By Peter Riddell
27 May 2010
It was never meant to be like this. Whitehall is tearing up the rulebook and getting used to the political and practical consequences of a coalition government. Peter Riddell reports from within the corridors of power
Whitehall is in a state of chaos, or, more officially, flux. This is not because of the transition to a new government under David Cameron, but more because of the unexpected formation of the Conservative/Liberal Democrat coalition. This has both slowed down the appointment of ministers and involved the creation of new machinery to manage relations between the partners.
Everything is so novel that all involved – politicians, advisers and civil servants – are still taking time to adjust to new ways of thinking and operating. The implications both for Whitehall and for Parliament are only slowly being appreciated. As Cameron remarked when the Commons first met, he was now sitting alongside people whom he had never sat beside before, meaning Nick Clegg.
A powerful office is being set up within the Cabinet Office to accommodate Deputy Prime Minister Clegg, with many new officials and special advisers being recruited. This is in addition to the changes required to accommodate Clegg’s responsibilities for political and constitutional reform.
A further complication is the proliferation of Cabinet Office ministers – notably Francis Maude handling implementation and Whitehall reorganisation and Oliver Letwin as policy adviser to the PM – plus two junior ministers.
So the Cabinet Office has had removal men all over the place, as new offices are created for all these ministers and their officials.
This physical dislocation is matched by personnel problems, as Conservative and LibDem ministers and advisers get to know each other. This is in marked contrast to the normal experience in a new government, when members of the incoming political team have got to know each other very well during the battles of opposition, often creating an inner cadre that it is hard for civil servants to penetrate. But now they are working alongside people they did not know previously and regarded as political foes. To date, the integration of policy and communications teams has apparently worked well amid the adrenalin rush and excitement of creating the coalition.
The lead has been taken in the public harmony shown by Cameron and Clegg. That is crucial to the success of any coalition, as the good relations between Donald Dewar and Jim Wallace showed in the creation of the Labour-Liberal Democrat coalition in Scotland in 1999. The same has been true for Labour and Plaid Cymru in Wales since 2007.
But for the new government, beneath the top two there are uncertainties and doubts in both parties. Many Tory MPs and ministers would have preferred a Conservative minority administration and another general election in the autumn, when they would have hoped to win an overall majority. They are concerned about a dilution of Conservative manifesto pledges and about the allocation of five Cabinet posts and 15 other government roles to the LibDems.
So well over 20 Tory MPs and peers are feeling rather aggrieved at not getting the ministerial posts they had sought during the long years of opposition.
For all the talk of close partnership, there is inevitably a sense of two distinct parties. For instance, in the Commons, there is one chief whip in Patrick McLoughlin, but Alistair Carmichael of the LibDems is one of his joint deputies. The Tory and LibDem whips meet separately for 15 minutes each day, then together for a further 15 minutes – being joined at the shoulder, rather than the hip, as one described it.
David Laws, the LibDem chief secretary to the Treasury, has quickly become the favourite of Tory deficit hawks because of his enthusiasm for cutting spending over the initial £6.2bn ‘waste’ package announced on May 24. Business Secretary Vince Cable has also proved to be tough on business support, possibly tougher than Kenneth Clarke would have been. But loyalties will be strained by the Spending Review – which is why a formal machinery has been set up to resolve disputes. A coalition committee, chaired jointly by Cameron and Clegg, will decide the strategy and a smaller working group under Oliver Letwin and Danny Alexander will handle day-to-day issues of presentation and disputes.
The 36-page coalition agreement, more formally the Coalition’s programme for government, supersedes the party manifestos as the guide to the civil service on policy, according to a note circulated around Whitehall by Cabinet secretary Sir Gus O’Donnell. It is the reference point for all decisions, to the surprise, and occasional annoyance, of many ministers and MPs in both parties.
It is easy to identify the points of future tension where the parties have had diametrically opposed views, such as the development of more nuclear power stations; raising tuition fees; capital gains tax; restoring marriage into the personal tax system; the future of the Human Rights Act; and the replacement of the Trident nuclear deterrent. Repeal of the legislation banning hunting with dogs could also produce tensions, although it will be a free vote. All will strain the doctrine of collective responsibility, whereby ministers are supposed to stick to a common line, both in words and votes, on any decisions of the government.
Tory MPs are muttering that too many concessions have been made to the LibDems. LibDem MPs, including ministers, have been given a let-out option on several of these issues: for instance, they will be able to abstain on any legislation implementing an increase in student tuition fees if this is proposed later this summer by Lord Browne’s committee of inquiry. They will, similarly, be allowed ‘to maintain their opposition to nuclear power while permitting the government to bring forward the national planning statement for ratification by Parliament so that new nuclear construction becomes possible’.
