The Complete Yes Minister (49 page)

I was speechless.

She asked me, with heavy sarcasm, if I proposed to have it looked into. Now I was on the ropes. I started to explain that my responsibility is for policy rather than for detailed administration (which isn’t true) and was saved by the bell in the form of Alan Hughes, a more friendly committee member [
i.e. a committee member hoping for office in the government, or some other special favour – Ed
.].

Alan intervened and said: ‘Mr Chairman, I think that the Permanent Secretary to the DAA is due to appear before us next week. Would he not be the appropriate person to answer these questions?’

The Chairman agreed, asked that Sir Humphrey be notified in advance. The wretched galley proofs were taken from Mrs Oldham to be shown to him.

The headlines weren’t good today.

Humphrey and I met to discuss the matter. To my astonishment he attacked me. ‘Minister,’ he said, ‘you have placed me in a very difficult position.’

I was outraged. ‘And what about the position you put me in? Here’s the Prime Minister asking for economies right, left and centre, and I look as if I’m wasting everything that everyone else has saved.’

Humphrey looked at me as if I were mad. ‘Minister, no one else has saved
anything
! You should know that by now.’

I knew that, and he knew that, and he knew I knew that, but the public doesn’t know that. ‘They all look as if they have,’ I reminded him.

‘Couldn’t you have stalled a bit more effectively?’ he complained.

‘What do you mean, stalled?’ I was deeply indignant.

‘Blurred things a bit. You’re normally so good at blurring the issue.’

If this was meant to be a compliment it certainly didn’t sound like one. But apparently that’s how it was intended.

‘You have a considerable talent for making things unintelligible, Minister.’ My mouth must have dropped open, for he continued, ‘I mean it as a compliment, I assure you. Blurring issues is one of the basic ministerial skills.’

‘Pray tell me the others,’ I replied coldly.

Without hesitation he gave me a list. ‘Delaying decisions, dodging questions, juggling figures, bending facts and concealing errors.’

He’s quite right, as a matter of fact. But I didn’t see what else he could have expected me to do yesterday.

‘Couldn’t you have made it look as though you were doing something, and then done nothing? Like you usually do?’

I ignored that remark and tried to get at the facts. ‘Humphrey,’ I began, ‘if these revelations are true . . .’

He interrrupted rapidly. ‘If. Exactly! If! You could, for instance, have discussed the nature of truth.’

Now it was my turn to explain a thing or two. ‘The Select Committee couldn’t be less interested in the nature of truth – they’re all MPs.’

‘You should have said it was a security matter,’ said Humphrey, falling back on the usual first line of defence.

Completely idiotic! I asked him how HB pencils could be a security matter.

‘It depends what you write with them,’ he offered. Pathetic. He can’t really think I’d have got away with that.

‘And why on earth are we building roof gardens on offices?’ I asked.

‘We took over the office design from an American company that was going to occupy it. It just happened that nobody noticed the roof garden on the plans.’

I simply stared at him, incredulously.

‘A tiny mistake,’ he was defiant. ‘The sort anyone could make.’

‘Tiny?’ I could hardly believe my ears. ‘Tiny? Seventy-five thousand pounds. Give me an example of a big mistake.’

‘Letting people find out about it.’

Then I asked him why we are heating sheds full of wire.

‘Do you want the truth?’ he asked.

I was taken aback. It’s the first time he’s ever asked me that. ‘If it’s not too much trouble,’ I replied with magnificent condescension.

‘All the staff,’ he said, ‘use these sheds for growing mushrooms.’

I didn’t even know where to begin. So I kept it simple. ‘Stop them,’ I ordered.

He shook his head sadly, and sighed a heartfelt sigh. ‘But they’ve been doing it since 1945. It’s almost the only perk of a very boring job.’

I understand this argument, but it’s clearly untenable in public. So next I asked about Rhodes’s proposal for saving money on stationery orders. Why hadn’t we accepted it?

‘Minister,’ said Humphrey vehemently, ‘that man was a troublemaker. A crank. He had an unhealthy obsession about efficiency and economy.’

‘But why didn’t we adopt his proposal? It would have saved millions of pounds.’

‘It would have meant a lot of work to implement it.’

‘So?’

‘Taking on a lot more staff.’

This argument was manifest nonsense. I told him so. He seemed unbothered.

‘Disprove it,’ he challenged me.

‘I can’t, obviously.’

‘Exactly,’ he replied smugly.

I stared at him. I had suddenly realised what was going on. ‘You’re making all this up aren’t you?’ I said.

He smiled. ‘Of course.’

‘Why?’

He stood up.

‘As an example,’ he said in his most superior manner, ‘of how to handle a Select Committee.’

[
The following week the same Select Committee met Sir Humphrey. Mrs Oldham questioned him closely on the Rhodes disclosures and proposals. The evidence taken that day is printed below – Ed
.]

Mrs Betty Oldham
: This is all very well, Sir Humphrey, but let’s get down to details. This heated aircraft hangar for example.

Sir Humphrey Appleby
: Indeed, I fully understand the Committee’s concern. But it can be very cold in Herefordshire in winter, and even civil servants cannot work in subzero temperatures.

Mrs Betty Oldham
: We aren’t talking about civil servants. We are talking about coils of wire, with plastic coats to keep them warm.

