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Publication of a Select Committee Report

I am most interested that my hon. Friend should ask that question, because my Committee is considering the possibility of an inquiry into the impact on Departments of our relationship with the EU and looking for an academic who might support us in that work and help us to construct a cartography of the relationship between EU institutions and Whitehall Departments. The total number of Ministers has grown steadily since 1900. Our report examines whether revising the role of Ministers could provide a way of reducing their numbers. We took evidence from current and former Ministers, as well as from academics and senior civil servants, and we were left in no doubt that Ministers have a very heavy work load. Lord Smith of Finsbury, a former Culture Secretary, said that the amount of paperwork he had to contend with was ““plainly ludicrous”” and"““no way to run a life let alone a country””." It is less clear whether all that Ministers do has to be done by a Minister of the Crown. Chris Mullin, in his autobiography, noted his role as ““a glorified correspondence clerk”” and lamented:"““So much ministerial activity is entirely contrived and pointless.””"