Arm’s-Length Bodies (Review) Bill

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.

As you will know, Madam Deputy Speaker, timing is important in politics. When, last autumn, I chose today for the Second Reading of the Bill, how could I have predicted that arm’s length bodies, which I will abbreviate to ALBs, would have been mentioned four times in The Times leader this very morning? Nor could I have predicted the generosity of the Government Whips in allowing—indeed, facilitating—debate on this important Bill.

I first introduced the Bill in the 2023-24 Session, but Dissolution prevented it from being debated. I have to say, I do not think the Government who were in office at that time would have been very responsive to the contents of the Bill. It is therefore beyond my wildest dreams that a Labour Government seem to understand, at least in part, the problem that arm’s length bodies present to Parliament, particularly to the House of Commons, and the Ministers, through their unaccountable structures.

As The Times leader this morning puts it:

“Arm’s-length bodies…have often been favoured by ministers as a way of distancing themselves from contentious issues. But the result is often a duplication of effort, resulting in turf wars between Whitehall ministries and ALBs over policy. Free of the need to answer to voters, ALBs can go rogue, as Highways England did over its promotion, in the face of public opposition, of so-called smart motorways.”

For another current, topical example of that problem, one need look no further than the Sentencing Council. Earlier this month, on 5 March, that independent arm’s length body issued new guidelines for the sentencing of offenders from minority groups. That issue was taken up by the shadow Secretary of State for Justice, my right hon. Friend the Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick), during the questions that followed a statement by the Justice Secretary.

My right hon. Friend challenged the Justice Secretary by pointing out that the new sentencing guidelines would make a custodial sentence less likely for those from

“an ethnic minority, cultural minority, and/or faith minority community.”

In her response, the Justice Secretary said:

“As somebody from an ethnic minority background, I do not stand for any differential treatment before the law for anyone. There will never be a two-tier sentencing approach under my watch”.—[Official Report, 5 March 2025; Vol. 763, c. 287.]

Within hours, however, it became apparent that the Justice Secretary did not have the control that she thought she had over the activities of the Sentencing Council. The new guidelines, due to be implemented from 1 April, remain unaltered and unaffected by what both the Secretary of State for Justice and her shadow have said to this House.

I understand from today’s newspapers that yesterday there was a meeting between the Justice Secretary and the chairman of the Sentencing Council, Lord Justice William Davis. I would have expected to have seen in the same press release that Lord Justice William Davis had now conceded to the Justice Secretary, who I think spoke for everybody in this House by saying that we should not have a two-tier justice system. I would have thought that he would have accepted that he got it wrong, and the new guidelines would be withdrawn before 1 April. However, that does not seem to have happened yet.

We now know that the guidelines were the subject of quite critical comments when they went out to consultation, including from the Magistrates Association, which described them as a get-out-of-jail-free card. Why have we set up a system whereby the Sentencing Council is able to dictate this type of policy, overriding the will of Ministers and elected Members of Parliament?

I respect the points that the hon. Member is making about the Sentencing Council, but given that this issue has been around for the past few years—he said that the guidelines were out for consultation—why does he think the previous Government were unable to take any action on it?

I cannot speak for the previous Government because I was not a member, although obviously I was in the House. My understanding is that this has become a live issue only within recent weeks and months, and that the present Government have been involved in discussions behind the scenes. I am not blaming the Justice Secretary, because I think that perhaps her officials misread what she said or perhaps did not understand the need to consult her. They seem to have been to meetings with the Sentencing Council. It is my understanding that the consultation process came to a conclusion after the present Government came into office.

We should all agree that we need to try to find a way through. A Bill promoted by my right hon. Friend the Member for Newark, which is on the Order Paper today—the Sentencing Council (Powers of Secretary of State) Bill—would enable the House and the Minister to take back control from the Sentencing Council over issues relating to a sentencing policy and guidance. I would find it amazing if the Government sought to block progress on that Bill today. There is everything to be said for it going through all stages in the House in one day, because it is essentially an emergency measure in response to the fact that, so far, the Sentencing Council does not seem to have responded positively to the representations of the Justice Secretary.