Sir Humphrey Appleby
: Yes, but staff are in and out all the time.

Mrs Betty Oldham
: Why?

Sir Humphrey Appleby
: Taking deliveries, making withdrawals, checking records, security patrols, fire inspection, stock-taking and auditing, and so forth.

Mrs Betty Oldham
: Well, they can wear gloves can’t they?

Sir Humphrey Appleby
: They could. It’s a question of staff welfare policy.

Mrs Betty Oldham
: Well, I suggest this policy is costing the taxpayer millions of pounds. (silence) Nothing to say, Sir Humphrey?

Sir Humphrey Appleby
: It is not for me to comment on government policy. You must ask the Minister.

Mrs Betty Oldham
: But you advise the Minister.

Sir Humphrey Appleby
: I think the Chairman is aware that I cannot disclose how I advise my Minister. The Minister is responsible for policy.

Mrs Betty Oldham
: All right. So we’ll ask the Minister. Now then, what about those stationery requisition savings?

Sir Humphrey Appleby
: That would have involved putting very considerable government patronage in the hands of junior staff.

Mrs Betty Oldham
: Considerable government patronage? Buying a packet of paper-clips?

Sir Humphrey Appleby
: It is government policy to exercise strict control over the number of people allowed to spend its money. I’m sure you’ll agree that this is right and proper.

Mrs Betty Oldham
: But it’s plain common sense to allow people to buy their own paper-clips.

Sir Humphrey Appleby
: Government policy has nothing to do with common sense.

Mrs Betty Oldham
: Well, don’t you think it’s time that the policy was changed? (silence) Well, Sir Humphrey?

Sir Humphrey Appleby
: It is not for me to comment on government policy. You must ask the Minister.

Mrs Betty Oldham
: But the Minister advises us to ask you.

Sir Humphrey Appleby
: And I am advising you to ask the Minister.

Mr Alan Hughes
: When does this end?

Sir Humphrey Appleby
: As soon as you like.

Mrs Betty Oldham
: Well, let’s come to the roof garden.

Sir Humphrey Appleby
: With pleasure. It was part of a wide variety of roof insulation schemes which the government undertook to test, in the interest of fuel economy.

Mrs Betty Oldham
: Seventy-five thousand pounds?

The actual report of Sir Humphrey Appleby’s evidence to the Select Committee, reproduced by kind permission of HMSO
.

[
We have reprinted it in more readable form – Ed
.]

Sir Humphrey Appleby
: It was thought that the sale of flowers and vegetable produce might offset the cost.

Mrs Betty Oldham
: And did it?

Sir Humphrey Appleby
: No.

Mrs Betty Oldham
: Then why not abandon the garden?

Sir Humphrey Appleby
: Well, it’s there now. And it does insulate the roof. But we aren’t building any more.

Mrs Betty Oldham
: But you’ve wasted seventy-five thousand pounds.

Sir Humphrey Appleby
: It was the government’s policy to test all the proposals for fuel saving.

Mrs Betty Oldham
: At this fantastic waste of taxpayers’ money? You agree the money was wasted?

Sir Humphrey Appleby
: It is not for me to comment on government policy. You must ask the Minister.

Mrs Betty Oldham:
Look, Sir Humphrey. Whatever we ask the Minister, he says is an administrative question for you. And whatever we ask you, you say is a policy question for the Minister. How do you suggest we find out what’s going on?

Sir Humphrey Appleby
: Yes, I do think there is a real dilemma here, in that while it has been government policy to regard policy as the responsibility of Ministers and administration as the responsibility of officials, questions of administrative policy can cause confusion between the administration of policy and the policy of administration, especially when responsibility for the administration of the policy of administration conflicts or overlaps with responsibility for the policy of the administration of policy.

Mrs Betty Oldham
: That’s a load of meaningless drivel, isn’t it, Sir Humphrey?

Sir Humphrey Appleby
: It is not for me to comment on government policy. You must ask the Minister.

SIR BERNARD WOOLLEY RECALLS:
²

It was theoretically true, as Sir Humphrey claimed, that Ministers are – and were in the 1980s – responsible for policy. In practice, however, Ministers are responsible for relatively little policy because the useful life of a government is only about two years. The first year is spent learning that commitments made while in Opposition cannot be kept once they are in office: once a government gets in it has to get to grips with the real problems that actually exist, invariably connected with the prevailing economic situation which is always either appalling or catastrophic, and of which the full details of the horror were invariably kept secret from the nation and therefore from the Opposition.

As a new government struggles to sort out these problems it will be dependent on economists and on the Treasury. This is a trifle unfortunate – economists are always in a state of total intellectual disarray and confusion and are too busy arguing with each other to be able to advise politicians who are usually rather ignorant of economics. And the Treasury, on the other hand, has had rather a lot of bad luck with its economic forecasts over the last sixty years or so.

So, after a period of between a year and eighteen months, Ministers come to an understanding of the situation as it actually is. Then there follows about two years of potentially serious government – after which the run-up to the next general election begins. At this point achievement has to be subordinated to the winning of votes – or, rather, winning votes becomes the only measure of achievement. The last two years are rather like swotting for an exam. You don’t do anything new, you just try to pass.