HC Deb 28 January 1993 vol 217 cc1289-96

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Wood.]

12.58 am
Mr. Gerald Kaufman (Manchester, Gorton)

I am grateful to Madam Speaker for having selected this subject for the Adjournment debate. I am asking the Government to respond to the case that I am making because I believe that the rights of the House are being steadily eroded by the Government's actions. It is extremely important that we try to call a halt to what is being done.

The House, with its votes, can make and unmake Governments. Right hon. and hon. Members have no power and no privileges as individuals. It is right that we should have no privileges other than the two rights that we have as elected Members. Those two rights are exercised on behalf of our constituents. One is the right of completely free speech in the Chamber and in the relevant parliamentary documents which accompany our work in the Chamber. The other is the right of access to Ministers.

Ministers derive their authority from the House and should be accountable to it. It is an inalienable right of our constituents that we, on their behalf, should have access to Ministers. We should have the right to go to a Minister and to ensure that he is compelled to consider the needs and interests of any or every citizen in the land, whatever his or her status or occupation.

The right of access is an issue which affects every right hon. and hon. Member, regardless of political party, but the Government are steadily eliminating that right and are consequently diminishing the rights of the House, of individual hon. Members and of the constituents whom they represent. In so doing, the Government are diminishing parliamentary democracy.

The Government are engaged in a massive transfer of responsibility from Ministers into the hands of executive agencies. Previous Governments of both parties have sometimes made individual transfers of responsibilities, but nothing has been done on the scale of what this Government are engaged in. Labour Governments created publicly owned industries which were not directly responsible to Parliament for their day-to-day operation, but the nationalisation of those industries made them more publicly accountable than they had been, because they had previously been privately owned and had no accountability to Members of Parliament. Of course, privatisation has ended even the former limited accountability that public ownership provided. When some of my right hon. and hon. Friends recently met the President of the Board of Trade to discuss redundancies at British Aerospace, he made it clear that he had no power and he washed his hands completely of any accountability of that industry to Parliament. More and more Ministers are now washing their hands of responsibilities to the House for which, until recently, they were fully accountable to the House.

In the past four and a half years, responsibility for numerous Government activities affecting many millions of our citizens has been hived off to 78 so-called next steps agencies. They range from the Building Research Establishment to the Central Science Laboratory, from the Ordnance Survey of Northern Ireland to the social security Benefits Agency. Two hundred and thirty-eight thousand people are employed by those agencies and, what is more, the Government have plans to establish 29 more, employing 109,000 more people. Huge areas of Government activities are being removed from Ministers and transferred to unaccountable bodies headed by officials who are generously—often over-generously—recompensed. Rights are being taken away from hon. Members in the process.

Until recently, hon. Members had the right to table parliamentary questions on individual cases and to get a ministerial reply. Now, what we get—and it took a battle to get that—are letters from heads of agencies, which are published in Hansard. My hon. Friend the Member for Don Valley (Mr. Redmond) gave me a substantial pile of letters that he has received in place of what should have been ministerial replies to him.

What is more, by doing that, the Government are eroding the rights of Parliament in another sense because until now only Ministers, as Members of Parliament, had access to Hansard. Now, non-parliamentarians have access to it.

Furthermore, Members of Parliament have the right to write letters to Ministers and receive replies from them —or rather, Members of Parliament used to have that right. Now, instead of a Member writing to a Minister, as he has always been able to, and receiving a ministerial response, the Minister simply acts as a postbox, passing on the Member's letter to an agency which may—or, it has to be said, very likely may not—reply.

The postbox function is not confined to next steps agencies. The Secretary of State for Health simply passes on letters about Members' constituents' health problems to a health authority or a trust. The Home Secretary passes on immigration cases, to which he used to reply, to immigration officers, so that hon. Members who accept that practice have to haggle demeaningly with civil servants rather than argue with Ministers, as is a Member of Parliament's right. The Foreign Secretary passes on immigration cases within his purview to something called an immigration correspondence unit, which was set up by Lord Howe when he was Foreign Secretary.

Instead of an individual's case ending up on a Minister's desk, with the Minister, whether or not he or she bothers to read the letter, having to sign it and so take responsibility for its contents, that individual and his or her poverty, needs or suffering are swept off the Minister's desk and out of the Minister's mind.

I do not know why we need so many Ministers to do so little work, for that evasion of parliamentary responsibility is being carried out by members of the largest Government this country has ever had—with 111 Ministers of various ranks. The biggest Government in this country's history are doing less and less work more inefficiently, and at higher and higher costs.

