“You don’t need to come to this meeting – it’s not political” was the response to my request to attend the meeting of civil servants pulling together the government’s legislative programme, despite being Special Adviser to the Leader of the Commons at the time.
I’m glad I got to go to that meeting, and all those held subsequently, as it turned out to be those meetings that decided which options for bills were put to ministers. In other words, Labour’s legislative programme – that seemed fairly political to me. At that particular meeting, to give just one example from my time as a ‘SpAd’, the absence of a political voice round the table would have meant that the option to legislate on same sex civil partnerships that year would not have made the final cut of a submission to ministers because there was ‘no room’ in the programme. The obsession at that meeting, from memory, was the urgent need for bills on deregulation. How times change.
Ministers decide. Advisers advise. And that is absolutely as it should be. But if no one political has been involved in the process of drawing up (and rejecting) the options put to ministers, then those choices will be both reduced and have less consideration for what voters have actually elected their government to do. That is the point of Special Advisers and why the Tories had them when they were in office.
Without Special Advisers, there would be no political voice in the policy making process before ministers were given a lengthy written submission, often leading them carefully to one recommended option. In my experience, that option – without political involvement before that point – was quite often (although not always, to be fair) that the goal the minister wanted to reach wasn’t deliverable and that the status quo was the best way forward.
As a Special Adviser in Northern Ireland, the list of policies in just two years that civil servants felt were unworkable were countless: free prescription charges, direct funding to schools, a low income concession scheme for local taxation and water charges based on income and property value, the contracting back in of caterers and cleaners in schools and hospitals, more bank holidays than the rest of the UK, direct payments to parents to buy specialised wheelchairs for their children, a marine turbine to generate renewable energy. In every case, without Special Advisers, none of those policies would have even made it to ministers for a decision.
As well as ensuring ministers’ policy objectives do not get bogged down in bureaucracy, political appointments are also a crucial way of protecting the impartiality of the civil service. It means civil servants don’t get drawn into researching opposition policies and positions before parliamentary debates and questions, or explaining to journalists the political thinking behind a policy or decision. And that’s as it should be.
If we want ministers to be presented only with policy and legislative options chosen by non-political, neutral civil servants then let’s scrap Special Advisers. If we want neutral civil servants to get drawn into preparing material on the opposition to enable proper debate in parliament, let’s scrap Special Advisers. If we want legitimate journalistic enquiry about political matters to go unanswered, let’s scrap special advisers.
Alternatively, now that we have apologised that one person made one error (for which he has paid with his job) let’s regain our confidence and get on with the job of representing the millions of voters who elected Labour into office. They expect to see us focussed relentlessly on delivering the Labour agenda on which we were elected.
Because the real lesson to learn from the past few days is not about special advisers but this: when we focus on the issues, and the long term challenges facing the country, we find ourselves – on every issue – on the right side of the argument, with the public behind us, and the Tories with no real alternative. When we get into personality and process, we only harm our cause. The Tories know they can’t win on the substance – which is why we must be even more careful not to play into their hands by allowing them to get the focus onto spin.
If the Tories were to get into office they would forget their amateur dramatics of this week and dry those crocodile tears as they appoint numerous new Conservative Special Advisers across Whitehall to support them in pushing through their agenda of public spending cuts, reduced employment rights and anti-Europeanism. We owe it to all those who would suffer under a Cameron government to get ourselves up off the floor, set out our positive vision for the country and secure that fourth Labour term which is absolutely still within our grasp.