The Sentencing Council is not unique in being able to ignore the wishes of Ministers and Parliament. Most arm’s length bodies have a similar status to the Sentencing Council. They are in three different categories: executive agencies, non-departmental public bodies and non-ministerial departments. They have slightly varying relationships with the House and with Government, but there are far too many of them. How many arm’s length bodies are there? I was told by a Cabinet Office Minister in response to my question that on 4 July last year, there were 307 arm’s length bodies, and 135 of those had an annual operating expenditure in excess of £5 million in 2023-24. Although the Minister ducked my other question of how many there are now, we know that since coming into office, the Government have removed one quango and created 27 new ones. Although the Prime Minister has taken some decisive action on one quango, there are a heck of a lot of others that I hope will come under his scrutiny. My Bill seeks to ensure that the most significant quangos are accountable to Parliament.

Given the Prime Minister’s announcement yesterday, does the hon. Member welcome the announcement that the largest of those organisations is to be moved within ministerial and departmental oversight?

I am just coming to that—I have to say that I am absolutely delighted. I am not ambivalent about it; it is really good news, and I will give some examples of how frustrating it has been in my constituency to try to engage with the organisation called NHS Dorset —it used to be called the integrated care board—and how difficult it has been to get any timely responses. I am delighted that the Prime Minister obviously agrees with the objective of the Bill. Whereas this Bill inevitably had to tread carefully around the subject matter, the best way of getting parliamentary accountability of the activities of arm’s length bodies is to abolish those bodies completely, which is what the Prime Minister announced yesterday.

I am very much aware that the hon. Member has been a Member of this Chamber for much longer than I and many of my colleagues have, given that many of us were elected for the first time last July, but does he recall that between 1997 and 2010, the Labour Government cut the number of quangos in this country by 39.8%? That shows what Labour does in government. Wait until the end of the five years and see how many we have cut by then—I am sure he will be delighted by the number.

I am more interested, actually, in looking at the number of people in the civil service. There was a low point during the Blair years, but I am sorry to report that under the last Conservative Government and in the time that this Government have been in office, the number of civil servants has continued to increase exponentially. We are talking about between 100,000 and 200,000 more civil servants since the Brexit referendum. The size of the state, the Government and the civil service are important issues, and they are fundamental to this, but my Bill focuses on trying to ensure that the officials who are paid handsomely by the taxpayer are more accountable than they have been to this House and the Government.

The Prime Minister said yesterday that these quangos and regulators end up blocking what the Government want to do, and that is obviously unsatisfactory. In a democracy, we elect a Government, and we expect them to take action on our behalf.

Could the hon. Gentleman enlighten me on a slight confusion I have with the wording of his Bill? The Government are talking about bringing more of these agencies back under Executive control so that the Executive, elected by the British people, can drive their performance. His Bill would provide direct parliamentary control, which in many cases—such as with the Prison Service, which is overseen by the Ministry of Justice—would move control and oversight from the Executive to Parliament. I may be confused, but would the Bill not make some of that harder not easier?

I do not think my Bill would make any of that harder. What I am saying is that if the Government wish to abolish these arm’s length bodies, or some of them, and to create a more direct relationship between the activities of those bodies when they are under direct Government control and this House, I welcome that. I have already made that clear. However, the Government have already shown that they are intent on increasing the number of arm’s length bodies. Later, I was going to come on to what I regard as an egregious example of giving substantial new powers to an arm’s length body—namely the powers for Natural England set out in the Planning and Infrastructure Bill that was published earlier this week. I will come on to that in due course.

What is important is that these arm’s length bodies are not able to go on a frolic of their own and ignore the wishes of the people’s representatives. As such, my Bill attempts to remedy that accountability gap. As has been said, the most direct way of doing that is to abolish the arm’s length bodies altogether. Currently, the Government are indeed legislating to abolish one arm’s length body through the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education (Transfer of Functions etc) Bill. I was chairing that Bill’s Committee stage yesterday, so I will not comment on its merits or otherwise, but its proposals are dwarfed by the announcement of the abolition of NHS England. I welcome that decision; as I said earlier, I have a constituency concern about the way in which NHS England’s outpost in Dorset, NHS Dorset, lacks responsiveness to Members of Parliament.

