Liam Byrne MP
Liam Byrne MP, the opposition Labour party front bench Treasury spokesman came to talk to the crossbenchers on Wednesday about the forthcoming ‘Bonfire of the Quangos Bill’, otherwise known formally as ‘The Public Bodies Bill’ which starts in the Lords with second reading next Tuesday. As is so often the case the Bill does not name any Quangos (that is arms-length Non-Departmental Government Bodies) for the axe (although at the back there is a huge list of bodies subject to the law) but gives surprisingly wide powers to ministers to merge, abolish, modify constitutional arrangements and more or less do as they want with these bodies established to perform delegated functions of Government.
Now why do they want to do this? First because it makes it much simpler to rationalise a huge number of bodies into a lesser number and abolish those regarded as out of date or duplicating the work of others. To give a recent example: a couple of years ago the Government wanted to abolish the Mental Health Act Commission, the Healthcare Commission and the Commission for Social Care Inspection to merge them into the new Care Quality Commission. It took major primary legislation, much argument and a long time (years rather than months) to do it. The new legislation would enable Ministers to dismantle and rearrange at will in a far easier fashion. Is this a good thing? I’m ambivalent; it’s a pretty draconian bill in giving powers to the Executive, on the other hand it allows necessary modernising changes to happen quickly.
There are about 600 or so quangos that have been reviewed by the Minister Francis Maude MP and just fewer than 200 will go completely or be merged into others. Many relating to Public Health will be subsumed into the Department of Health, which makes good sense and is actually what the DH is there for isn’t it? They have established criteria. To survive a quango has to pass three tests. Does it perform a technical function? Do its activities require political impartiality? Does it need to act independently to establish facts?
Seems to make a lot of sense. But if these criteria are followed, why on earth are they targeting such bodies as the Human Fertilisation and Embroyology Authority and Human Tissue Authority, bodies that deal in sensitive moral issues that surely ought to function independent of direct Government influence? I shall need to be a lot more convinced of the wisdom of abandoning these organizations. There may be other reasons underlying the plans (questions of efficacy, bias etc which are going to be difficult to unearth). Reasons given by Governments for doing things are often designed to prevent embarrassment or dissatisfaction with individuals. It’s always wise to have private conversations with ministers to understand what’s behind an apparently peculiar plan.
Liam Byrne was very measured in his presentation—in fact for a moment I forgot he wasn’t the Minister-because of course the Labour party were about to do a similar cull before the election culled them.
Seems to make a lot of sense. But if these criteria are followed, why on earth are they targeting such bodies as the Human Fertilisation and Embroyology Authority and Human Tissue Authority, bodies that deal in sensitive moral issues that surely ought to function independent of direct Government influence?
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For the simple reason its crap at its job.
1. People are suffering large delays because the HFEA removed anonymity. That’s why people are going ‘private’. Namely shady organisations on the web.
2. The HFEA screws the patients over for cash. ie. It’s an organisation that profits from charging patients. It has a monopoly. A good example of rent seeking.
3. It’s redundant. It imposes tighter restrictions than exist if you don’t go to them. For example, are you going to regulate people’s procreation the traditional way? Clearly not. People would just laugh. However you want to regulate people who need assistance.
Time for it to go.
On donation I would do the following.
1. Remove all restrictions on payments.
2. Restore anonymity. Then have a system of dual opt in. Both receipiant and donor can opt in to allow anonymity to be removed. The dept of health then arrange contact if both agree. If just one agrees, nothing happens.
3. The exception is that health information does go anonymously from donor to receipiant.
As for ‘private conversations’. We pay you. Everything should be public. If we pay someone and they are crap at their job, we should be told.
Morals are for individuals, as my morals are not your morals. You just want to dictate your morals on others. Be prepared when others do the same to you. No doubt you won’t complain, and you will comply. [The last part I suspect isn’t true in your case]
Though Lord Norton is valiantly trying to persuade me otherwise I see relatively small differences between this and the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Act. Assuming a somewhat similar safeguards I can’t see an argument for one but not the other – the only rational position seems to allow both or repeal the LRRA.
On a side note I’d be delighted if departmental ministers had to sign off pay rises to the heads or boards of quangos personally. It might finally inject some sanity into the wholly artificial market on pay and conditions.
“Human Fertilisation and Embroyology Authority and Human Tissue Authority, bodies that deal in sensitive moral issues that surely ought to function independent of direct Government influence?”
Where did we sign up for moral issues to be decided by quangos?! Morality is a political issue however much politicians might like to avoid it and not a quasi-judicial one requiring independence.
why on earth are they targeting such bodies as the Human Fertilisation and Embroyology Authority and Human Tissue Authority,
Because they agree to anything and everything.
but gives surprisingly wide powers to ministers to merge, abolish, modify constitutional arrangements and more or less do as they want with these bodies established to perform delegated functions of Government.
Provided it is done on a time limited basis ie to deal with the ones that are obviously redundant (and Mr Maude’s opinion is a good one)then there is no harm in the Bill.
If it were to be a permanent feature of Law in the UK then it would be very wrong indeed!
Deciding whether Mr Maude’s opinion IS good
may exercise the minds of learnéd members of both houses and neither.