Parliamentary Connections

Labour’s plans to split the Home Office in two by creating a fully fledged Ministry of Justice out of the existing Department of Constitutional Affairs has all the hall marks of a classic “act in haste, repent at leisure” political manoeuvre.
This latest Whitehall shake-up seems to have started life as a reaction to the perceived failings of the Home Office in a whole range of areas from prison management to counter-terrorism. Few people seem to doubt that the Home Office’s present portfolio is rather too bloated. What made sense in the 19th century, no longer looks workable in the 21st century and it probably ahs become impossible for one government department to sensibly mage everything that currently falls under the Home Office’s remit.
Accepting the basic premise that reform is needed is one thing but agreeing the way forward is quite another. These are complex, sensitive political and constitutional areas that are woven into the very fabric of what we understand as British society. Issues such as the independence of the judiciary are not to be tampered with lightly. Yet, reform is being rushed through with indecent haste.
Within weeks we will have a Ministry of Justice, replacing the Department of Constitutional Affairs as the government rushes ahead. It feels pleased with itself that it has found a way of implementing these reforms without the need for legislation. It should wipe that smug grin off its face. Sweeping changes to such well established institutions need the harsh glare of Parliamentary scrutiny turned on them.
Some way down the agenda from the huge constitutional concerns about the independence of the judiciary must come a raft of worries in the insurance industry and legal profession about the implications of the change for many of the constant dialogues they have with the Home Office’s legal departments. It is easy to dismiss these as detailed concerns of a narrow group of people but, frequently, they affect millions of policyholders. You only have to look back at some of the issues that have come up in recent years such as debates about the costs of after the event insurance or the implications of rulings on asbestosis liabilities to understand the potential human impact of getting major departmental changes wrong.
Almost everyone acknowledges that the Home Offices needs major reform and that its role needs to be more focussed so there is already a following wind. Why not take a few months longer just to make sure that nothing has been overlooked and that the proper constitutional safeguards are in place to everyone’s satisfaction?

Re-organising government departments is obviously flavour of the month.
No sooner have we had the rushed – and hopefully not botched – splitting of the Home Office than the Treasury is back in the sights of would be reformers. I say back in the sights because it never seems to be out of them for very long.
As the Labour leadership election gets underway in earnest the Whitehall rumour mill is speculating hard that Gordon Brown will want to slim down the Treasury so that he can have more power centred on Downing Street. After all, he knows better than almost anyone just how powerful the Treasury can be, having ensured that it asserted the major influence over domestic policy over the last ten years. The suggestion is that a new Department of Economic Affairs could be created, picking up a range of responsibilities from the Treasury and from the dismembered Department of Trade and Industry. This would leave the Treasury looking more like a constitutional style Ministry of Finance, still influential but not all powerful.
Recent newspaper reports have suggested that Lord Birt put a similar proposal to Tony Blair before the last election as a way of curbing Gordon Brown’s growing hold over domestic policy from his powerbase at the Treasury. Rather ironic really.
The big problem is that it has all been tried before and failed dismally.
When Labour snatched the 1964 General Election after 13 years out of office the new Prime Minister, Harold Wilson, was so concerned that the Treasury would block many of his sweeping economic reforms – laced with a generous helping of then fashionable socialist economic planning – that he immediately set up a new ministry and put George Brown in charge of it while Jim Callaghan went to the Treasury. The new ministry’s name – the Department of Economic Affairs. Brown was actually the more powerful figure at this time as he was deputy Prime Minister.
It was a disaster and the running battle between the DEA and the Treasury was one of the reasons why the early years of Wilson’s government were blighted by paralysis over economic policy. The DEA only really lasted two year’s as a serious entity, although it wasn’t finally would up until 1969.
It is a pity that some of the people who write policy papers for the current government don’t have a better grasp of political history: if they did, then the notion of recreating one of Labour’s biggest disasters would never see the light of day.