The gradual transfer of responsibilities to agencies and units may or may not be irreversible. I hope that it is not. But the evasion of ministerial responsibility and accountability to the House is not irreversible. I am determined to play what part I can in reversing the trend. One individual Back-Bench Member may not have power, but he can be a nuisance. I am determined to be a nuisance to the Government—not for the sake of protecting my own status, whatever that may be. That is of no importance whatever to me.

When Lord Howe was Foreign Secretary I argued with him when he tried to pass off my letters to his immigration correspondence unit, and he very sulkily wrote to me saying that he was ready to reply to me if I insisted on my status as a member of the shadow Cabinet. I wrote back saying that that was not my purpose at all. My purpose was to ensure that a Member of Parliament has the right of response from a Minister. For the sake of protecting the rights of my constituents, I intend to continue a campaign which may, I hope, have some success.

From time to time, it may be in my constituents' interests for me to contact the local office of some agency, as I have done in the past. That is for me, representing the constituents who have sent me here, to decide. But when I decide that it is in the interests of my constituents, who have sent me here to serve them and to protect their rights, to contact a Minister, I shall do so, and I shall expect a response from a Minister and from no one else. I have made it my firm practice to send back to Ministers any letters that I receive from agencies to which my constituents' cases have been sent, and to insist on a reply from the Minister to whom I have written. I am pleased to say that some Ministers are responding in a forthcoming manner.

The Home Secretary is now responding to cases that I send him—and not only to immigration cases. When last month his office wrote to tell me that a constituent's passport problem that I had sent him had been forwarded to the Passport Agency, I told the right hon. and learned Gentleman that it was him whom I wanted to hear from. Last week he wrote confirming that he would respond to me.

I also acknowledge the positive response from the Secretary of State for Employment with regard to the agencies hived off from her Department. She replies to me on these matters. So does the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs with regard to the immigration correspondence unit. When he recently sent one of my cases to the unit, I sent him his letter back and told him that I wanted to hear from him. He writes to me.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer has gone much further and I give him full credit for acknowledging the rights of Members of Parliament. Last month, on behalf of the Chancellor, the Paymaster General wrote a letter to every Member of Parliament concerning Members' correspondence on subjects relating to the work of agencies. He said that letters will be forwarded to the agencies for reply "unless, of course, you"—that is, the Members of Parliament—

indicate that you require a Ministerial reply. He made it clear on behalf of Treasury Ministers that a Member requiring a ministerial reply would get one. He said the same about other agencies: that the letter will be referred to the agency Chief Executives to reply direct, unless, of course, you indicate that you require a Ministerial reply. That last is underlined in the letter. I give the right hon. Gentleman full credit for recognising that he has a responsibility to Members of the House.

In accordance with this policy, I received a letter in the past few days from the local Customs and Excise office in Salford, making it clear that while the official concerned is ready to reply to me about my cases, if I want a ministerial reply I wil get one. That is good. I give the Chancellor all credit for acknowledging his accountability to the House.

I have also written to the Prime Minister praising the Treasury's practice and asking him to instruct all Ministers to follow it. The Prime Minister customarily speedily acknowledges all letters that I send him, and replies as soon as he can. Curiously, in this case he has neither acknowledged nor replied to the letter that I sent him last month or the reminder that I sent him last week. I am aware of the Prime Minister's great courtesy in respect of ministerial correspondence and I am confident that he has not ignored my letter—that would be wholly uncharacteristic of him. I hope that his delay in replying is due to his careful and positive consideration of the proposal that I have made: that all Ministers in all Departments be instructed to respond to Members of Parliament in the same way as the Chancellor and Treasury Ministers do.

Such response is necessary because some Ministers are still determined to act as overpaid post boxes. By far the worst of these—I saw him during the Division a few moments ago—is the Secretary of State for Social Security. I have made it clear to him that I do not wish to hear from the agencies to which he forwards my letters against my wishes. I have made it equally clear to the principal culprit, Michael Bichard of the Benefits Agency, that I do not wish to hear from him. Yet both carry on—the one dodging his responsibility to Parliament, the other sending me letters against my will, which I then send back to the Secretary of State, as I have advised him I shall continue to do.

I do not know who is the more arrogant—a Secretary of State who regards himself as above Parliament, or the unaccountable head of a quango who insists on writing to a Member of Parliament when that Member does not wish to receive communications from him.

It so happens that Mr. Bichard is unbelievably inefficient. He is paid £79,000 a year to make decisions affecting the lives of the poorest in our community, and he makes a botch of his job—losing files, making mistakes all the time, taking months to reply and helping to plunge further into despair some of the most desperate and despondent members of society.

