Treasury needs to be given a Brexit vision
It is time for a dose of realism when it comes to the politics of the Civil Service. The leak of Treasury forecasts this week, which predict economic loss in all the Brexit scenarios they examined, led to accusations that civil servants are framing evidence to make the case against leaving the EU’S customs union. This has not been proved. The minister who highlighted this accusation, Steve Baker, has apologised. But questions are still being raised and the country should not be naive. The Treasury has always been opposed to Brexit because, like the rest of Whitehall, it is fundamentally conservative – psychologically, if not philosophically. One of the jobs of a good prime minister is to realign Britain’s Civil Service with the democratic will of the people.
For over a century, the institutional memory and independence of Whitehall have been of real benefit to the British constitution. It is important that ministers are surrounded by men and women with practical know-how, the vast majority of whom are motivated by a profound sense of public duty and are trained to the very highest standards. But Left and Right have always found them to be an impediment to reform: Tony Benn’s and Alan Clark’s diaries are full of encounters with civil servants determined to stop something from being done for the first time. One solution has been the growth of political advisers, operating as a Whitehall within a Whitehall. This has drawbacks. Politicisation was felt to have undermined the independence of the Civil Service in the Blair years, something no one would wish should Jeremy Corbyn ever get near No 10. That’s when it would be reassuring to know someone sensible is manning the ship of state.
Nevertheless, there is no denying that Whitehall’s group-think can fossilise into stubbornness. Europe is an example in which there is alleged hostility to the results of a referendum that the government of the day promised to enact. Britain voted to leave the EU; logic dictates this means leaving the customs union. There is, however, palpable reluctance to do this among the political establishment, and that’s one reason why the leaked Treasury report was taken with a pinch of salt. Another is that it, oddly, didn’t explore the model the Government is actually pursuing: a bespoke trade deal. A third is that it has too rosy a view of the EU: we cannot be sure that it won’t collapse come the next cyclical downturn. A fourth is that it attempts to predict 15 years hence, which is impossible given the pace of technological change. But the most important case against swallowing Treasury advice on Brexit is that it was so hopelessly wrong before. The Treasury predicted that simply a vote to Leave would result in around 500,000 job losses and a 3.6 per cent contraction of GDP. It was wrong.
An effective government would have been able to swat away the leak by pointing all these details out. It could have argued that the Treasury is part of a wider problem: an establishment that has got used to Europe running the show and lacks confidence in Britain’s ability to go it alone. An effective Tory leadership would have said Whitehall doesn’t understand that, yes, Brexit is a risk but it also presents opportunities to deregulate and strike trade deals.
Instead, the Government said official forecasts are “always wrong” and then agreed to make the Treasury’s findings available to MPS and peers “on a strictly confidential basis” in a reading room. This is not good enough: the public has the right to all the facts. It was also embarrassingly similar to the way the EU unveiled its defence plans in 2016: the Global Strategy on Foreign and Security policy could only be seen by a small number of diplomats, required to make only handwritten notes and leave electronic devices outside a sealed room. Ironically, a pro-brexit government has ended up acting in the same manner as the EU.
The Civil Service is akin to a Newtonian force: every action by a government will get an equal and opposite reaction. Politicians know that. It’s their job to overcome it. Michael Gove managed to do so at the Department for Education, and now, in a rather more collegiate manner, is also carving out an imaginative agenda for environment and rural affairs. Stasis is not inevitable. It is possible to overcome bureaucratic resistance so long as one has vision and strength of will – an understanding of what you actually want to achieve.