§ 2.49 p.m.
§ The Minister for the Cabinet Office and Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Lord Macdonald of Tradeston)My Lords, with the leave of the House I should like to make a brief personal Statement to dispel any confusion caused by an Answer given to the Starred Question of the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Croy, on special advisers on 16th October.
My answer to the noble Lord, Lord Boardman, was unclear, and for that I apologise. The noble Lord asked for the cost of special advisers over the last 12 months compared to the cost under the previous Conservative administration. The term "administration" has a specific meaning for special advisers, as under the terms of their model contract all appointments are terminated at the end of an administration. Therefore, in this context, "administration" is synonymous with "Parliament".
I gave a cost of £4.4 million for the current figure of 81 special advisers, as compared with 79 under the last administration. My intention in offering those numbers was to counter any suggestion of a large increase in the total number of special advisers between this current administration and the last administration—both Labour, of course.
I then told the House that I had no figures for costs under the previous administration, as was requested by the noble Lord, Lord Boardman; namely, the Conservative administration of 1992–97, as I should have said explicitly. But, in an attempt to be helpful, I recalled the cost of£1.1 million for 1991. In fact, the cost 808 for the last year of the previous Conservative administration was £1.8 million. That paid for 38 special advisers, as I now readily make clear.
Using the words "last administration" and "previous administration", while not making a clear distinction between Labour and Conservative administrations, meant that the confusion was entirely of my making. The Hansard editor and the civil servant who routinely checks the speeches of Cabinet Office Ministers sought to clarify matters by changing "previous administration" to "previous Parliament" in the final record.
For the avoidance of doubt, let me say that there was certainly no pressure brought to bear on Hansard to make such a change. However, in my view the confusion remains and, in order to dispel it, I have made this personal Statement at the earliest opportunity.