Background:
In May 2021, PETRA wrote to the Secretaries of State for International Trade and Health and Social Care to ask how we could best engage with both of them, in line with our remit to explore how international trade can improve health and prevent avoidable harm in the UK.
PETRA received replies in June 2021. The, then, Department for International Trade stated that “we believe your concerns are best dealt with by the Department for Health and Social Care.” The Department for Health and Social Care stated that “the Department for International Trade is best placed to answer your concerns.”
The following sketch is based entirely on PETRA’s reactions to these responses. In no way is it intended to undermine the valuable input that PETRA has received from the UK public health agencies or individual Civil Servants.
Scene:
Rt Hon Jim Hacker MP returns to his office after lunch and is joined by both his Permanent Secretary, Sir Humphrey Appleby and his Principal Private Secretary, Bernard Woolley.
Sir Humphrey:
Oh Minister, you’re back. I thought you were at the House this afternoon?
Jim Hacker:
I am. I was. I’m not.
Bernard:
Minister, you can’t be all three.
Jim:
All three what?
Bernard:
Which is it? Are you meant to be the at the House or not?
Jim:
Look, never mind that. I’ve something to tell you that will shock you.
Sir Humphrey:
Oh really Minister? Do tell.
Jim:
I happened to be in the dining room sitting behind Percy Pinkerton – you know the SoS for Domestic and Overseas Trade.
Bernard:
Dotty!
Sir Humphrey:
Bernard!
Jim:
Is that what they call him? Ha Ha! Anyway, he was nattering away to Philomena Bridges at Health. I didn’t know they had so much in common.
Sir Humphrey:
Minister! You weren’t eavesdropping were you?
Jim:
Who, moi? Never. I leave that to you Humphrey. It’s just that they were being very loud and proud about having achieved a coup.
Bernard:
A coup? Whose head is rolling?
Sir Humphrey:
No-one’s Bernard. A coup is not cooked up in the dining room like a cheese souffle. For a coup to take place it needs the plotting of John Le Carre and the cunning of Darth Vader – and that, I might add, is as unlikely to be achieved by two random Secretaries of State sitting in the members’ dining room as it is for the decorators to finish painting our staircases.
Jim:
It was crab and ginger.
Bernard:
What was?
Jim:
The souffle. Why are we talking about souffles? I’m trying to tell you that between them, Domestic and Overseas Trade and Health are wreaking havoc on government business.
Sir Humphrey:
Begging your pardon Minister, that is nothing new. You said something about a shock?
Jim:
Yes, well the two of them were sitting there crowing about having successfully thwarted some of the country’s leading academics’ attempts at contacting them over the issue of making trade healthy. Pinkerton said it wasn’t his Department and Philly told them it was nothing to do with Health. They thought it extremely funny. Shocking way to go on.
Bernard:
I don’t see the problem.
Sir Humphrey:
Precisely Bernard, there isn’t one. In fact, I’d say we are winning the battle. Our message of obfuscating bureaucracy and complication is being heard at last. Minister, this is indeed a shock.
Jim:
Obfuscating bureaucracy? Humphrey, government should be open and transparent and —- and coordinated. It makes us look fools if we go around saying it’s not me, it’s him. My children do that.
Sir Humphrey:
Minister, the wheels would come off the government bus very fast if we were to be transparent. And as for coordination, where do I start?
Bernard:
But Sir Humphrey, you talk to other Perm Secs all the time.
Sir Humphrey:
That’s not co-ordination Bernard, that’s politics. With a small p.
Jim:
Rubbish Humphrey. One Department can’t play off another like that. We’ll never get anything done.
Sir Humphrey:
But Minister, for government to be coordinated requires a single vision of policy with a common understanding of the end goal for the future, or before the next Election whichever is soonest, which must be agreed unanimously in Cabinet and which assumes consistent organisational dynamics within each Department that will not render them incapable of delivering that Department’s functions.
Jim:
What? Oh never mind Humphrey, just tell me what is the point of Domestic and Overseas Trade and Health working against each other? Shouldn’t they at least check that one isn’t undermining the other? For all I know, DOT is planning to import stuff that eventually Health will have to deal with in its hospitals. I thought Health had too many patients as it is. Why do they need a recruitment drive?
Bernard:
He has a point Sir Humphrey.
Sir Humphrey:
No, he doesn’t Bernard. Minister, we can’t have one Department preventing another from doing its job. If the public thinks that the stuff being imported through Trade’s decisions is bad for them then they can use the democratic election processes available to them to point that out. Equally if the public believes that they are too unhealthy then they can also use the same election processes. It works perfectly.
Jim:
That’s ridiculous. Our policies need joining up in the middle.
Sir Humphrey:
Minister, do not make the mistake of confusing joining up with stitching up. One leads to governmental paralysis and the other leads to resignations. Neither is necessarily bad of course.
Jim:
What we need is a Ministry of Policy to check that we are coordinated.
Bernard:
That won’t do Minister. It’ll be known as MP and we won’t know if we mean the Department or the House members.
Jim:
Well, a Ministry for United Government then.
Sir Humphrey:
I think we have enough MUGs already.
Jim:
Humphrey, Bernard, let’s not bandy words. Do something about it will you? Get those academics in here for starters. If neither Domestic and Overseas Trade nor Health will talk to them, I will. As Minister for Administrative Affairs, I am going to make it my personal mission to prevent one Department from tripping up another.
Sir Humphrey & Bernard:
Yes Minister.
[Ends]
Published with kind permission from Jonathan Lynn and the Estate of Antony Jay and with grateful thanks to Alan Brodie Representation