§ Mr. Michael Lathamasked the Secretary of State for Prices and Consumer Protection what are the countries of origin of Esrom, Fynbo, Molbro and Svenbo cheeses, all of which are eligible for cheese subsidy.
§ Mr. MaclennanAll these cheeses are produced in Denmark.
§ Mr. Michael Lathamasked the Secretary of State for Prices and Consumer Protection under the higher levels of cheese subsidy which she announced on 8th November, what will be the cost of the subsidy on each of the categories of cheese affected in 1974–75; and how this compares with the previous estimates.
§ Mr. MaclennanStatistics are not available for each of the varieties, but the table below shows the estimated expenditure for the main groups based on forecasts of consumption in 1974–75:
The conventions governing publications by former Ministers flow from the two complementary principles of the collective responsibility of the Government as a whole and the personal responsibility of individual Ministers. These conventions, and the need for confidentiality of discussions between Ministers, whether in Cabinet or elsewhere, and of advice by civil servants to Ministers, are based on the needs of government, and are necessary in the public interest.
273WThe Cabinet and Cabinet Committees meet in secret, and the records of their proceedings are protected from public scrutiny for 30 years under the Public Records Act 1967. This is an essential requirement of the doctrine of collective responsibility. Ministers will not feel free to discuss matters privately in Cabinet or Cabinet Committee, and to surrender their own preferences to the achievement of a common view, nor can they be expected to abide by a common decision, if they know that the stand they have taken and the points they have surrendered are to become public knowledge prematurely. In other words, since under the system of Cabinet government the efficacy and the authority of government depend upon mutual confidence among Ministers, and between Ministers and civil servants, the basis of that authority would be eroded by premature disclosure of what has passed within that confidential relationship.
On the other hand it is right that former Ministers should be entitled to commit to history a personal account of their own stewardship. They are, however, expected to submit their manuscripts to the authorities not just to ensure that national security is not prejudiced but also to ensure that they do not indulge their right to defend their own actions to a point which endangers the mutual trust on which Cabinet government depends. It would make nonsense of the Thirty Year Rule approved by Parliament for the protection of Cabinet papers if former Ministers were able to evade it by publishing their own accounts of Cabinet meetings.
The Secretary of the Cabinet is responsible to the Prime Minister both for the policy and for action on individual manuscripts. I have followed the practice of successive Prime Ministers in delegating the vetting of manuscripts to him. To whatever political administration particular material intended for publication may relate, he is in a unique position to assess these matters with impartiality and with knowledge of both fact and precedents. It would, for example, be impossible as well as wrong for me to decide whether passages in books by former Conservative Ministers contained revelations which conflicted with the principles which I have described.
274WThe Secretary of the Cabinet informed Mr. Crossman's literary executors that he was unable to clear the texts submitted to him because very detailed accounts of Cabinet and Cabinet Committee meetings appeared throughout and also because there were detailed accounts of advice given in confidence by individual civil servants and others in the belief that that confidence would be respected. The Secretary of the Cabinet made it clear to the literary executors, however, that he took no exception to the passages critical of Mr. Crossman's former colleagues or of the Civil Service as such.
The Secretary of the Cabinet informed me on 7th June, and has kept me informed subsequently, of the reasons why he felt unable to clear the texts submitted to him, and I have approved the way he has proposed to handle the matter. At all times he has made it clear to the literary executors that he is ready to consider a text without the offending paragraphs, and at no time have the literary executors complained to me or to him, or, so far as I know, to anyone else either that he has acted unreasonably under the accepted conventions or that the Cabinet Office have been dilatory in its handling of the matter.