Political Commentary

Placemen galore

John Grigg

When people talk of 'big government' what they usually mean is the whole apparatus of officialdom in a country which, like ours, has an outsized public sector. But in a more limited sense-the number of MPs holding ministerial office—it can also be said that British governments are now far too big. And the implications for parliamentary democracy are perhaps even more serious.

In 1906 there were 400 Liberal MPs, but Only thirty-eight of them were ministers. In 1945 there were 393 Labour MPs, of Whom sixty-five were appointed to the Attlee government. Today, out of 313 Labour MPs, no less than ninety-two are ministers.

The increase between 1906 and 1945 is at least understandable, because during that Period the state assumed many new resDonsibilities which involved the creation of new ministries. Lloyd George, for instance, appointed the first ministers of Health, Labour and Transport. Churchill the first ministers of Fuel and Power, Town and Country Planning, and Social Insurance. • But how can the more recent increase be Justified? Between 1945 and the present day as many new ministers have been added as during the earlier period, without an equivalent increase in the number of departments. The principal reason has been gross overmanning of existing departments. Whereas in Attlee's government the Ministry of Labour and National Service had just two ministers, one senior and one Jamor, the Department of Employment now has four ministers—a secretary of state, a Minister of state and two under-secretaries. \let it no longer has National Service to run. Very few departments now have only tWO ministers, which used to be the normal c°mPlement. When Britain was still the greatest power on earth the Foreign, Cplonial and India Offices had only two Ministers apiece. Today the Foreign and Commonwealth °ffice contains six ministers (five MPs and ne Peer). And there is also a Ministry for ■ -Pverseas Development with two ministers. Ti hus, as a middle-rank power, we have a arger Political team dealing with our exterI:lal affairs than we thought it necessary to have in the heyday of empire. I" recent years four genuinely new ePartments have been brought into beingIndustrY, Prices, Northern Ireland and s ale,s. (The Civil Service Department is a krieclal case, with the Prime Minister as its heal

The effect of these new ministries saa.Pon total membership of the government ,d have been offset, at least partly, by Lae Merging and streamlining of others. But in fact there has been virtually no economy of ministerial personnel through amalgamation. The Department of the Environment, which comprises Planning, Transport and Housing (not to mention Sport), contains even more ministers than if all its functions were still separate. It has a secretary of state, four ministers of state and four under-secretaries (only one of whom is in the House of Lords).

The Department of Health and Social Security, uniting two former ministries, has a secretary of state, two ministers of state and two under-secretaries—in other words, one person more than the two ministries on their own would have required. Only the Ministry of Defence seems to have effected a net reduction in its political establishment, compared with the old service departments.

Among the recently created ministries. Industry and Northern Ireland--with five ministers each--are particularly bad examples of overmanning. Prices and Wales have three ministers each, though two each should suffice.

So much for numbers. What of the cost ? In strictly financial terms it is not negligible, because cabinet ministers get £13,000 a year, senior non-cabinet ministers and ministers of state between £7,500 and £9,500 a year, and under-secretaries £5,500 a year—to which they can add more than half of their parliamentary salaries.

Nobody should grudge the money if it is helping to make government more efficient. But it is doing nothing of the sort. The extra ministers are appointed not because there are proper jobs for them to do, but rather because modern prime ministers are outdoing their eighteenth-century predecessors in jobbery.

It is bad enough that the executive now has such immense patronage outside Parliament, in the form of highly paid jobs in nationalised industry and all manner of state agencies. But the growth of patronage inside Parliament is worse still, though hardly remarked upon at all.

In the early years of the century, and even a generation ago, most MPs did not expect to become ministers. They regarded membership of the House of Commons as an end in itself.

Today, when the government absorbs not far short of one-third of the ruling party's MPs, and when many more are included in the penumbra of parliamentary private secretaries—unpaid, but to some extent nobbled—the House of Commons is more an assembly of placemen than a free legislature. The change has occurred stealthily, and both the main parties have contributed to it. Somehow it must be reversed.

The damage to Parliament consists not only in the loss of MPs' independence. It is also very unfortunate that so much talent is pre-empted for the front benches when it should be available for other parliamentary work.

More and more tasks of investigation and policy review are now entrusted to outside bodies, with M Ps represented on them either inadequately or not at all. Yet Parliament should be the centre of all political activity.

How can the present ministerial hypertrophy be ended? It would clearly be almost impossible for a prime minister in office to make about thirty of his colleagues redundant, explaining to them and to the public that there was no useful work for them to do. But would it be any easier for a leader of the opposition to announce in advance that the number of jobs for the boys (and girls) would be much reduced in the event of victory ?

If Mrs Thatcher has the right view of this matter she will naturally be tempted to keep quiet about it until after the election. But would it not be far better to make jobbery in all its aspects a major issue, and to campaign on a pledge to stop the abuse of prime minister's patronage ?

The simplest way to cut the number of ministers would be to abolish the post of minister of state, which is neither one thing nor the other. The old straightforward distinction between senior and junior ministers was surely preferable.

In Churchill's wartime coalition there was only one ministel of state occupying an intermediate position between secretary of state and under-secretary. That was Richard Law (now Lord Coleraine) who was appointed minister of state at the Foreign Office.

But since the war the institution has proliferated. In the 1951 Churchill government there were five or six ministers of state, and in the Macmillan government about eight of them. Today there are about twentyseven—which is, conveniently, just about the number by which the total pay-roll of ministers ought to be cut.

Under-secretaries should become once again the political seconds-in-command in their departments, and their pay should be increased accordingly. At present they are generally treated as a low form of life, for whom work has to be invented and to whom officials have to be wastefully attached.

Moreover, the only ministries which should have more than one under-secretary each are the Treasury, the Foreign Office, the Home Office, the Scottish and Northern Ireland Offices (while they last) and the composite ministries, Defence. Environment and DHSS. But even they should have less than their present complement.

The Treasury, DHSS and the Foreign, Home, Scottish and Northern Ireland offices should make do with three each. Defence and the Environment with four. All the rest should be content with two.

The party would then—to coin a phrase— be over.