In both cases, there is the further twist that the secretaries of state are LibDems. So if tuition fees are raised, the legislation will presumably not be sponsored by Business Secretary Vince Cable, who will abstain on it, but by his Conservative deputy David Willetts, who is responsible for universities and skills.
Similarly, Energy and Climate Change Secretary Chris Huhne, who opposes nuclear power, has had to adopt a convoluted position on when new stations would be approved. In practical terms, abstention by the LibDems will have no effect on the outcome since the Tories on their own can easily outvote Labour and the smaller opposition parties.
The creation of the coalition has overshadowed what has been a smooth transition process. Cameron has listened to advice that he should not change the machinery of government much at the start, in line with recommendations made by senior civil servants and by the Institute for Government.
This has been underpinned by a devastating report published in March by the National Audit Office, which shows the high costs and dislocation caused by creating and merging departments. So Cameron is likely to wait for at least a year until his first major reshuffle before making big changes to Whitehall. The sole exceptions are bringing the Olympics back from the Cabinet Office (where it was a personal fiefdom under Tessa Jowell) to the Department for Culture, Media & Sport and moving the constitutional directorate of the Ministry of Justice under Clegg’s control.
The new government has also begun a series of changes at the centre to alter its relations with departments. The paradox is that the number of ministers and officials in the Cabinet Office is rising, at the same time as Maude is trying to reduce central intervention in the day-to-day work of departments.
The Delivery Unit looks unlikely to survive in its present form. Instead, there is likely to be an implementation team of some kind at the centre to co-ordinate with implementation units in each department. This will be accompanied by a stronger role for the Cabinet Office in monitoring procurement, notably of information technology, and staff numbers. Maude is also expanding the number of business people sitting as non-executives on the boards of government departments, now to be chaired by secretaries of state.
The centre will continue to take a leading role in strategy through the interlinking activities of Oliver Letwin (in charge of the negotiations over the coalition agreement); Steve Hilton, Cameron’s strategic thinker; and James O’Shaughnessy, the head of policy. This has involved the Strategy Unit looking at longer-term questions such as the Big Society, the main theme of the Tories’ now superseded manifesto, and other cross-cutting matters.
The other main institutional innovation is the creation of the Office for Budget Responsibility to provide an independent assessment of the nation’s finances. Initially, this will operate on a non-statutory basis under Sir Alan Budd, the distinguished former Treasury chief economist and an early member of the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee. The OBR will make independent forecasts of the economy and public finances to be published ahead of the Budget on June 22. However, unlike the Monetary Policy Committee, the OBR’s role is advisory, to provide a public benchmark against which the decisions of the politicians can be judged.
Cameron has also listened to advice in trying to achieve as much continuity as possible in his appointments. In both 1979 and 1997, just over three-fifths of the new Cabinet had shadowed the same posts in opposition. Now, the main exceptions are Theresa May at the Home Office and Philip Hammond at Transport. Kenneth Clarke at Justice is familiar with the prisons side of his department from his time at the Home Office in 1992/93. Even the need to make room for the LibDems has not disrupted this too much since both Cable and Huhne had shadowed their current areas until late 2007.
The coalition has also benefited from the decision to delay the meeting of Parliament and the Queen’s Speech by a week, to May 18 and 25 respectively. The suggestion, made by the Commons Modernisation Committee and the Institute for Government, was essentially to allow new MPs longer to settle in at Westminster and new ministers longer to get to grips with their new departments, especially in preparing legislation for the Queen’s Speech. This delay has proved to be very useful since some of the ministers in the new coalition were not appointed until after what would normally have been the day for the Queen’s Speech.
The government’s legislative programme is very ambitious – dominated by the deficit reduction programme but also featuring far-reaching legislation on schools, welfare reform and a constitutional agenda (electoral reform for the Commons, fixed-term Parliaments, creating an elected second chamber, the recall of MPs found guilty of abuse and a Freedom Bill to scrap identity cards and strengthen civil liberties). That range and pace of activity should ensure the coalition’s survival for at least the long 18-month first session of Parliament.
The LibDems will want to stay in the coalition at least until the referendum on the Alternative Vote is held, in autumn 2011 at the earliest, and until the legislation on fixed-term Parliaments is approved. But that will also be the time when the public spending cuts are biting. LibDem activists and MPs might be discontented then. Looking forward to the next election, it is hard to see how the Tories and the LibDems can face the electorate in harness, without the latter losing their identity. Clegg already needs to be thinking about his exit strategy.
