Ian Dunt, How Westminster Works…and Why It Doesn’t

This is a very detailed survey of the weaknesses and failures of the Westminster parliamentary system written by an experienced political journalist who worked in Westminster for several years. It starts by illustrating the extent and impact of the failures in an Introduction wholly devoted to an account of the privatization of the long-established, quite effective, publicly run probation system by Chris Grayling as Conservative Minister of Justice in 2013. Dunt points out that Grayling knew nothing about the probation service or about criminal justice when he took office. He decided to drive through the change from an ideological conviction, shared by the leaders of his party, in the superiority of the private over the public sector. He sought no expert advice and ignored it when it was offered in response to a Ministry “consultation” on the issue, preferring to listen to costly, less expert, private sector consultants. He discouraged questions from Ministry civil servants who, in response, leaked information about the weaknesses and risks of the scheme. He was determined to drive it through quickly before the election in 2015. It was approved by the Treasury and required no new legislation, so there was no parliamentary debate, and it was largely ignored in the media, apart from the Guardian which made a sustained assessment of its effects. By 2017, the complex new organization was falling apart, causing serious harm, including murders, by incompetently supervised probationers. Grayling gave the private firms involved £342m to keep them going, bringing no improvement. The Chief Inspector of Probation judged that “there has been a deplorable diminution of the probation profession and a widespread move away from good probation practice” (p. 20). In 2018, David Gauke became Minister and returned probation to the public sector. No one was penalized for the failures, costs, and damage. Grayling became Leader of the House of Commons and later Minister of Transport, at which he failed so comprehensively that he became generally known as “Failing Grayling.” He held no more Ministerial posts from 2019, while remaining an MP and in 2020 taking a post with a business based in the British Virgin Islands tax haven which paid him £100,000 pa for working 7 h per week.

The Introduction sums up many of the ways in which Westminster “doesn’t work” as detailed by Dunt. He describes Grayling as “a completely standard example of the ministerial class in Britain” (p. 22) who have created a mass of serious, unresolved problems, including social care, the NHS, low productivity, as “successive governments…have failed to operate with anything even approaching basic competence. They do not know what they are doing…” (p. 23). His judgments are based upon over 100 conversations with politicians, including Neil Kinnock, Theresa May, Tony Blair, Andy Burnham, Liz Truss, and Boris Johnson, officials including John Bercow, peers, civil servants, journalists, and more, and scrutiny of a mass of books and official reports. What follows is a series of detailed chapters each devoted to a key component of the political system. Along the way, an “Interlude” details another disaster, the delays and failures in the evacuation of Afghanistan, 2021. The book concludes with “Solutions.” So far as I can judge, the detailed accounts are accurate though, like most people, I lack Dunt’s experience of close observation of the system. Sadly, the factual detail is not engagingly presented. The book may be useful for specialists, but it will not be an easy or appealing read for the mass of voters—“ourselves”- his conclusion calls upon to make a “sustained challenge” to government failings.

First, we learn about the selection of candidates for parliament. This has long been known to be heavily biased, notably against women which has been exposed in detail over time but is not discussed here. Dunt describes how selection is made “behind closed doors” by party members, who have become steadily less representative of the wider population as party membership has shrunk from a peak in the 1950s, especially since the 1990s. Dunt rightly points out that, certainly since Blair was PM in the 2000s, party leaders have controlled local selections to curb backbench challenges. Then, as the second chapter explains, once in parliament MPs are strictly controlled by their parties, especially though the aptly named whips, who apparently even tell them what to say in their maiden speeches. Rebels are not promoted, which deters some but not all. Dunt stresses how exhausting and time-consuming is the work of MPs, their difficulties in achieving work-life balance. They have to combine helping constituents, including with the effects of failing government policies such as local funding cuts, with intensive, but often less fulfilling, parliamentary work. They have to cope with party animosity over policy disagreements, and, increasingly, with social media attacks. Most vote with their party most of the time, but rebellions happen.

