I beg to move Amendment 79, page 4, line 33, leave out 'special' and insert 'Ministerial'.

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following: Amendment 80, page 4, line 38, leave out 'special' and insert 'Ministerial'.

Amendment 53, page 4, line 39, at end insert-

'(3A) The special advisers code must contain provision preventing a special adviser from-

(a) authorising the expenditure of any public funds;

(b) exercising any power given by or under an Act of Parliament or an Act of the Scottish Parliament; and

(c) exercising any management function in relation to the civil service.'.

Amendment 81, page 5, line 1, leave out 'special' and insert 'Ministerial'.

Amendment 82, page 5, line 3, leave out 'special' and insert 'Ministerial'.

Amendment 83, page 5, line 5, leave out 'special' and insert 'Ministerial'.

Amendment 84, page 5, line 7, leave out 'special' and insert 'Ministerial'.

Amendment 85, page 5, line 8, leave out 'special' and insert 'Ministerial'.

Amendment 86, in Clause 15, page 7, line 38, leave out 'special' and insert 'Ministerial'.

Amendment 22, page 8, line 14, at end insert-

'(e) those terms and conditions prohibit the special adviser from undertaking restricted duties.'.

Amendment 23, page 8, line 26, at end insert-

'(d) those terms and conditions prohibit the special adviser from undertaking restricted duties.'.

Amendment 24, page 8, line 38, at end insert-

'(d) those terms and conditions prohibit the special adviser from undertaking restricted duties.'.

Amendment 87, page 8, line 38, at end insert-

'(1A) A Ministerial adviser appointed to give party political advice to Ministers or to undertake other activities otherwise inappropriate to a civil servant is to be termed a "political adviser".

(1B) A Ministerial adviser appointed for his professional experience to assist with specific projects or problems is to be termed a "specialist adviser".

(1C) All Ministerial advisers must act only in the advisory and not an executive capacity.'.

Amendment 25, page 8, line 45, at end insert-

'(3) The following are restricted duties-

(a) authorising the expenditure of public funds;

(b) exercising any power given by or under an Act of Parliament or an Act of the Scottish Parliament;

(c) exercising any function relating to the appraisal, reward, promotion or disciplining of civil servants in any part of the civil service (including a part of the civil service to which this Act does not apply).'.

New clause 15- Cap on number of special advisers -

'(1) The number of special advisers appointed by Her Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom shall be limited according to the procedure laid out in subsections (3) to (6) of this section.

(2) Until the procedure laid out in this section has been completed, no new special advisers may be appointed.

(3) A Minister of the Crown must lay before parliament an order setting a limit for the total number of special advisers at any one time in the service of Her Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom.

(4) The order may make for provision for different Ministers of the Crown to be allowed to appoint different numbers of special advisers.

(5) The order may make provision, within the limit referred to in subsection (3), for there to be a limit to the number of special advisers who may be paid from public funds at any one time.

(6) An order under this section comes into force when resolutions approving it have been passed by both Houses of Parliament.'.

I say at the outset that I do not intend to press my amendments to a vote. One good reason is that, unfortunately, there are some slight technical errors. However, they are important amendments and I hope that my Front-Bench colleagues will at least consider incorporating their spirit, and even some of their wording, into the Bill at a later stage. They are about special advisers and seek to replace the term "special" with "ministerial", so that we know precisely to whom the advisers are addressing their advice. It is a more accurate word and it would clarify the role of special advisers in future if they were called "ministerial advisers".

The Public Administration Committee, of which I am delighted to be a member, has discussed the role of special advisers at some length. Perhaps other Members have also discussed this issue during the debate, but there is a history to special advisers with which I have some familiarity. In the 1970s, I knew Tony Benn and his special advisers. However, the famous Francis Cripps and Frances Morrell operated strictly as his political advisers; they did not have a role in advising or instructing civil servants. What they did was useful and legitimate, although it did not please the civil servants at the time. Tony Benn's habit was to speak first thing in the morning to his personal political advisers and then later to the civil servants, so that he was well prepared for debating with them later in the day. That was seen then by the civil servants as untoward.

However, under Tony Blair the power of special advisers went way beyond that; they took on a much more powerful role. They were effectively directing civil servants, acting as an Executive layer between Ministers and civil servants. This was something new, and it looked as though it was politicising the civil service in an unacceptable way. I was critical of that at the time, and I think we have rowed back from that arrangement to some extent.

At the time, however, things went even further than that. Some of the special advisers in Downing street were actually giving instructions over the heads of Ministers. At least two former senior Ministers are on record as complaining that their role was being marginalised. They were being kept out of the picture because policy was being passed from Downing street direct to the civil servants by special advisers, almost making the Ministers irrelevant. I am glad to say that that has changed.

