Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)

I thank the noble Lord for those comments. He is welcoming the mission-led strategy with the milestones, and he is right to say that you have to measure them and look at what is behind them overall. He has a point about experience and longevity. The Prime Minister has been wise and has spoken about Ministers being in post for longer—I have some skin in the game here. We saw such a churn of Ministers under the last Government, and it gets very difficult for them to build expertise and relationships with civil servants and stakeholders, only to be moved on. I speak as a Minister who has served in a number of departments over the years, and the good sources of information are the civil servants who have been there a long time, as well as new civil servants—who bring fresh experience to you—and past Ministers in your role. All of us, at any stage in our careers—whether we are new to the job or have been in it a long time, and whether we are politicians or civil servants—need to find that way of learning from each other, building on the best and having respect for different perspectives. We expect civil servants to give that professional advice and guidance and to understand that we are politicians, who need clarity. I hope the milestones bring that clarity to the workings with the Civil Service as well, so that both politicians and civil servants have clarity about what they are doing. My own experience of civil servants over the years has been very positive. I have never known a civil servant to balk when I said that I wanted outside expertise; they have never had any issue with that, and in fact, they have welcomed it in many cases.