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Civil Service Reform

I thank my right hon. Friend the Minister and everyone who has spoken in the debate. I agree that it has been an interesting debate in which there has been a great deal of consensus and agreement. Let me just respond to the last point made by my right hon. Friend. The point we are making in our report is that it would be wrong for the Government to overrule the Civil Service Commission without Parliament having some say in the matter, because the Civil Service Commission was established by Parliament to provide precisely that kind of check and balance in the system to stop the Government making such a decision merely on the

basis of royal prerogative. Personally, I am sympathetic to the idea that ministries should have more influence and choice, as they had in the past, over decisions about the appointment of permanent secretaries.

In all the speeches today, I have not heard a single solid argument against the Civil Service Commission. Every argument in praise of GovernUp and the work it is doing is an argument in favour of the Civil Service Commission in Parliament. How can we let one thousand flowers bloom, as the right hon. Member for Barking (Margaret Hodge) said—my right hon. Friend the Member for Arundel and South Downs (Nick Herbert) endorsed that—if we stamp on the one flower that has democratic authority and legitimacy on the question of the civil service in Parliament?