That was 12 years ago. At the time, what was the proper way for people to raise that issue and say that the situation was either ineffective or improper, or both?

Well, it concerned me at the time. I have been a member of the Public Administration Committee for seven years, and we have discussed these matters on a number of occasions. I have made very strong criticisms of that mode of operating, which changed the nature of our constitution and the relationship between Ministers and the civil service. It was a great mistake. I have used stronger language than that many times, which I will not use now-my hon. Friends who are also members of the Committee have heard me use it-when talking about authoritarian regimes and the techniques they use to exert political control at every level. However, to an extent, we have rowed back from that position, which I very much welcome.

I want to divide the role of ministerial adviser again. As my amendments point out, ministerial advisers come in two types: specialist advisers, who are experts who can give advice on technical matters that will help a Minister to do his job better; and political advisers or hacks-the sort of job that I might have done in a different regime. Long before I came into this place, I worked as a political adviser within the trade union movement. I used to use every opportunity to twist and turn politics as I wanted; that is what political advisers do. They act as advisers to Ministers-to one side; they do not instruct civil servants. That is why we want to use the term "ministerial adviser". Such people give advice to Ministers-they do not act as civil servants-and they are divided into those two categories.

If I may say this, it is a good day to bury special advisers, to coin a phrase. We should restore the proper role of the civil service as independent, impartial, neutral and equally able to serve Governments of all persuasions. Also, I hope that within the civil service there will be a range of views, so that good advice can come from all sides-in fact, from different sides of the argument-within the service itself. That is how it operated in the past and that is how it should operate again.

These amendments would restore the proper status of Ministers, whose role has been played down. The Cabinet has not been the power it was in the past. I would like to see Cabinet government genuinely restored, so that politics is really debated and thrashed out at Cabinet level, and does not just come down from the political advisers surrounding a Prime Minister-any Prime Minister.

My hon. Friend and I share an interest in that history. When did we have something that he would describe as functioning Cabinet government? During what period was that?

I do not wish to speak for too long, although I thank my hon. Friend for his Intervention. This issue has been drawn to our attention by some former heads of the civil service who have been before the Select Committee. They reminded us that back in the days of the Wilson Governments, and perhaps those of the Callaghan Governments, there was a remarkable range of views within Cabinet. It stretched from Tony Benn and Barbara Castle, on one side, to Roy Jenkins and Shirley Williams, on the other, with several others in between. Within such Cabinets a real debate on policy took place, representing a spectrum of opinion. I am sure that the same was true of the Conservative party in times gone by, but our party certainly had genuine debate in Cabinet.

It has also been pointed out that in times past the Cabinet would, typically, see some 200 policy papers a year-that is four a week, on average. Cabinet would debate those papers and reach some kind of consensus on them. I understand that in one of the more recent years, two policy papers went to the Cabinet. Considering two papers compared with 200 represents a change. I like to think that we should have a genuine debate in Cabinet, with strands of opinion, whichever party is in power-that should certainly happen when my party is in power. Those strands should represent the broad range of opinion within the large parties in our, essentially, two-party system-I apologise to the Liberal Democrats.

That form of government was better than what we have had in more recent years-we might have avoided some mistakes, on all sides, had we had it. Special advisers should be replaced by ministerial advisers; we should have advisers giving advice to Ministers, not giving orders to civil servants.

The Second Deputy Chairman:

May I just advise the Committee that it would seem sensible to take Clause 15 stand part with this group of amendments? I have received representations about that and, as it is closely related, it would seem a sensible thing to do.

It is pleasure to agree with almost everything that Kelvin Hopkins has just said. [Interruption.] I hope that I am not doing him any harm in doing so. It is sad that the idea of the special adviser was first invented to assist Ministers and civil servants, so that such a person could play a hybrid role between the civil servant and the political office and political duties of the Minister.

I do not think that this is declaring an interest, but I should say that I was a special adviser from 1990 to 1994. I recall very well the mostly unwritten code that we observed carefully. There was no question in those days of special advisers telling civil servants what to do. I know that the Lord Chancellor would agree with my comments-were he in the Chamber-and those of the hon. Member for Luton, North, because he was one of the first special advisers when he worked for the then Mrs. Barbara Castle. He undertook that position with the same distinction that he has shown since, and there was no doubt whatsoever as to what special advisers did.

