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CORRECTED TRANSCRIPT OF ORAL EVIDENCE To be published as HC 707-vi HOUSE OF COMMONS ORAL EVIDENCE TAKEN BEFORE THE POLITICAL AND CONSTITUTIONAL REFORM COMMITTEE THE IMPACT AND EFFECTIVENESS OF MINISTERIAL RESHUFFLES THURSDAY 31 JANUARY 2013 CHRIS MONCRIEFF and STEVE RICHARDS Evidence heard in Public Questions 317 - 360 USE OF THE TRANSCRIPT 1. This is a corrected transcript of evidence taken in public and reported to the House. The transcript has been placed on the internet on the authority of the Committee, and copies have been made available by the Vote Office for the use of Members and others. 2. The transcript is an approved formal record of these proceedings. It will be printed in due course. 1 Oral Evidence Taken before the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee on Thursday 31 January 2013 Members present: Mr Graham Allen (Chair) Mr Christopher Chope Sheila Gilmore Fabian Hamilton Mrs Eleanor Laing Mr Andrew Turner Stephen Williams ________________ Examination of Witnesses Witnesses: Chris Moncrieff, Press Association, and Steve Richards, The Independent, gave evidence. Q317 Chair: Chris, good morning; and Steve, welcome. As you know, we are conducting an inquiry into reshuffles, and we have been taking evidence from many people. We hope to conclude this in the not-too-distant future. We have one further witness to come, Gus O’Donnell, and then we will start writing up a report. Some very interesting comment has been made about the whole process, and, of course, halfway through our inquiry, the Prime Minister—just to help us along—had a reshuffle, so that we could have a look at one first hand. Chris, are you receiving us loud and clear at the moment? Is your hearing aid difficulty resolved? Are we loud enough for you? Chris Moncrieff: If you could up the decibels a bit, I would grateful. Chair: If colleagues will just bear that in mind. Chris Moncrieff: Thank you. Q318 Chair: Chris or Steve, would you like to say something to start us off, or shall we jump straight into questions? Chris Moncrieff: I am quite happy for you to go straight in. Steve Richards: Yes, similarly. Q319 Fabian Hamilton: Good morning, gentlemen. Peter Riddell told us that he thought there was a danger of exaggerating the influence of the media on reshuffles. How much impact do you think that media speculation has, both on the timing of a reshuffle and on decisions about who should be moved and when? Chris Moncrieff: I think that is exaggerated. I do not think the media have all that much influence over reshuffles. It has led to the resignation of one or two Ministers who had said they were not going to let the press get rid of them, but they eventually have gone. There is too much talk of the power of the press. I do not think that exists in this area. I believe that Prime Ministers take their own decisions and are not influenced by the press. Indeed, there have been junior Ministers who have come to me, fearing they were going to get the sack, and asked me to run stories saying, “This man must go”, because, generally speaking, a Prime 2 Minister would not do what the press invited him to do. I never followed up those invitations, but that did happen. I just do not think the press have much influence at all on reshuffles. They certainly did not in the Thatcher era, and I do not think they have since. The talk about the power of the press and the influence of the press in politics is overstated. Steve Richards: I agree with everything except for the last sentence. I think the power of the press and the media generally is immense on British politics, but not in this area. This is an area where other factors determine whether a Cabinet reshuffle takes place. The media enjoy speculating about reshuffles; they do it without any informed material because this is a Prime Minister’s decision with his close colleagues. I think the media impact is nil, in terms of timing and content. Chris Moncrieff: Nil, really? Steve Richards: In terms of reshuffles, yes. In many other areas, immense, but not in terms of reshuffles. Q320 Fabian Hamilton: Even to the extent that there is often media speculation about who is going to go where. Does even that have no influence whatsoever? Steve Richards: None whatsoever. That kind of speculation fills columns and pages every now and again, but it has none whatsoever. Clearly, a criterion for promoting or getting rid of Ministers might be the way they perform in the media, or the way they are perceived in the media, but that is a completely different issue from whether the media in any way shape the timing or substance of a reshuffle. Chris Moncrieff: Yes, I agree with that. I think you had the Cabinet Secretary, Jeremy Heywood, here the other day, and he said that he did not like all this press speculation because they always got it wrong. I do not know where he got that idea, quite frankly, because I can remember several instances, including with Margaret Thatcher’s very first Cabinet in 1979, when some of us got the entire Cabinet right hours before it was announced. This was no leak on the part of Thatcher herself; she was bitterly opposed to that throughout her premiership. There were no leaks from her or authorised by her. It was just if you knew where to look, where the gossip was and who to ring up, and we had the whole thing set up. Indeed, you could also find out—and Ministers themselves often knew in advance, through guesswork, that they were going to get the sack. Sir Ian Gilmour was one of the first Thatcher Ministers to be dismissed. He was about as far from Thatcher politically as a fellow Tory could be. He told me that he thought he would last about another month as Lord Privy Seal. He gave me a bit of paper and said, “Put this in your pocket and put it out at the appropriate time,” and he was right. He got the sack just a month later, and that piece of paper said, “It does no harm to throw the occasional man overboard, but it does not do much good to us steering full speed ahead for the rocks”. He was not a master of subtlety, but he got it right. Q321 Fabian Hamilton: That is a very good one. I seem to recall, just before the 2001 general election, intense media speculation that David Blunkett would be the next Home Secretary, and that was exactly what happened. Do you think that that was because somebody wanted the media to know, because it was going to happen anyway, or was it pure guesswork on the part of the press? Steve Richards: No. Probably somebody wanted it out there that this was going to happen, and I seem to remember that speculation. It was probably quite well informed but, again, that is politics. That is not about influencing a reshuffle; that is reporting what a Prime Minister plans to do. There are many interesting areas about the impact of reshuffles on policy and politics, but this one is a complete red herring. The media can report speculation about what is happening, but that does not influence the outcome—it is a reflection of what 3 someone is already planning to do. It is one of the few areas where a Prime Minister, however tight a corner he or she is in, tends to exert quite a lot of power. In the old days, in the 1970s, people like Wilson had to weigh up the balance between left and right in his party. Cameron now has the dynamics of the coalition, but a Prime Minister with a strong overall majority can obsess about the media in most areas, as Tony Blair did, but not in this. Q322 Fabian Hamilton: That is very interesting. When he gave evidence to us, Lord Reid suggested that, in an ideal world, the media and everybody else would regard reshuffles as part of the natural evolution of the Government, in much the same way as it would in the private sector with personnel changing. It seems to me that the media do not regard reshuffles in this way. What do you think? Chris Moncrieff: The situation changes with whoever is Prime Minister. The present Prime Minister, admittedly inhibited by leading a coalition Government, has had only one really major shuffle since he came to power. After the Andrew Mitchell affair, he managed to fill the gap by reintroducing Sir George Young into the Government, thus avoiding any kind of domino effect. Tony Blair was a great one for reshuffles. I think one of his favourite Ministers was John Reid, who he used to put in various Departments—forgive me if I may be a trifle inelegant—to give them a kick up the hindquarters. John Reid did not enjoy the reputation for nothing of having a safe pair of fists. They vary a lot, Prime Ministers. Cameron said at the start, and he seems to have stuck with it, that he was not going to move Ministers around much if he could avoid it. Steve Richards: The reporting of reshuffles on the day they happen is often over- excited and exaggerates their significance, but that is not unique to reshuffles. It is a very accessible drama—the sacking of quite well-known, prominent people who rise above us.
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