The third chapter describes how, especially since the 1980s, PMs have increased control over their parties and government institutions. However, Dunt argues that they have long had the potential to wield more power than leaders in many other countries because Britain’s first-past-the-post election system enables them to gain substantial majorities unlike states with Proportional Representational (PR) systems in which coalition governments are frequent, leading to compromise decisions rather than authoritarian power. Also, unlike many other countries in Europe and elsewhere, there is little devolution of powers to regions in England. Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland have varying devolved powers, but these are not discussed.

Since Thatcher came to power in 1979, the Cabinet has become less central to decision-making. PMs make the decisions, including the appointment and sacking of Ministers. Such powers are rare in most other countries: in coalitions, ministerial appointments are normally part of coalition agreements. And, in most occupations, promotion is based upon expertise and skill, but “in government that hardly ever happens” (p. 109). In Dunt’s judgment, “one of the core features of the British system at every level is that no-one knows what they’re talking about” (p. 110), hence the failings of Grayling. This was not always so. As Dunt describes, Harold Wilson in his 1964–1970 government was anxious to improve government expertise to match and advance the technical and technological skills of the modern world, to assist his aim to develop the “white heat of technology” through his new Ministry of Technology, and to revive the flagging British economy. To this end, he appointed “special advisors,” experts from outside politics in key policy areas, not only technological. They included Richard Titmuss and Brian Abel-Smith from the LSE to apply their expertise in pensions policy. He also appointed a committee under Lord Fulton, a former university Vice Chancellor who had held a number of public offices, to advise on reform of the civil service, to improve its expertise. Most civil servants were graduates in humanities and lacked knowledge of economics, engineering, sciences, and other fields judged essential to achieve modernization. In 1968, the committee recommended establishing a civil service training college to provide essential skills. It was launched and began well, but Wilson lost the 1970 election to Edward Heath’s Conservative government which was less concerned to promote it. Dunt emphasizes how the absence of long-term strategy is another weakness of the Westminster system: first-past-the-post does not encourage continuity and consensus in policy between governments of different parties.

Blair’s New Labour governments returned to the issue and in 2008 set up a Professional Skills for Government program to improve civil service skills. The need was revealed by the failure of civil servants to anticipate or always to understand the international financial crisis from 2007. It achieved some improvements before being replaced by the less effective Civil Service Learning Programme by the Conservative-led coalition government in 2011. Thereafter, under Conservative governments to the present, specialist accountants, digital and data experts and project managers were appointed from outside while most civil servants remained essentially generalist.

Dunt describes how the lack of expertise among Ministers has been exacerbated by the fact that, increasingly in recent decades, MPs have become professional politicians—sometimes former “spads” (as special advisors became known) like Ed Miliband and David Cameron—rather than experienced professionals, lawyers, or businessmen, as was once normal. A centrally controlled parliament has become less attractive to people able to earn a better living in other ways. Also, spads have grown in numbers but have ceased to be experts from outside politics but younger people chosen on grounds of party loyalty to assist Ministers with their daily tasks rather than to inform and criticize them. Boris Johnson, with Dominic Cummings, his Chief Advisor, a former spad, controlled them as never before, making or vetoing their appointments. They were required to attend weekly meetings with Cummings in No 10 to receive instructions and were used by No 10 to by-pass civil servants who were regarded as too independent of party politics.

Chapter 4 describes how Ministers also have been increasingly constrained by prime ministerial control since Thatcher, concerned that disagreeing with the PM will lead to their transfer to another department or dismissal. Turnover has increased, faster than in the many countries where reshuffles require coalition agreement. There were fewer in Britain under the 2010–2015 coalition than later, when turnover became faster than ever, another obstacle to long-term planning. Dunt describes how exhausting ministerial work can be, intensified by the controls and by hard parliamentary work. But, contrary to widespread belief, ministers are rarely held to account for failed policies, such as the probation reform, but rather for failing to observe government policies.

