Constitutional Reform and Governance Bill

I want to address the narrow point about the precise definition of a civil servant in clause 1(1). As hon. Members have pointed out, that subsection states:""this Chapter applies to the civil service of the State."" Clause 1(4) says:""In this Chapter references to the civil service…are to the civil service of the State"." It then excludes the parts mentioned in subsections (2) and (3) that we have discussed already. If we then seek further guidance by going, as one normally would, to the definitions in the Bill, we find, in clause 18, the following definitions:""In this Chapter…"civil servant" is read as stated in section 1(4)"," and""civil service" is read as stated in section 1(4)"." We are therefore returned to the start, rather in the manner of one of those telephone calls when someone tries to get through to pay their electricity bill, but is returned to the number that they first dialled, without any satisfaction of their complaint. It is not just that the Bill apparently contains no extensive definition, but that such definitions as it does contain are completely circular. That concerns me; indeed, I raised the matter on Second Reading in an intervention on my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Justice. In answer to my question about whether the Bill's provisions cover the civil service as it is now, as opposed to its undifferentiated form after Northcote-Trevelyan, he said:""I hope they do, but as my hon. Friend raises this point let me add that I am happy to ensure that they do. There is an issue to do with the growth of next steps agencies and non-departmental public bodies, which have arisen since the reforms introduced by the previous Administration in the early 1990s. It is certainly of concern to me that NDPBs can appoint their own staff and that they are not public servants; that creates difficulties and can lead to unacceptable and unjustifiable levels of pay and wage drift, as well as other anomalies and conditions."—[Official Report, 20 October 2009; Vol. 497, c. 803.]" My right hon. Friend has clearly thought about the matter in depth and considers there to be some anomalies and problems, as well as some issues relating to the question of when a civil servant is not a civil servant. If we are to place the civil service on a statutory footing, as I hope we will, in respect of requirements for its practice and all that that entails, which I warmly welcome, the most elementary starting point would be to know who we are putting on a statutory footing. I appreciate that that is a difficult problem. I also appreciate, on the basis of the precise points that the Secretary of State made in reply to my intervention on Second Reading, that the issue has arisen to some extent as a result of the differentiation over time, and substantially so relatively recently, of what one might describe in common-sense terms as the civil service. Hon. Members have already given examples of boards and bodies that one might consider to be part of the civil service in common-sense terms, but which turn out not to be. There are also examples of bodies that one would think were not part of the civil service, but which turn out to be just that. It is therefore important to find, one way or another, a mechanism for the Bill to perform that service of defining who is and who is not a civil servant for the purposes of the rest of the legislation. Incidentally, a little while ago I tabled a written question that sought to define that point in terms of NDPBs, agencies and various other things. I regret to say that my question has not yet been answered, but perhaps any answer that might be provided in the fullness of time could provide some illumination of what we are discussing in connection with the Bill. Amendment 10 might not quite fit the bill in that respect. However, at the very least, I would like my hon. Friend the Minister to provide in her reply to this debate an assurance that the definitions in the Bill will be urgently considered, and that some thought will be given to introducing some mechanisms, whether in the Bill or associated with it, to clarify what we are talking about in the rest of the Bill as it proceeds through the House. I am not sure that new clause 33 fits the bill. Although it says that the Minister for the civil service""must publish and lay before Parliament an annual report on the functioning of the civil service of the state"," it does not really take us any further on the fundamental question of what the civil service of the state is. Although "the civil service of the state" might indirectly be defined in the laying of a report on its functioning before Parliament, that is not necessarily the case. I hope that my right hon. and hon. Friends on the Front Bench will consider how a mechanism might be found to supply that definition more satisfactorily, accepting, as I think everybody in the House does, that this is by no means an easy task and that any definition would by no means be constant, but that such a definition is nevertheless important for the integrity of the Bill as it leaves this House.