Preston N)	Cohen, Stanley	Eadie, Alex
Bain, Mrs Margaret	Coleman, Donald	Ellis, John (Brigg & Scun)
Barnett, Guy (Greenwich)	Colquhoun, Ms Maureen	Ellis, Tom (Wrexham)
Benn, Rt Hon Anthony Wedgwood	Cox, Thomas (Tooting)	Ennals, Rt Hon David
Bidwell, Sydney	Crawford, Douglas	Evans, Gwynfor (Carmarthen)
Bottomley, Rt Hon Arthur	Crawshaw, Richard	Evans, Ioan (Aberdare)
Boyden, James (Bish Auck)	Crowther, Stan (Rotherham)	Evans, John (Newton)
Bradley, Tom	Cryer, Bob	Ewing, Harry (Stirling)
Bray, Dr Jeremy	Cunningham, G. (Islington S)	Ewing, Mrs Winifred (Moray)
Brown, Hugh D. (Provan)	Dalyell, Tam	Fernyhough, Rt Hon E.
Brown, Robert C. (Newcastle W)	Davidson, Arthur	Flannery, Martin
Buchan, Norman	Davies, Bryan (Enfield N)	Fletcher, Ted (Darlington)
Buchanan, Richard	Davies, Denzil (Llanelli)	Foot, Rt Hon Michael
Campbell, Ian	Davies, Ifor (Gower)	Freeson, Rt Hon Reginald
Canavan, Dennis	Davies, Clinton (Hackney C)	George, Bruce
Gilbert, Dr John	Madden, Max	Sillars, James
Gourlay, Harry	Magee, Bryan	Skinner, Dennis
Grant, George (Morpeth)	Marks, Kenneth	Smith, John (N Lanarkshire)
Grimond, Rt Hon J.	Marshall, Or Edmund (Goole)	Snape, Peter
Grocott, Bruce	Marshall, Jim (Leicester S)	Spearing, Nigel
Hamilton, James (Bothwell)	Maynard, Miss Joan	Spriggs, Leslie
Hamilton, W. W. (Central Fife)	Millan, Rt Hon Bruce	Stallard, A. W.
Harper, Joseph	Miller, Dr M. S. (E Kilbride)	Steel, Rt Hon David
Harrison, Rt Hon Walter	Mitchell, Austin	Stewart, Rt Hon Donald
Heffer, Eric S.	Mitchell, R. C. (Soton, Itchen)	Stewart, Rt Hon M. (Fulham)
Hooley, Frank	Morris, Charles R. (Openshaw)	Stoddart, David
Horam, John	Morris, Rt Hon J. (Aberavon)	Thomas, Ron (Bristol NW)
Hoyle, Doug (Nelson)	Murray, Rt Hon Ronald King	Thompson, George
Huckfield, Les	Oakes, Gordon	Tinn, James
Hughes, Rt Hon C. (Anglesey)	O'Halloran, Michael	Tomlinson, John
Hughes, Roy (Newport)	Orme, Rt Hon Stanley	Tuck, Raphael
Hunter, Adam	Ovenden, John	Varley, Rt Hon Eric G.
Jackson, Colin (Brighouse)	Owen, Rt Hon Dr David	Wainwright, Edwin (Dearne V)
Jackson, Miss Margaret (Lincoln)	Palmer, Arthur	Wainwright, Richard (Colne V)
Jeger, Mrs Lena	Pardoe, John	Walker, Terry (Kingswood)
John, Brynmor	Park, George	Watkins, David
Johnson, James (Hull West)	Parker, John	Watt, Hamish
Johnston, Russell (Inverness)	Pavitt, Laurie	Wellbeloved, James
Judd, Frank	Penhaligon, David	Welsh, Andrew
Kerr, Russell	Perry, Ernest	White, James (Pollok)
Kilfedder, James	Price, William (Rugby)	Whitlock, William
Kilroy-Silk, Robert	Radice, Giles	Wigley, Dafydd
Lambie, David	Rees, Rt Hon Merlyn (Leeds S)	Willey, Rt Hon Frederick
Lamborn, Harry	Roberts, Albert (Normanton)	Williams, Rt Hon Shirley (Hertford)
Litterick, Tom	Robinson, Geoffrey	Wilson, Alexander (Hamilton)
Loyden, Eddie	Roderick, Caerwyn	Wilson, Gordon (Dundee E)
Lyon, Alexander (York)	Rodgers, Rt Hon William (Stockton)	Wise, Mrs Audrey
Lyons, Edward (Bradford W)	Rooker, J. W.	Woodall, Alec
Mabon, Rt Hon Dr J. Dickson	Rose, Paul B.	Woof, Robert
McCartney, Hugh	Ross, Stephen (Isle of Wight)	Young, David (Bolton E)
MacCormick, Iain	Ross, Rt Hon W. (Kilmarnock)
McDonald, Dr Oonagh	Sandelson, Neville	TELLERS FOR THE NOES:
MacKenzie, Rt Hon Gregor	Sever, John	Mr. Ted Graham and
Maclennan, Robert	Shore, Rt Hon Peter	Mr. Alf Bates.
McMillan, Tom (Glasgow C)	Silkin, Rt Hon S. C. (Dulwich)

Question accordingly negatived.