To give the House a topical example from this week—indeed, it is still going on—the continuing healthcare department at NHS Dorset has failed over many months to sort out an issue relating to a quadriplegic who is one of my constituents. He has now moved into a different residential care home, and his social worker is from the NHS continuing healthcare team. As we speak, he is threatened with losing his mobility vehicle this very weekend because of the NHS’s inability to deal with the Department for Work and Pensions and sort the matter out.

The case of the hon. Member’s constituent is a really interesting one, although I do not know the full details. However, sometimes when we get rid of a quango, it is a case of, “Be careful what you wish for.” One of the jobs I had before coming to this place was parliamentary officer for the Public and Commercial Services Union. One much lamented former body from the bonfire of the quangos was the Independent Living Fund, which provided support for some of the most complex cases—potentially like the hon. Gentleman’s constituent—and was able to work much more easily. In a cost-saving measure, that support was transferred into local government, and local government is much less efficient at administering it, so I would say, “Be careful what you wish for when you close quangos just because they are quangos.”

I hear the hon. Gentleman’s cautionary tale, and I am not suggesting that anything will be a panacea. My Bill is just a tentative step to try to introduce a little more accountability.

My hon. Friend is making a powerful speech and I agree entirely with the points he is making. As I recall from the coalition days, one of the reasons for the Lansley reforms was to make the NHS more independent of Government, which clearly failed. My personal view is that all these arm’s length bodies, quangos and so on should be within the Departments. Then, as he says, we would be able to question Ministers on the issues. The idea that we should make them independent of their political masters is something we need to overturn.

Absolutely; that is why, although the term “independent” sounds seductive to people outside, it quite often means a lack of control by elected representatives over the body in question.

I am not going to spend all my time talking about NHS Dorset, but I must offer one other illustration of my concerns. I have a letter here from the chief executive of NHS Dorset, who I think receives a lot more remuneration than even the Prime Minister. I wrote to her in November, and she wrote back at the end of January about an issue relating to dermatology services in Dorset. I wrote back to her saying, “What is being done to address this issue? You haven’t answered that in your letter.” It took until 5 March, with further queries following up on it, for me to receive an answer. The letter cites my question, which I first raised back in November, as:

“Concern over the ‘unacceptably long waiting list for dermatology services. What is being done to address this issue by the Integrated Care Board?’”

The answer given is:

“As part of a Commissioning for Sustainability programme, Dermatology is one of the services that is being focussed on. The aim of the programme is to recover services to the 18-week standard target, whilst maintaining sustainability. As part of this we are currently reviewing how the commissioning and delivery of services can best achieve this.”

That is after more than four months. There is no suggestion of when the review started, when it is likely to end or what will happen. I take that as an example of the Member of Parliament being fobbed off by officialdom for having the temerity to raise an important issue on behalf of his constituents.

I could go on with many other examples from NHS, but I will not do that. Instead, I will see whether, through this debate, I can encourage the Government to go further than just abolishing NHS England. I have had many dealings with the NHS Business Services Authority, another arm’s length body, apparently controlled by the Department of Health and Social Care, but essentially a law unto itself.

If the hon. Gentleman was so concerned about that, why did he vote for the Health and Social Care Bill, which included the setting up of NHS England, on 13 March 2012?

I was probably in one of my less rebellious periods at that stage, but the hon. Gentleman is right to chide me, because I think it was a big mistake.

This is such a fundamental issue for the hon. Member, so why should we pay any attention whatever to what he is saying to us today?

I am not insisting that anybody should pay attention to what I am saying. All I am putting forward is a proposition that these arm’s length bodies, of which there are far too many, should be brought to account more than they are at the moment.

I have just given an example of the NHS Business Services Authority. Another example is Natural England. One of the means by which arm’s length bodies are meant to be accountable to Parliament is through the publication of annual reports, with accounts. If one looks at the situation with Natural England, it has not produced an annual report and accounts for the year ending 31 March 2024. The last accounts it produced were in December 2023 for the financial year ending 31 March 2023. That is unacceptable. The Government guidance is that these arm’s length bodies should produce their report and accounts within three months of the end of the financial year.