Britain’s problem isn’t too few ministers, it’s too much government
A little scrutinised bill will allow the government to put even more ministers on the payroll, laments Eliot Wilson
Yesterday, behind the impenetrable shield of public indifference, the House of Commons will take all stages of the Ministerial Salaries (Amendment) Bill. It was introduced without fanfare on Thursday 5 March and received the ritual First Reading, but tomorrow will see the Second Reading, Committee of the whole House and Third Reading, after which it will be passed on to the House of Lords.
What does this piece of legislation aim to achieve? As its title suggests, it amends the Ministerial and other Salaries Act 1975; the main purpose of this is to place a limit on the number of paid ministers who can be appointed to the government. The 1975 act provides for a total of 109 salaried government posts, covering ministers in both the House of Commons and the House of Lords. Some 83 of these are divided among the three ministerial ranks: Secretaries of State (that is, Cabinet ministers) which in this context includes the Prime Minister and the Chancellor of the Exchequer; middle-ranking Ministers of State; and the most junior grade, Parliamentary Under-Secretaries of State and Parliamentary Secretaries.
The act also includes 26 other posts: the Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain (which has been held concurrently with the office of Justice Secretary since 2007); the three law officers, the Attorney General for England and Wales, his deputy the Solicitor General and the Advocate General for Scotland; and 22 government whips of varying levels of seniority.
These last 26 are unaffected by this week’s bill. But the current administration feels that the limit of 83 paid departmental ministers is insufficient, and the Ministerial Salaries (Amendment) Bill proposes to increase it to 94, allowing 11 new salaried ministers to be appointed.
Let us look at the broad proposition. Considering government responsibilities as a whole, do you think 109 ministers is enough, or too few? (Regrettably, “too many” is not an option on this week’s ballot.) I would be surprised if many readers were in the second category.
Currently, there are 21 cabinet ministers in addition to the Prime Minister, and six other ministers who “also attend” cabinet (a largely meaningless distinction in practice). There is already an element of prestidigitation going in appointments: four ministers are double-hatted and draw salaries as whips while also having substantive ministerial roles; and there are 13 ministers and whips who do not receive any salary at all (10 of whom are in the House of Lords). So Sir Keir Starmer has stretched out his administration to 122 ministers rather than the 109 anticipated by the 1975 act. Tomorrow’s bill, assuming it passes, will all but make up that shortfall.
This dash for growth is strikingly out of kilter with the government’s expressed intentions to reduce the size of the civil service, “rewire” the British state and, as Sir Keir Starmer said in his first speech on becoming Prime Minister, “tread more lightly on your lives”.
This dash for growth is strikingly out of kilter with the government’s expressed intentions to reduce the size of the civil service, “rewire” the British state and, as Sir Keir Starmer said in his first speech on becoming Prime Minister, “tread more lightly on your lives”. It is also tin-eared, given the public regards politicians as untrustworthy and self-serving.
When he last appeared in front of the House of Commons Liaison Committee in December, the Prime Minister spoke of his “frustration that every time I go to pull a lever, there are a whole bunch of regulations, consultations and arm’s length bodies that mean the action from pulling the lever to delivery is longer than I think it ought to be”. There is some force to this complaint – though less than Starmer makes out – but it is very far from certain that any of it would be mitigated by more junior ministers.
Bloated
My own feeling is that ministerial teams are already too large. The Cabinet Office, supposed to be the junction box of Whitehall, is madly bloated with eight ministers beneath the Prime Minister; in 2007 it had four; in 1997, three. The Home Office has a team of seven; in 1997, when it also had responsibility for courts and prisons, it functioned with six ministers. Does the ministry of housing, communities and local government need a minister whose whole portfolio consists of “Building Safety, Fire and Democracy”?
There is an acute sense of C. Northcote Parkinson’s first law in operation: “Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion”. No ambitious minister – and therefore no minister – will admit to being underemployed, so a team of five busy ministers becomes a team of six then of seven busy ministers.
The essential problem is not too few ministers but too much government. A state regulator oversees football colours, the home office seeks to criminalise something already illegal, smoking will be gradually eradicated by statute and we are chastised for choosing sugary drinks by a levy. Labour’s error is in its intent and reach, not its capacity.
When Kemi Badenoch was campaigning for the Conservative leadership, she affirmed the belief that government “should do fewer things, but what it does, it should do with brilliance”. It is a good principle. Instead, this week the government will pursue its diagnosis that Labour’s broth is currently spoiling because of a paucity of cooks. Don’t expect yesterday’s bill to provide a silver bullet.
Eliot Wilson is an author and historian