Peter Riddell is chief political commentator of The Times and a senior fellow of the Institute for Government
27 May 2010
It was never meant to be like this. Whitehall is tearing up the rulebook and getting used to the political and practical consequences of a coalition government. Peter Riddell reports from within the corridors of power
Whitehall is in a state of chaos, or, more officially, flux. This is not because of the transition to a new government under David Cameron, but more because of the unexpected formation of the Conservative/Liberal Democrat coalition. This has both slowed down the appointment of ministers and involved the creation of new machinery to manage relations between the partners.
Everything is so novel that all involved – politicians, advisers and civil servants – are still taking time to adjust to new ways of thinking and operating. The implications both for Whitehall and for Parliament are only slowly being appreciated. As Cameron remarked when the Commons first met, he was now sitting alongside people whom he had never sat beside before, meaning Nick Clegg.
A powerful office is being set up within the Cabinet Office to accommodate Deputy Prime Minister Clegg, with many new officials and special advisers being recruited. This is in addition to the changes required to accommodate Clegg’s responsibilities for political and constitutional reform.
A further complication is the proliferation of Cabinet Office ministers – notably Francis Maude handling implementation and Whitehall reorganisation and Oliver Letwin as policy adviser to the PM – plus two junior ministers.
So the Cabinet Office has had removal men all over the place, as new offices are created for all these ministers and their officials.
This physical dislocation is matched by personnel problems, as Conservative and LibDem ministers and advisers get to know each other. This is in marked contrast to the normal experience in a new government, when members of the incoming political team have got to know each other very well during the battles of opposition, often creating an inner cadre that it is hard for civil servants to penetrate. But now they are working alongside people they did not know previously and regarded as political foes. To date, the integration of policy and communications teams has apparently worked well amid the adrenalin rush and excitement of creating the coalition.
The lead has been taken in the public harmony shown by Cameron and Clegg. That is crucial to the success of any coalition, as the good relations between Donald Dewar and Jim Wallace showed in the creation of the Labour-Liberal Democrat coalition in Scotland in 1999. The same has been true for Labour and Plaid Cymru in Wales since 2007.
But for the new government, beneath the top two there are uncertainties and doubts in both parties. Many Tory MPs and ministers would have preferred a Conservative minority administration and another general election in the autumn, when they would have hoped to win an overall majority. They are concerned about a dilution of Conservative manifesto pledges and about the allocation of five Cabinet posts and 15 other government roles to the LibDems.
So well over 20 Tory MPs and peers are feeling rather aggrieved at not getting the ministerial posts they had sought during the long years of opposition.
For all the talk of close partnership, there is inevitably a sense of two distinct parties. For instance, in the Commons, there is one chief whip in Patrick McLoughlin, but Alistair Carmichael of the LibDems is one of his joint deputies. The Tory and LibDem whips meet separately for 15 minutes each day, then together for a further 15 minutes – being joined at the shoulder, rather than the hip, as one described it.
David Laws, the LibDem chief secretary to the Treasury, has quickly become the favourite of Tory deficit hawks because of his enthusiasm for cutting spending over the initial £6.2bn ‘waste’ package announced on May 24. Business Secretary Vince Cable has also proved to be tough on business support, possibly tougher than Kenneth Clarke would have been. But loyalties will be strained by the Spending Review – which is why a formal machinery has been set up to resolve disputes. A coalition committee, chaired jointly by Cameron and Clegg, will decide the strategy and a smaller working group under Oliver Letwin and Danny Alexander will handle day-to-day issues of presentation and disputes.
The 36-page coalition agreement, more formally the Coalition’s programme for government, supersedes the party manifestos as the guide to the civil service on policy, according to a note circulated around Whitehall by Cabinet secretary Sir Gus O’Donnell. It is the reference point for all decisions, to the surprise, and occasional annoyance, of many ministers and MPs in both parties.
It is easy to identify the points of future tension where the parties have had diametrically opposed views, such as the development of more nuclear power stations; raising tuition fees; capital gains tax; restoring marriage into the personal tax system; the future of the Human Rights Act; and the replacement of the Trident nuclear deterrent. Repeal of the legislation banning hunting with dogs could also produce tensions, although it will be a free vote. All will strain the doctrine of collective responsibility, whereby ministers are supposed to stick to a common line, both in words and votes, on any decisions of the government.
Tory MPs are muttering that too many concessions have been made to the LibDems. LibDem MPs, including ministers, have been given a let-out option on several of these issues: for instance, they will be able to abstain on any legislation implementing an increase in student tuition fees if this is proposed later this summer by Lord Browne’s committee of inquiry. They will, similarly, be allowed ‘to maintain their opposition to nuclear power while permitting the government to bring forward the national planning statement for ratification by Parliament so that new nuclear construction becomes possible’.