Any other Minister would sack Mr. Bichard; so would any private enterprise employer. But this Secretary of State regards him as a convenient receptacle, enabling him to avoid his ministerial responsibilities to Parliament, for which I am sorry to say he appears to have little or no regard. I hope that the Prime Minister will require that Secretary of State and all others like him in the Government to conduct themselves in the democratic manner that the Chancellor and other Ministers are accepting. It may be difficult and strange for the Secretary of State to conduct himself in that manner, but I hope that the Prime Minister will lay down standards for all Ministers.

No doubt from his lofty height the Secretary of State and those like him may regard my stand on this issue as petty and finicky. After all, what does it matter who sends a letter, he may ask. If he does not understand that, he does not understand parliamentary democracy. Democracy in this country will not be destroyed in one blow—our people are too attached to democracy to let that happen—but the erosion of democracy through the erosion of the rights of Parliament is taking place now and emerging in its place is a corporate state. Some 346 years ago Thomas Rainbrough said: The poorest he that is in England hath a life to live as the greatest he. Parliament is more important than any Member of Parliament, whether he is a Back-Bench Member or a Minister. We all have our day and then pass on.

I have sat in the House for 23 years and, with the consent of my constituents, I hope to sit here for many more. I do not intend to sit here quietly and allow the rights of my constituents to be stolen away from them.

1.16 am
Dr. Tony Wright (Cannock and Burntwood)

I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Gorton (Mr. Kaufman) for raising this important issue. He speaks for the whole House and it is appropriate that a junior Back Bencher should say thank you to a very senior if recently returned Back Bencher for raising issues that go to the heart of what the House does and what our system is about. I think that we all feel that what might be called arm's-length accountability is beginning to develop in the system. When we try to raise issues we are directed away from Parliament. My right hon. Friend spoke about that in relation to agencies, but it is happening on almost every front.

This week I tried to ask questions about constituents who have been denied hospital treatment, and I was referred to contracts being made by health authorities which have an arm's-length relationship with Ministers. That is happening across the whole spread of Government. Ministers appoint people to bodies that are no longer directly accountable to the House. When we seek to ask questions about the health service or schools we are directed somewhere else, and when we ask about public utilities we are directed to regulators and told that they are concerned with such matters from now on. New bodies are being created to carry out whole tracts of public administration but, increasingly, those bodies have no direct accountability.

By addressing the issue, my right hon. Friend is getting hold of a thread that is beginning to unpick the nature of our system. Something called ministerial responsibility is supposed to define what goes on here, but in so far as Ministers are becoming ever less responsible, the basis of the system is beginning to erode. It is significant that almost everyone who commentates on the British system points to the erosion of accountability of Ministers to Parliament. The system of ministerial responsibility is being transformed into a system of ministerial irresponsibility. That will soon be the way in which the text books will begin to describe what is happening to our system. This week senior figures in the civil service are beginning to talk about fragmentation and the dissolution of accountability in the system.

I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend for raising an issue which I hope we will pursue on other occasions. The issue certainly will not go away; it will become central to what Back Benchers will want to argue about their role here.

1.20 am
The Parliamentary Secretary, Office of Public Service and Science (Mr. Robert Jackson)

I welcome this opportunity to put clearly on the record the Government's position on ministerial accountability to Parliament in relation to the agencies that now constitute more than half the civil service.

The right hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton (Mr. Kaufman) said that the rights of the House were being eroded. The point to make at the outset is that we are not talking of anything new in accountability to Parliament. The next steps programme, establishing executive agencies within government, was launched in 1988. In its first report on the next steps programme, which covered the very subject of this debate, the Treasury Select Committee said:

We certainly do not advocate abandoning the principle of ministerial accountability, but modifying it so that the Chief Executive who has actually taken the decisions can explain them, in the first instance. In the last resort the Minister will bear the responsibility if things go badly wrong and Parliament will expect him or her to put things right, but the process of Parliamentary accountability should allow issues to be settled at lower levels, wherever possible That report reflects clear all-party support, both for the next steps programme and for this approach to handling its operational consequences. Moreover, the Leader of the Opposition, the right hon. and learned Member for Monklands, East (Mr. Smith), is on record talking to the Royal Institute of Public Administration in May 1991. He quoted approvingly from the 1968 Fulton report the doctrine that:

To function effectively, large organisations, including government departments, need a structure in which units and individual members have authority that is clearly defined and responsibilities for which they can be held accountable. There should be recognised methods of assessing their success in achieving specified objectives. The common ground in the debate is, of course, that parliamentary accountability remains fundamental. There is no question of the Government's washing their hands of that, as the right hon. Gentleman suggested. It is right that Members of Parliament should be able to question Ministers on Government policy. It is also right that Members should be able to follow up the cases of individual constituents. However, the thought behind the creation of agencies is the need to improve and to clarify the way in which that necessary accountability to Parliament is exercised. There is felt to be a need to get a clearer focus at the strategic level and an improvement of accountability at that level. The hon. Member for Cannock and Burntwood (Dr. Wright) is a former lecturer in politics and I think that he understands that point.