The next chapter surveys the Treasury. Dunt describes how it appears to be a department with intellectual depth, providing independent monitoring of other departments without party political interference, able to challenge over-centralized government, providing effective scrutiny of ministerial failings. It has greater potential power than any others to stand up to the PM because it controls the money. Chancellors of the Exchequer normally turnover less than other Ministers, though there were five from 2020 to 2022 as PMs also turned over unusually fast. But, he argues, the Treasury does not scrutinize itself and “has fallen into total disrepair” (p. 137). It protects the public from some ministerial failings, but many get past it, including the privatization of probation, while some good policies do not. Dunt believes that its chief weaknesses are failure to recognize the need for investment outside London, which could address regional inequalities, or to authorize large investments in the present which would yield savings in future. Its staff are “almost pathologically sceptical of arguments for long-term investment.” Hence, they rejected the advice of the independent Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS), which they normally respect, for big investment in education to compensate for deprivation due to COVID-19. But it is not open to outside questioning and receives little parliamentary scrutiny. It also fails to control the persistent political use of Budgets, including the long-established Conservative practice of reducing taxes before elections. This has led to what Dunt describes as an “irrational,” unfair tax structure which facilitates tax avoidance, as the IFS has pointed out. The Treasury blames politicians for refusing to discuss tax policy rationally, but Dunt asks whether it has tried hard enough to do so.

Next, he examines other civil service departments. He describes how they were long praised as non-partisan, efficient, high quality. Then, Thatcher rejected criticism of government policies and regarded all public service professionals as self-satisfied, inward looking, and out of touch with modern needs. She expected civil servants to do as Ministers asked. Central control grew thereafter, including under Blair, peaking under Johnson/Cummings. In the Truss/Sunak leadership battle, both sides accused civil servants of “groupthink.” The Conservatives became increasingly paranoid, regarding civil servants who presented practical or legal obstacles to their proposals, however respectfully, as political opponents. Increasingly, they were moved around departments, no longer building up experience relevant to one department. One outcome Dunt describes was the poorly designed, expensive, inefficient disaster of Universal Credit, introduced in 2012. Also, New Labour established a Rough Sleeper Unit of experts tasked to reduce rough sleeping, as they did. After 2010, the whole team left, and rough sleeping and associated deaths increased again. No effective policy was possible when there was no relevant expertise. Turnover and resignations reached unprecedented levels after Brexit in 2020, leaving unfilled vacancies for senior staff. Pay was frozen, they could earn more elsewhere, it was increasingly difficult to afford London housing on civil service salaries, and well-qualified people were not attracted. Civil servants increasingly complained of bullying by Ministers. Increasingly, the governments employed expensive, outside consultants in the absence of civil service skills, sometimes lacking relevant skills themselves. Dunt concludes that the blame for civil service decline lies wholly with government.

He then examines political journalism. He rightly points out that most newspapers are politically committed, led by their owners who are mainly Conservative. He argues that for much of the twentieth century the press was more independent and critical of government because it was funded by advertising. As this income and newspaper readership has declined with the growth of social media, they have sought politicians’ favor and become more manipulable. Tony Blair assisted by former journalist Alastair Campbell pointed the way. Thereafter, regular briefings of the parliamentary media lobby were designed to influence coverage. Then, Dunt states, the press focused less on policy more on “the daily Westminster frenzy,” encouraged by the rapidly changing 24-h news cycle that emerged on TV and on-line as formerly print newspapers moved to digital. Consequently, “Once a policy has been passed, it effectively ceases to exist for the lobby. There is almost no political coverage about the impact of Universal Credit, say, or the privatization of probation or the decline of the homelessness unit” (p. 196). “Almost” perhaps, but the Guardian, a politically independent, center left broadsheet, regularly, carefully assesses the impact of social policies, including Universal Credit, and the similarly independent Financial Times keeps a close eye on financial, economic, and much social policy, though they are both rather elite papers with relatively small readerships. Dunt rightly regrets the near demise of local newspapers which did discuss the impact of polices in their areas.

There follows an “Interlude” in which he discusses the British withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021, slower and less organized than that of other countries, as a “case study in incompetence” under Foreign Secretary, Dominic Raab. Raab is a former solicitor and supporter of Johnson, “with no experience of foreign affairs or any meaningful accomplishment” (p. 210). Dunt finds that only lobbying from MPs brought about a belated, incomplete, plan to evacuate Afghans who had worked for the British and consequently were in danger of death; many were killed. Their desperate email appeals were ignored by staff who were not briefed about the situation. Increasingly, Foreign Office staff were no longer experts on the countries they dealt with and did not speak the languages. Expert advice was ignored and there was no clear ministerial leadership. A total of 222 dogs were evacuated by a British-run animal charity, on a flight with 230 empty seats, authorized by Johnson (though he tried to deny it) though the Taliban did not threaten dogs. Dunt concludes that no lessons were learned from the episode—confirmed by the recent equally slow, incompetent evacuation from the war in Sudan. In fairness to the media, all these failings have been fully reported and widely known.