In both cases, there is the further twist that the secretaries of state are LibDems. So if tuition fees are raised, the legislation will presumably not be sponsored by Business Secretary Vince Cable, who will abstain on it, but by his Conservative deputy David Willetts, who is responsible for universities and skills.
Similarly, Energy and Climate Change Secretary Chris Huhne, who opposes nuclear power, has had to adopt a convoluted position on when new stations would be approved. In practical terms, abstention by the LibDems will have no effect on the outcome since the Tories on their own can easily outvote Labour and the smaller opposition parties.
The creation of the coalition has overshadowed what has been a smooth transition process. Cameron has listened to advice that he should not change the machinery of government much at the start, in line with recommendations made by senior civil servants and by the Institute for Government.
This has been underpinned by a devastating report published in March by the National Audit Office, which shows the high costs and dislocation caused by creating and merging departments. So Cameron is likely to wait for at least a year until his first major reshuffle before making big changes to Whitehall. The sole exceptions are bringing the Olympics back from the Cabinet Office (where it was a personal fiefdom under Tessa Jowell) to the Department for Culture, Media & Sport and moving the constitutional directorate of the Ministry of Justice under Clegg’s control.
The new government has also begun a series of changes at the centre to alter its relations with departments. The paradox is that the number of ministers and officials in the Cabinet Office is rising, at the same time as Maude is trying to reduce central intervention in the day-to-day work of departments.
The Delivery Unit looks unlikely to survive in its present form. Instead, there is likely to be an implementation team of some kind at the centre to co-ordinate with implementation units in each department. This will be accompanied by a stronger role for the Cabinet Office in monitoring procurement, notably of information technology, and staff numbers. Maude is also expanding the number of business people sitting as non-executives on the boards of government departments, now to be chaired by secretaries of state.
The centre will continue to take a leading role in strategy through the interlinking activities of Oliver Letwin (in charge of the negotiations over the coalition agreement); Steve Hilton, Cameron’s strategic thinker; and James O’Shaughnessy, the head of policy. This has involved the Strategy Unit looking at longer-term questions such as the Big Society, the main theme of the Tories’ now superseded manifesto, and other cross-cutting matters.
The other main institutional innovation is the creation of the Office for Budget Responsibility to provide an independent assessment of the nation’s finances. Initially, this will operate on a non-statutory basis under Sir Alan Budd, the distinguished former Treasury chief economist and an early member of the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee. The OBR will make independent forecasts of the economy and public finances to be published ahead of the Budget on June 22. However, unlike the Monetary Policy Committee, the OBR’s role is advisory, to provide a public benchmark against which the decisions of the politicians can be judged.
Cameron has also listened to advice in trying to achieve as much continuity as possible in his appointments. In both 1979 and 1997, just over three-fifths of the new Cabinet had shadowed the same posts in opposition. Now, the main exceptions are Theresa May at the Home Office and Philip Hammond at Transport. Kenneth Clarke at Justice is familiar with the prisons side of his department from his time at the Home Office in 1992/93. Even the need to make room for the LibDems has not disrupted this too much since both Cable and Huhne had shadowed their current areas until late 2007.
The coalition has also benefited from the decision to delay the meeting of Parliament and the Queen’s Speech by a week, to May 18 and 25 respectively. The suggestion, made by the Commons Modernisation Committee and the Institute for Government, was essentially to allow new MPs longer to settle in at Westminster and new ministers longer to get to grips with their new departments, especially in preparing legislation for the Queen’s Speech. This delay has proved to be very useful since some of the ministers in the new coalition were not appointed until after what would normally have been the day for the Queen’s Speech.
The government’s legislative programme is very ambitious – dominated by the deficit reduction programme but also featuring far-reaching legislation on schools, welfare reform and a constitutional agenda (electoral reform for the Commons, fixed-term Parliaments, creating an elected second chamber, the recall of MPs found guilty of abuse and a Freedom Bill to scrap identity cards and strengthen civil liberties). That range and pace of activity should ensure the coalition’s survival for at least the long 18-month first session of Parliament.
The LibDems will want to stay in the coalition at least until the referendum on the Alternative Vote is held, in autumn 2011 at the earliest, and until the legislation on fixed-term Parliaments is approved. But that will also be the time when the public spending cuts are biting. LibDem activists and MPs might be discontented then. Looking forward to the next election, it is hard to see how the Tories and the LibDems can face the electorate in harness, without the latter losing their identity. Clegg already needs to be thinking about his exit strategy.
Peter Riddell is chief political commentator of The Times and a senior fellow of the Institute for Government