Mr. John Smith

I beg to move Amendment No. 558, in page 30, line 13, leave out from 'accordingly' to '(including' in line 14 and insert— '(2) Service in the capacity of—

1. (a) the Registrar General of Births, Deaths and Marriages for Scotland or any officer or servant of his;
2. (b) the Accountant of Court or any officer or servant of his:

shall continue to be service in the home civil service of the state. (3) Any salary and allowances in respect of service in any such capacity as is mentioned in subsections (1) and (2) above'.

The Second Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means (Mr. Bryant Godman Irvine)

We may consider at the same time the following amendments: No. 559, in page 30, line 24, leave out from 'been' to 'above' in line 25 and insert: 'serving in any such capacity as is mentioned in subsections (1) and (2)'. No. 560, in page 30, line 29, at end add— '(4) Her Majesty may by Order in Council designate any person for the purposes of this section; and references in this section to an officer or servant of a Scottish Secretary shall include any person so designated.'

Mr. Smith

The purpose of these amendments is to clarify the clause by ensuring that the status of staff of the Registrar General and the Accountant of Court as civil servants is put beyond doubt. Provision is made also that at a future date other staff may be designated as civil servants by Order in Council, which is one of the Orders in Council arising from the Prerogative.

The staff of the Registrar General and of the Accountant of Court may have been thought not to be covered by the terms of Clause 64 as originally drafted. In both cases, they are recruited by the Civil Service Commission and are treated as civil servants. But by statute, if not in practice, the Registrar General and the Accountant of Court appoint their own staff. Any anomaly which arises can be put right by administrative means in present circumstances. Since all are responsible to the Secretary of State. There was, therefore, doubt as to whether they could be termed staff of a Scottish Secretary and accordingly be civil servants within the terms of the Bill. These amendments will put that matter right.

I hope that that explanation, though brief, will be satisfactory to the Committee on a fairly minor matter.

8.15 p.m.

Mr. Brittan

I have no objection to the amendments as proposed, but I have a question to raise on a small matter of grammar. It seems curious that the proposed subsection (4) should provide that Her Majesty may by Order in Council designate any person for the purposes of this section". I should have expected these persons to be designated as something, but as worded the amendment seems to leave them in the air. What is meant is obvious, but I should think it preferable to put it in somewhat clearer form, since designation ought to be designation as something.

There is no matter of controversy between us, but perhaps the proposed subsection could be tidied up.

Mr. John Smith

The hon. Member for Cleveland and Whitby (Mr. Brittan) has raised a matter of taste and style in the drafting rather than one of substance. I should point out that it is designation for the purposes of this section". However, I shall look at it again. I think that it is clear as drafted, but since the hon. Gentleman has asked us to think about it again, we shall do so.

Amendment agreed to.

Amendments made: No. 559, in page 30, line 24, leave out from 'been' to 'above' in line 25 and insert— 'serving in any such capacity as is mentioned in subsections (1) and (2)'. No. 560, in page 30, line 29, at end add— '(4) Her Majesty may by Order in Council designate any person for the purposes of this section; and references in this section to an officer or servant of a Scottish Secretary shall include any person so designated.'—[Mr. John Smith.]

Question proposed, That the clause, as amended, stand part of the Bill.

Mr. Dalyell

I wish to raise a question which I put on an earlier and, perhaps, not so apt occasion as this. I was a member of the Public Accounts Committee for three years, and I know of the great assistance given to that Committee by the Comptroller and Auditor General and his staff.

What is the Government's thinking about the establishment of the Comptroller and Auditor General's Department for the Scottish Assembly, and where do they expect all the necessary skill to come from? This is a highly specialised job. Would the Scottish Comptroller and Auditor General be appointed from the existing Comptroller and Auditor General's Department? It is not all that easy to hive off 40 or 50 people from an existing organisation, and one cannot imagine that the Comptroller and Auditor General's Department in Scotland could have many fewer than 40 if it were to do its job properly. For the United Kingdom, the number of staff is over 600.

I ask my hon. Friend the Minister of State, therefore, to tell us the Government's thinking on the mechanics of the provision of a Comptroller and Auditor General's Department at Edinburgh.

Mr. John Smith

My hon. Friend the Member for West Lothian (Mr. Dalyell) raised this matter previously at a time when we were considering another question, and I think that this is the appropriate point for it. The proposal in the Bill is that the Scottish Comptroller and Auditor General will have his own staff, who will be members of the Home Civil Service. The detailed staffing arrangements will be for the Scottish Comptroller and Auditor General to consider in due course.

I should say that there has been representation made to the Government from the Exchequer and Audit Department Association suggesting that there might be a common citizenship concept for dealing with this matter. There is nothing in the Bill to prevent some form of common citizenship arrangement being devised. It is used by some Government Departments.

Obviously, in the context of different Administrations the question is slightly more complicated, but the Bill does not rule that device out. It is one of the matters which we should like to discuss with the Scottish Administration when it is in being.

Mr. Dalyell

I do not want to continue this discussion, but how exactly does the concept of common citizenship enter into the matter? I ask that question in ignorance, because I do not understand. Perhaps the Minister would care to write to me.

Mr. Smith

I do not think I need write to my hon. Friend. It is, in effect, the sharing of a common pool of staff. Already the Departments of Transport and of the Environment have common citizenship, as do the Departments of Trade, of Industry and of Prices and Consumer Protection.

This is a matter which has to be discussed with the Scottish Administration. The Bill, as I say, does not rule out such a possibility, and the Government have it under active consideration in preparing for the new Assembly and Administration.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 64, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.