Now I don’t know that nice Mr Vaz, chair of the Home Affairs Select Committee, but from talking to a couple of people who’ve met him they say he’s not known for his sense of humour. So maybe we should give him the benefit of the doubt when his opening question to the recently-appointed second permanent secretary at the Home Office, Olly Robbins (pictured), was: “You’re the second permanent secretary, what’s wrong with the first one?”
Perhaps it was just a clumsy joke rather than an attempt to undermine the civil servant before him. It was accompanied by a condescending sneer, but then so was most of the next 30 minutes of questioning, so it’s hard to judge.
There is, of course, form here from select committees. I’ve written before about John Manzoni’s first evidence session with the Public Accounts Committee where the opening question, coordinated with the chair for prime effect, was: “What’s the point of you?” In that case there was no question that this was anything other than an attempt to unsettle Manzoni before the grilling started.
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All good knockabout stuff you may think: that’s politics and politicians for you. Watch any Prime Minister’s Questions and you see what passes for civilised debate in the house. Earlier this year, it even descended into a “your mama” set of exchanges between the PM and opposition benches.
But is that really the point? If you watch the Olly Robbins session, the chair’s performance is grandstanding in its purest form. Within two minutes he’d threatened him with being held in contempt, being put under oath and complained about to the cabinet secretary. Yes, there was a question to answer, but is interrupting the witness 11 times in under five minutes really the way to get to the truth? I use this phrase deliberately, because it seemed closer to a Hollywood courtroom drama cross-examination than a parliamentary select committee session. It’s said that politics is showbusiness for ugly people and, at times, the performances on show would certainly support that notion.
A couple of years back, I met with a select committee chair who shall remain nameless. I relayed direct quotes to her from some of the committee members who had, among other things, quite ironically questioned the intelligence of some civil servants. “Well, at the end of the day it’s theatre,” was her response. The showbusiness quote came to mind, but while I may hail from the east end of Glasgow, I wasn’t brave or stupid enough to use it in her presence.
Select committees in the main do valuable work, they are integral to the workings of our democracy. More than occasionally, they are the only form of accountability to which the government of the day is held, particularly when Her Majesty’s Opposition is not doing its job effectively. But if the purpose of these sessions is to get to the truth, to examine the detail, do they really think that this sort of grandstanding is the way to do it?
I know of talented civil servants who have refused to consider promotion because it comes with the threat of ritual humiliation in front of particularly notorious select committee chairs. This can’t be good for our public services, and it’s not good for democracy if these sessions descend into theatrical cross-examination and defensive responses.
It’s certainly not like this everywhere. I recently spoke to a senior civil servant who had been before select committees in both the UK and Scottish parliaments. Now there is, in the main, a different role for committees in the Scottish parliament. They perform a scrutiny role for legislation as well as conduct enquiries, but whether it’s because of that or not, generally – not without exception, but generally – his view was that there’s a much more collaborative approach in Scotland. Officers of the parliament regularly brief civil servants before a session and there’s less of a Petrocelli feel about proceedings. The result must surely be better scrutiny and better public services.
In those first five minutes of exchanges at the Home Affairs Select Committee, the chair spoke for 80% of the time. I know; I counted. That feels to me like the question is considered more important than the answer. Any senior civil servant I speak to respects and values the role that select committees play in our democracy. What they crave though is robust, fair and effective scrutiny. If they’ve got it wrong they’re accountable, they know that. But to face career-threatening cross examination which is all about the questioner and not about the answers is not only unfair on the civil servant, it fails to serve our democracy as well.