Dunt then returns to reviewing the institutions, beginning with the House of Commons and the “deafening noise” which characterizes its sessions: a “bear pit” (p. 225). He describes how MPs rarely stand up to governments with a clear majority—the whips take care of that. Specialist Select Committees can exert some influence. He describes how they were created in 1979 by an independent-minded Conservative, Norman St John-Stevas—soon sacked by Thatcher because too independent—precisely to challenge prime ministerial control of the House of Commons. Committee chairs are elected by MPs and party membership mirrors that in the House of Commons. They are well-staffed by independent clerks. Their recommendations are assisted by outside experts and members gain expertise which they contribute to debates. Their meetings are private and unwhipped and a 2016 survey found that the chairs rebel against the government more than backbenchers. Links are built across parties. Governments can ignore their reports, but some are accepted, including the ban on smoking in public places, introduced in England in 2007. Dunt also describes how an independent-minded Speaker of the House of Commons, notably John Bercow, can encourage independent-minded, rebellious Members by facilitating debates on amendments to legislation, emergency debates, and urgent questions, ignoring established rules when necessary—hence Bercow’s unpopularity with successive governments. May and Johnson hit back, especially to control debate on Brexit. Johnson decided to prorogue (i.e., suspend) parliament to enable him to rush through key Brexit-related legislation. He did so for 14 days in September 2019 until it was ruled unconstitutional by the UK Supreme Court. An unfortunate absence from the book is any discussion of the constitutional role of the legal system. In this case and others—e.g., the decision to send asylum seekers to Rwanda—government measures can be blocked or delayed by the courts on appeals by protesters outside politics, and “lefty lawyers” as politicians disparage them.

Another tool of government control over the House of Commons is the “Statutory Instrument.” Originally designed to pass uncontroversial technical changes, the technique has increasingly been exploited to get highly controversial matters through parliament. In 2022, it was used to allow the Home Secretary to unilaterally define the meaning of “public disorder” during protests, thus restricting freedom to protest—an ongoing cause of controversy, and protest. Instruments were used extensively during the pandemic to introduce controls, including lockdown rules. Their use has become increasingly mainstream in recent years. The House of Lords can oppose them, sometimes successfully; the House of Commons can rarely succeed against a majority government.

Dunt next examines how laws are made. They are drafted by departments, controlled by Ministers, the most powerful of them drafting most bills. Bills used to be scrutinized, and when necessary re-drafted, by the Attorney-General, but since Suella Braverman held the role, briefly, in 2020–2022 it has become “a mouthpiece for government policy,” no longer providing objective advice. Bills are often drafted in a hurry and receive so little scrutiny in the House of Commons “it often might as well not happen at all” (p. 259). As Dunt describes, with a strong majority government it is hard to amend legislation at any stage of its passage through the House of Commons. Scotland, by contrast, since devolution has developed effective scrutiny at the committee stage by a committee of expert MSPs. The Westminster government can further control the process by determining the daily timetable, curtailing debate when it wishes. No MP can get an amendment seriously debated without government sanction. Dunt notes that when the House of Commons was prevented from meeting in person by the COVID-19 lockdown rules, it met, and voted, on-line. This was much faster than the normal process of voting in person, leaving more time for debate, but Jacob Rees-Mogg, Leader of the House of Commons, scrapped it even before COVID-19 was over because it removed the government’s capacity to prevent rebellious voting through the vigilance of whips in the voting lobbies.

