Civil Service

Part of Prayers – in the House of Commons at 1:49 pm on 28 October 1983.

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Photo of Mr Barney Hayhoe Mr Barney Hayhoe , Brentford and Isleworth 1:49, 28 October 1983

I shall speak only for myself on that. I think that deliberate leaks of a dishonest character, in contradistinction to one's own codes of conduct, are wrong, and, although I recognise that there are the procedures of the lobby and such things, I should not regard them as being the same as a senior public civil servant deliberately leaking a document for some purpose, whether political or otherwise. That is of a different character from, for example, the meetings that go on in the House between the Leader of the House and the Leader of the Opposition every Thursday in a room, which I gather does not exist, somewhere in the Palace of Westminster.

The hon. Member for Battersea spoke about the manpower plans for 1984–88, and these will be announced. I set out earlier today the criteria by which manpower policy is being judged. He also asked about privatisation programmes. He said some proposals, when they have been examined more closely, have been shown not to be commensurate with good management and did not provide value for the taxpayer, and have therefore gone. That shows that the Government are not adopting a dogmatic attitude but are judging these things on their merits.

As to the Royal Ordnance factories, they are close to defence sources, but that is no reason why they should not be in private ownership, any more than the firms that make aircraft for the forces to fly. For many years, firms in the private sector have produced munitions and warlike stores for our services and there has not been any problem about the ownership of those firms. It is the quality of the product that is important.

The hon. Member for Battersea also asked about ethnic monitoring. The two new projects in Avon and the northwest are going ahead on schedule. He asked too about women and the possibilities of part-time work. Departments are being encouraged to expand opportunities for part-time work for women where that is feasible.

My hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, North (Mr. Eggar) was opposed, as were other hon. Members, to the politicisation of the Civil Service. I was glad to hear that, and join them in believing that we should not go down that road. I was glad to have my hon. Friend's support for the merit of having targets for numbers. They exert an important discipline. I was also grateful for his support and for his constructive comments about the future development of the financial management initiative.

My hon. Friend acknowledged the difficulties in introducing merit pay in the Civil Service, and said that it would chime well with the emphasis of the financial management initiative on sharpening personal accountability. I agree with that. Moreover, in a smaller Civil Service, with fewer opportunities for promotion as a reward for merit, there is a greater need for other incentives for good performance, and this matter is being studied.

The hon. Member for Leyton (Mr. Cohen) has got it wrong. The £35 million to which he was referring is not the cost of consulting external consultants, but the in-house cost of the financial management initiative. As to Oxbridge, we would be wise to read some of our earlier debates and documents on this. The Civil Service Commission, which is responsible for improvement, does its level best to ensure that there is genuine equality of opportunity for all the candidates that come before us. As to his remarks about Prime Ministers and permanent secretaries, I am not sure which fictional publication he was quoting from, but it clearly had little to do with the real world.

This has been a useful debate, and I hope that we shall not have to wait another five years for another one.