Civil Service

Part of Prayers – in the House of Commons at 10:31 am on 28 October 1983.

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Photo of Mr Barney Hayhoe Mr Barney Hayhoe , Brentford and Isleworth 10:31, 28 October 1983

I am glad to be able to take up the remarks of the hon. Member for Motherwell, South (Dr. Bray), who chaired the Sub-Committee and whose report is one of the main documents before us. I welcome much of what he has said, but he will understand that I cannot welcome all his comments. I think that it is for the convenience of the House for me to intervene now. Perhaps it would be right, with the leave of the House, if I were to reply to the debate and try to deal with at least some of the matters that are raised.

This is our first full-scale debate on the Civil Service since January 1979. On that occasion I spoke from the Opposition Front Bench. I have checked on the issues that we discussed in that debate. A casual observer might think that nothing much has happened and that nothing much has changed, but that is far from the truth. A real transformation of attitudes has been taking place and today's debate provides an opportunity to consider the progress that we have made and to ascertain where reality lies for the future.

It is appropriate that my right hon. Friend the Member for Taunton (Mr. du Cann) should have opened the debate. As in 1979, when he was the second speaker to be called by the Chair, he has made another distinguished contribution. As a former Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee, the Estimates Committee and the Treasury and Civil Service Select Committee, he speaks with unrivalled authority and from a rich background of experience as both Minister and Member. In 1979 he said: It is essential for us—indeed, it is our duty—to see that that bureaucracy is responsive, less expensive and, I believe, less numerous. It is our responsibility, too, to see that it is professional."—[Official Report, 15 January 1979: Vol, 960, c. 1343.] I am glad to have heard from my right hon. Friend today that he believes that we are making useful progress along the lines that he laid out for us. I hope that everyone in the Chamber shares a common appreciation of the traditions and high stand and of service for which our Civil Service is rightly renowned.

My right hon. Friend commenced his speech with a well-judged and, I believe, entirely appropriate tribute to the Civil Service. I echo those sentiments and underline the terms, if that is not too mixed a metaphor, of my right hon. Friend's remarks. I am glad that the tone of the debate should have been set from the beginning with that well-judged tribute.

The financial management White Paper, Cmnd. 9058, which was published last month, marked an important milestone on the way forward. We know that Parliament and Government must ever seek to maintain standards and improve cost effectiveness so that we have a Civil Service that is well able to respond to present-day needs and operate efficiently within the constraints of current economic circumstances. It is in that context that one sees the financial management White Paper, which followed the Select Committee's valuable report on efficiency and effectiveness in the Civil Service and the White Paper that followed, Cmnd. 8616. Of course, the financial management initiative is not an end in itself. I think it appropriate, first, to make some general remarks about the Civil Service and the task that the Conservative Government faced when taking office in May 1979.

The Civil Service is both large and extraordinarily diverse. There are over 600,000 employees, including over 100,000 industrial or blue collar workers. Four out of five civil servants work outside London and about half of them are women. One third of civil servants are aged under 30. Their employing departments vary from the Ministry of Defence, with about 200,000 staff, to the Law Officers' Department with about 20. About 90,000 are engaged in paying pensions and benefits to the public. About 1 billion payments are made each year to about 20 million individuals and over 30 types of benefit are involved. Many more civil servants are involved in collecting taxes and national insurance contributions. Civil servants staff our courts of justice and run our prisons. They forecast our weather in the Meteorological Office and provide the coastguard service around our shores. They produce coinage at the Royal Mint and provide a valuable and profitable export business. They are involved in customs control and immigration control and have responsibility for health and safety.

The Civil Service embraces an immense range of activities which those of us who are taking part in the debate will know only too well. However, I fear that many of our fellow citizens do not understand the wide range of activites undertaken on behalf of the community by the Civil Service. The bowler-hatted, striped-trousered, brolly-carrying, tea-drinking and red-tape-wrapping caricature of the civil servant is a figment of the cartoonists' vivid imagination. Successive Governments and Parliaments have placed more and more tasks upon the Civil Service and during the post-war years the number of civil servants has drifted upwards. That happened at a time when other public services were increasing even more rapidly. In the 1960s and 1970s staff in the National Health Service and in local government increased by about 75 per cent. If we exclude the Armed Forces, there were about 4·5 million public servants in 1979, and the trend was rising.

When my right hon. Friend the Prime Minster came to office, she was determined to change this long-term trend. She was determined to reduce bureaucracy and administration wherever possible. In May 1979 there were 732,000 civil servants. An urgent review was put in hand, and within a few months a tough but realistic target was set of a reduction to 630,000 to be achieved by April 1984. I am glad to confirm that we remain steady on course to achieve this target by the end of the financial year. We may even do slightly better. By 1 July the number was down to 642,800. Although the 1 October figures are not yet fully compiled, I am confident that they will show a further significant reduction.

We now have a smaller Civil Service than at any time since the end of the second world war. This is a considerable achievement, and I pay tribute to all those who have made it possible. It has meant a significant reduction in the Civil Service pay bill of well over £500 million a year. This substantial reduction has been achieved without massive redundancies. The processes of natural wastage, retirement and resignation have been sufficient to cover the reduced numbers.