Dunt gives more favorable scrutiny to the House of Lords. He argues that it alone “has a proud record of standing up to government. It works diligently and thanklessly to improve legislation. It applies expertise to policy…seeks consensus…is independent-minded and rejects partisan point-scoring. It acts with a seriousness that is absent almost anywhere else in the political system” (p. 283). It lacks democratic legitimacy and “is the one institution in Westminster that apparently everyone agrees must be reformed,” but “It is …one of the only aspects of our constitutional arrangements that actually works” (p. 283). Its actions are normally cautious because the House of Commons could overhaul it, and there are limits to its powers: it can’t kill a bill, just delay it for one session. It is a revision chamber. It cannot stop legislation included in the manifesto of the winning party or any bill concerning finance. There have been reforms. Life Peerages were introduced in 1958, allowing women peers for the first time, as Dunt does not point out. The inadequate representation of gender and race in parliament is not among his concerns. Blair’s government later reduced the number of hereditary peers from an overwhelming 600+ to 92. It also created the House of Lords Appointments Committee which could vet nominations by political parties “to ensure the highest standards of propriety” and put forward non-party-political crossbench peers, at least two per year, to contribute expertise and experience. Further reforms to democratize the House of Lords were proposed but rejected by the Commons. It now consists of 25 Anglican bishops, 666 life peers, and 91 hereditaries, 782 in total, compared with 650 MPs.

PMs still decide when and how many life peers will be appointed, make nominations, and then invite other party leaders to do so. “It’s this element of the system that has fallen into a state of advanced moral decay” (p. 286), states Dunt, pointing out that a succession of PMs have used it to reward party loyalists and donors, Boris Johnson most blatantly. But the power of the Appointments Committee to nominate crossbenchers brought real change. Until the twenty-first century, there was always a massive Conservative majority. Then, Blair appointed more Labour peers creating greater party balance. This combined with a slow “drip-feed” of crossbench experts has ensured that no party has since held overall control, despite Boris Johnson’s best efforts. By mid-2022, he had appointed 86 in less than 3 years, including party donors who contributed little to the work of the House of Lords, raising its total membership above 800. But independent minds still rule. From 1999 to 2005, it defeated the government 283 times, shocks Blair did not expect, but the government accepted a significant number of amendments and rejections, including of compulsory ID cards. This has continued and even recent governments have accepted expert criticism from the House of Lords as from nowhere else. It controls its own business, what it chooses to discuss, for how long. Journalists rarely write about it. Its activities are private, and governments can accept amendments without public humiliation. Bills amended by the House of Lords return to House of Commons. If they are agreed, they go for royal assent. If not, negotiations start. If the Houses can’t agree, the bill dies but generally the House of Commons wins; there are limits to the House of Lords’ powers. They can improve a bill but not make major changes.

Dunt concludes with “Solutions.” He starts optimistically: “It doesn’t have to be this way. There is nothing uniquely broken about our national dispensation. We are not fated to live under bad government. The current situation is simply the product of circumstance, lethargy and political self-interest. It can be fixed as soon as we decide that we want to do so. We just have to do less of the things that don’t work and more of the things that do” (p. 301). Things that work are the House of Lords and Select Committees, imperfectly, but they “encourage the best behaviour rather than the worst” (p. 301). The necessary changes are normal procedures in many countries with stable, successful governments, including Germany, the Netherlands, and the Nordic countries. Westminster must operate more slowly, planning longer-term, rushing through less unnecessary, poorly thought-out legislation. Less optimistically he asks “How likely is any of this to happen? Not very likely at all” (p. 303). Only government can make it happen, but he believes that new governments are receptive to new ideas in their first 2–3 years, so ideas for reform should be put to them.

His suggested reforms follow the chapters of the book. Candidate selection should be opened to the public. But more important is change to the voting system, which is at the heart of Westminster’s weakness, since first-past-the-post ignores the preferences of the majority of voters and eliminates the need for compromise which is central to the coalition governments resulting from PR voting, encouraging better government and longer-term thinking. Dunt doesn’t believe it will solve all problems, though it will bring improvements. But he does not mention that a UK referendum on PR was held in 2011, as part of the agreement to form the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition. It was rejected by 67.8% of voters, though PR had already been successfully introduced for elections in devolved Scotland and Wales and for the London Assembly. Or that in 2022, probably after the book was completed, the government pushed through parliament the abolition of PR for English mayoral elections, including in London, which had mostly been won by Labour.