What is sad is the fact that, as the hon. Member for Luton, North described, the Government decided in 1997 to change the role of special advisers and almost overnight increased their number from 38 to 70 and more. More importantly, they changed their role and allowed special advisers to give instructions to civil servants, thereby undermining the position of civil servants. It is a pity that we cannot have a full debate on that this evening. We have only five minutes left and I shall curtail my remarks so that others will have an opportunity to speak, but I would have liked a full debate on that very issue. The fact that I cannot demonstrates that what my hon. and learned Friend Mr. Grieve said when we debated the programme motion earlier this evening has proven to be totally correct. We could have gone on debating this tomorrow, because it is a very important matter.

rose-

Before David Howarth makes his speech-and I shall give way to him in a second-may I say that I entirely agree with his amendments 22 to 25, on restricted duties?

I thank the hon. Lady for giving way. In fact, I was simply going to ask her whether she would support Amendment 22 in the Lobby. It lays down the principle that she was talking about, which is that civil servants should not be instructed by special advisers for precisely the reasons that she gave and because it undermines the proper relationship between political appointees and the civil service. If she is of that opinion, I would like to test the opinion of the Committee on that amendment.

I understand what the hon. Gentleman is saying. I do not think that it is necessary for the matter to be tested in the Lobby, but in principle I agree entirely with what he has to say.

It is sad that the once noble role of special adviser-a person who served the civil service, Ministers, Parliament and therefore the people very well-has been so badly undermined by this Government over the past 12 years. I note that the Minister disagrees, but I hope that she will tell us right now that that balance will be redressed so that special advisers can go back to being proper special advisers again.

I shall be extremely brief. It is unfortunate-in fact, that is hardly the word-that we have reached a part of the Bill that has some real meat in it and there is simply no time to discuss it. I hope that the Government will say how we can deal with the rest of the Bill, because at the moment the Committee will be unable to do so. Over the years, we have had endless arguments about special advisers, and we do not need to repeat them now. Let us hope that we have got it out of our system, but surely we must agree that we have to know what special advisers can and cannot do. In a Bill that sets down the core values of our system of our government, we need to say on the face of it what special advisers can and cannot do. Surely we have to test the will of the Committee on that.

I agree entirely with Dr. Wright and I think that the way to test that opinion is to press Amendment 22 to a vote, so I shall ask you, Sir Michael, if we can do that in due course.

I should also mention very briefly new Clause 15, which would at least require the Government to say what the limits on the numbers of special advisers should be. At the moment the Bill, as drafted, would allow thousands of special advisers to be appointed, which would entirely undermine the senior civil service and introduce an entirely different system of government.

I am grateful to hon. Members for keeping their comments short so that I have time to respond. First, on the points made by my hon. Friend Kelvin Hopkins, I have every sympathy with what he is trying to achieve but think that his amendments achieve the opposite, as they blur the line. The term "special advisers" is understood. I take the same view as Mrs. Laing; it is a noble profession that allows political support and advice to be given to Ministers while maintaining the integrity and impartiality of civil servants. I hope that my hon. Friend the Member for Luton, North will withdraw his Amendment. I have every sympathy with his intention, but I do not think that his amendments will achieve what he wants.

In response to my hon. Friend Dr. Wright, may I say that I think that there is a lot of force to his point about the need for us to be clear about what special advisers can and cannot do? He has already mentioned the debate that has been had and it is widely agreed that Ministers need advice and assistance. That is an important role to fulfil, and the first act of the Prime Minister in 2007 was to remove the position-

Debate interrupted (Programme Order, this day).

The Chairman put forthwith the Question already proposed from the Chair (Standing Order No. 83D) , That the amendment be made .

Amendment 79 negatived.

The Chairman then put forthwith the Questions necessary for the disposal of the business to be concluded at that time (Standing Order No. 83D).

Amendment made: 36, page 4, line 35, leave out subsections (2) to (7) and insert-

'(2) For this purpose, the Minister may publish separate codes of conduct covering special advisers who serve the Scottish Executive or the Welsh Assembly Government.

(3) Before publishing a code (or any revision of a code) under subsection (2), the Minister must consult the First Minister for Scotland or the First Minister for Wales (as the case may be).

(4) In this Chapter "special advisers code" means a code of conduct published under this section as it is in force for the time being.

(5) The Minister for the Civil Service must lay any special advisers code before Parliament.

(6) The First Minister for Scotland must lay before the Scottish Parliament any special advisers code under subsection (2) that covers special advisers who serve the Scottish Executive.

(7) The First Minister for Wales must lay before the National Assembly for Wales any special advisers code under subsection (2) that covers special advisers who serve the Welsh Assembly Government.

(8) A special advisers code forms part of the terms and conditions of service of any special adviser covered by the code.'.-( Mary Creagh. )

Clause 8, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clauses 9 to 14 ordered to stand part of the Bill.