Ministers should be responsible to Parliament for the policies pursued by their Departments, for setting the targets and standards to be delivered, for allocating the resources and for ensuring that systems are in place to deliver the policies. The fact is, as I shall demonstrate, that at this level accountability to Parliament has been strengthened.

The trouble with the position taken by the right hon. Member is that he seems to think that accountability is simply a matter of being able to intervene in detailed and day-to-day management issues. That is a mistaken view and I am not breaking any new ground in asserting as much. To quote from a letter sent by Ministers to all Members of Parliament:

As you know there are continuing calls to avoid excessive centralisation of Government and to stop the growth of the civil service. The way to prevent over-centralisation is to foster a sense of local responsibility and accountability. But all too often we erode the position of local people by referring matters to Whitehall without any compensating reduction in effort locally. The letter goes on to address the specific issue raised today by the right hon. Member for Gorton—ministerial accountability to Parliament. It says:

It is essential that we preserve entirely intact our Ministerial responsibility to Parliament. In particular, we fully accept that members will want to raise with Ministers any cases where they feel dissatisfied with the result of inquiries at local level or within independent agencies or which raise general issues of policy and perhaps serious complaints against local administration or conduct. But, confident that this is in the best interest of both Members and their constituents, we do ask you to make initial enquiries at local level in all appropriate cases. That letter, which sets out the Government's position in the debate so well, was not sent by any of my right hon. Friends. It was a letter sent jointly by the then Chancellor of the Exchequer and the then Secretaries of State for Social Security and Employment in May 1977. In other words, it was sent by a Government of whom the right hon. Gentleman was a distinguished adornment as a Minister of State at the Department of Industry.

It is well-established practice, dating back to a Government of which the right hon. Gentleman was a member, that Members of Parliament should, in their constituents' interests, seek replies at the operational level. The creation of the so-called next steps agencies has clarified the responsibility for providing such replies by publishing details of chief executives' responsibilities in addition to the information that is available to Members of Parliament about local managers. But the accountability of those civil servants is still through Ministers to Parliament. It is still the case that, where an hon. Member is dissatisfied with the reply that he receives from the chief executive, he can raise that with the Minister. While the day-to-day operational responsibility is delegated to the chief executives, Ministers can override their decisions.

We have the necessary arrangements in place for Members of Parliament to pursue individual cases. But the challenge of the present arrangements is to the professionalism of Members of Parliament. As well as looking after individual constituents' cases—which must, of course, be a top priority—the challenge is to be able also to hold the Executive to account at the strategic level. The right hon. Gentleman knows from his time in government that those are the matters which occupy Ministers. The question is, is he ready, as a Back Bencher, to enter the debate at that level?

For all agencies, framework documents are published, setting out aims and objectives, delegations and the specific areas of responsibility of Ministers and chief executives. Nothing like that has been available in the past. Each year Ministers publish the key targets that agencies have to meet—a clear statement of what we want those organisations to achieve. Nothing like that has been published in the past.

Where agencies serve the public, they have published, or will publish, charter standards, giving each individual customer a clear statement of the standard of service that they can expect. Again, nothing like that was published in the past.

In many cases, except where, for understandable reasons, commercial confidentiality or security prevent it, corporate and business plans are published. Again, nothing like that has been published in the past.

We have had the annual review of next steps. We have not had that before. The agencies also publish annual reports and accounts on the same basis as commercial organisations, providing Parliament and the public with the ability to scrutinise performance and the use of public funds.

We have increased the professionalism of management within Government and I hope that I will not be misunderstood if I urge the right hon. Gentleman and the hon. Gentleman to redirect the campaign of which the right hon. Gentleman spoke to ensuring that the Mother of Parliaments makes use of all the new information about the operation—

The motion having been made after Ten o'clock and the debate having continued for half an hour, MADAM DEPUTY SPEAKER adjourned the House without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.

Adjourned at twenty-eight minutes past One o'clock.