Dunt then proposes that the performance of MPs should be improved by reducing their workloads, including by providing more support for their constituency work, and more support and advice on parliamentary business including for understanding and scrutinizing proposed legislation. To control the power of No 10 requires a new department with more staff including expert specialist units operating like the Strategy Unit and others in New Labour’s second term, planning long-term. Ministers have too much work, too little control over it, and too little accountability. They need the return of expert special advisors. No 10’s control of special advisors must end and they should be appointed on the basis of expertise alone. So also should Ministers at all levels, even if this requires placing experts in the House of Lords to enable their appointment to a Ministry. Ministers should go before a Select Committee in their field at least every 2 years to account for their actions. To reform the Treasury, Dunt suggests abolition of the Budget because it encourages frequent, politically motivated, changes to tax policy, increasing its complexity. A Commission should direct tax policy, and spending policy should increase its focus on long-term growth. The House of Lords should be allowed to scrutinize Treasury business and its civil servants need greater financial and economic expertise. Similarly, all civil servants should build their careers in a specialist area, such as education or defense, as they once did, and acquire management skills. Promotion and pay should be determined by skill and churn minimized, controlled by accountable permanent secretaries. A civil service code should clearly establish the duty of civil servants to offer Ministers objective information which they should seriously assess.

A feasible change to political journalism could result from a government fund to finance a revival of local journalism to provide information on the impacts of public policy, comparable, Dunt suggests, to BBC local news programs. The book was written before cuts to these services were announced, leading to strikes of BBC staff. Governments and departments should also bring back the effective press offices which were once normal and kept journalists adequately informed.

To reform the House of Commons, Statutory Instruments should urgently be controlled. A Grand Committee should distinguish necessary from unnecessary uses; the latter should be debated in both Houses. The House of Commons should control its own timetable, with a Business of the House Committee to agree a fortnightly agenda and put it to a free vote. Unless there is an urgent need for speed, legislation should receive more scrutiny, starting with a Green Paper explaining it in full. This should be scrutinized by a Citizens Jury required to report back in 2 weeks. The committee stage should be remodeled to mirror the Select Committee system, with a committee of elected MPs—sometimes actual Select Committees—scrutinizing bills, holding extensive witness testimony and evidence gathering, with strong civil service support, and employing outside experts. Within departments, a permanent public bill committee should establish a culture of cooperative work to improve legislation. Electronic voting should be introduced to allow the report stage more time for debate, reducing the power of the whips and increasing the potential for rebellion against government edicts.

Dunt believes that the House of Lords needs least reform, though it has deficiencies. Bishops and hereditary peers should be removed, but democratization is unnecessary. The power of PMs and party leaders to appoint peers should be curbed to achieve 50/50 crossbenchers and party appointments, in place of the current one-third/two-thirds. PMs should no longer overrule the Appointments Committee, which should identify gaps in expertise and make appointments to fill them.

Above all, Dunt concludes, we need to fix “our own approach to politics which has led us to where we are now” and insist on “scrutiny, knowledge, restraint of power and full exchange of ideas” (pp. 323–324), challenging dogma and criticizing power. This would lead to greater efficiency as well as greater freedom. “The first step to implement these reforms is to commit ourselves to the ideas that inform them… it might currently feel hopeless, but it isn’t. Political change occurs all the time...not…because of inevitable historical dynamics or predestined social progress. It happens because people agitate for it. It happens because they demand it of politicians as a precondition of their support” (p. 325). His final sentence is: “Change will not come from the generosity of those who benefit from the existing state of affairs. It will come from the sustained challenge of those who do not” (p. 325). He is right that public agitation has achieved change, including laws against race and sex discrimination. This is why the present government is so anxious to curb public protest. But protest comes about when people are well-informed about an urgent need for change. Dunt provides much valuable information about the extreme weaknesses of Westminster, which are not all widely known, and ideas for reform, but the book fails to express them with a clarity and resonance likely to arouse the popular response he seeks.

Reviewer:

Patricia Thane FBA is Visiting Professor in History, Birkbeck College London, and author of several books on British politics and society including, Divided Kingdom: A History of Britain, 1900 to the present (2018).