Lift-off from Heathrow is a flight of fancy
Tim Yeo’s intervention strengthens the calls for stricter curbs on select committee chairmen
The ruckus over calls for a third runway at Heathrow has been greeted with disbelief in Whitehall. Tory backbencher Tim Yeo has challenged David Cameron to prove that he is a man, not a mouse, by reneging on his election pledge and ordering an expansion at the airport.
The scepticism among the mandarins starts with Mr Yeo’s timing. Asked how long it would take to build a third runway, one Transport Department insider said: “You might have to have a planning inquiry, possibly a judicial review… you’d have to demolish the houses… I’d say 10 years. It definitely wouldn’t kickstart the economy now.”
Ironically, Mr Yeo’s outburst has strengthened the position of Transport Secretary Justine Greening – popular with officials – who is against a third runway. To sack her now would indeed make Mr Cameron look like a mouse. Not that he would want to risk all those Tory seats near Heathrow, many of them vulnerable to the Lib Dems. He will come out of the row looking manly and Miss Greening’s job looks safe. But what of Mr Yeo, who is chairman of the Commons select committee on energy and climate change?
His position looks much more questionable. The Commons’ register of members’ interests shows he earns more than £160,000 a year in addition to his MPs’ salary – plus extra for being a select committee chairman. Some £40,000 of this comes from AFC Energy, and a further £60,000 from TMO Renewables, a biofuels company that has just signed a memorandum of understanding with China. One of Mr Yeo’s arguments for a third runway is… to boost trade with China. Perfectly fair argument, but it might raise questions about Mr Yeo’s motives.
Besides, UK businessmen can easily fly to China from other airports. Stansted, for example, if it were expanded. Except Mr Yeo is against that. Also for perfectly understandable reasons: his constituency of Suffolk South is about 20 miles from Stansted.
Some Tories are speculating that No 10 was worried about Mr Yeo’s outside interests and that his challenge was meant as a “get your tanks off my lawn” warning. Whether true or not, perhaps the time has come to apply much stricter rules to select committee chairmen when it comes to potential conflicts with their outside interests. Maybe they should be subject to similar rules to ministers, giving up outside jobs in the fields their committees cover. There is enough controversy about expanding various airports round London – or not – without muddying the waters over people’s motives.
---------------
HM Treasury is incorrigible. As George Osborne, the Chancellor, said at a grand City of London anniversary dinner in the Guildhall earlier this summer: “It is entirely typical that when the Treasury decides to throw a party, we get someone else to pay for it.”
The party, so generously hosted by the City, was to celebrate the 400th anniversary of the creation of the Board of the Treasury. No, this has nothing to do with the Coalition’s new departmental boards. The Treasury Board is made up of the First Lord of the Treasury – the Prime Minister – the Second Lord – the Chancellor – and senior government whips who are officially Lords Commissioners to the Treasury.
It was started by James I in 1612 after the death of Robert Cecil, who had carried out the duties of Lord Treasurer alone. “All Treasurers if they do good service to their masters must be generally hated,” remarked James, and in an effort perhaps to spread the hate around, replaced Cecil with a five-strong Treasury Board. Charles II reckoned those on the Board should be “rough, ill-natured men, not to be moved with civilities or importunities in the payment of money”.
The Board is now defunct to all intents and purposes. Some of the fine silver commissioned for the Treasury in the 17th century was used at this year’s Guildhall dinner. As Mr Osborne said: “One of the few bits of precious metal that my department hasn’t sold off since.” All surviving chancellors and Treasury permanent secretaries were invited and the guests included Sir John Major, Lord Lawson, Lord Howe, Alistair Darling and Sir Nicholas Macpherson, the present Treasury Permanent Secretary.
Mr Osborne said the Treasury Board had been created “to bring discipline and control to the public finances”, adding: “At the time the European economy was weak, the Kingdom of Spain was burdened with debt and the excesses of the popular news sheets were giving the government a headache… Thankfully, Lord Mayor, we have no such concerns today.”
Sadly, former chancellor Denis Healey was too frail to attend the dinner. Oh – and there was one other absentee: former chancellor and prime minister Gordon Brown. “He just said no,” said one former Treasury luminary. “He’s an odd b-----, you know.” Indeed.
---------------
The last time the Board met was in 1983 when Sir Douglas Wass – present at the latest dinner – retired as top civil servant at the Treasury. According to the minutes of the 1983 Board meeting: “The proceedings ran smoothly; all the Treasury silver has been returned despite the Prime Minister’s determination, before the intervention of a Treasury security guard, to carry off two candlesticks.”
As Mr Osborne noted, it was one of the few occasions when Margaret Thatcher was foiled by No 11.
Posts
