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Former ministers recognise the importance of staying in one job

New Ministers Reflect interviews with some of the longest-serving ministers of recent years show that the PM should make sure he values experience

New Ministers Reflect interviews with some of the longest-serving ministers of recent years show that the PM should make sure he values experience – and keep ministers in the job long enough to develop it, says Tim Durrant.

The latest interviewees for our Ministers Reflect project – James Brokenshire, Chris Grayling, Jeremy Hunt and David Lidington – served in government continuously from May 2010 to July 2019. Of their many reflections on a tumultuous time in British politics, a consistent theme is the value of longevity in ministerial careers. Ahead of Boris Johnson’s first major reshuffle as prime minister, it is a reminder that keeping people in post can be a more helpful approach to government than frequent reshuffles.

On the other hand, however, keeping an under-performing minister in post for too long can be less helpful than a timely reshuffle.

Ministers value staying in post and getting to understand their department

James Brokenshire held three roles in six years at the Home Office, eventually becoming minister for both immigration and security: "about two-thirds of the department". The security brief had already required "a sharp learning curve" before Brokenshire took on responsibility for immigration in 2014. The pressure was on, with Oliver Letwin telling him: "You do know, James, that if we screw this up, this will cost us the election." Longevity helped. Brokenshire felt able to "really get underneath the bonnet" in the department.

David Lidington was minister for Europe from 2010 to the 2016 referendum. He was there for Theresa May’s negotiations as home secretary on the EU’s criminal justice network ("a pretty good outcome overall"), David Cameron’s 2015–16 renegotiation of the terms of the UK’s EU membership ("David was hung up on the net migration target"), and the 2016 referendum ("I was not exactly celebrating when I was told that Cameron had decided on a referendum"). In contrast, he spent just six months as justice secretary, and when May appointed him as her de facto deputy, Lidington felt he had only just got on top of the issues and begun to understand “which people I need to listen to and which I don’t have to worry so much about".

Jeremy Hunt, the longest-serving health secretary ever, took time to decide priorities: general practice, mental health, technology and patient safety (driven by the Mid Staffs crisis). He started "thinking very hard about how you create a more open, transparent culture where people are comfortable admitting mistakes" – and he acknowledges that he made some himself: "with the benefit of hindsight… my communication with junior doctors could have been better".

Long-serving ministers also amass crucial understanding of how to work the machine

Lidington contrasted his own longevity in post with the problems caused by high civil service turnover and poor institutional memory: "I had done longer in post than any of the officials or ambassadors who were working to me". Brokenshire remembered something similar. Towards the end of his time at the department, he would be able to tell civil servants: "well, we did try that a few years ago and it didn't work".

Ministers also build up an understanding of the nuances of government. When May gave Lidington power but not the formal title of first secretary of state or deputy PM, he had to rely on his experience. "I’m not someone who gets hung up about titles, but it was a hindrance, particularly at the start, because the lines weren’t absolutely clear," he recalls. “As time went on, people could see that actually they needed me to fix things and I could broker deals and I was chairing all these committees, and actually you could work at it and you could, in effect, exercise the role."  

There can be benefits to moving ministers, but their successors have to deal with the consequences

All ministers have a sell-by date. This can be set by their colleagues, the public or the media. Chris Grayling was one of the most durable ministers of the last decade, and served around three years in the posts of justice and transport secretary. In both roles, he found himself under fire for a range of policy failures, but insists that he didn’t have enough time in either post: "You might think two years and nine months was more than enough to deliver reforms, and in most worlds it would be. But the public sector moves pretty slowly and there’s huge amounts of process involved."

Grayling argues that a longer stint as justice secretary would have allowed him to pick up on some of the problems in the transforming rehabilitation programme, while the role of transport secretary saw him dealing with a situation that "wasn’t of my making" such as the "completely infuriating" East Coast mainline contract. He thinks ministers shouldn’t be held responsible for the running of the railways, but accepts that "ministers are blamed for things that are completely out of their control because they sit on the top of the pyramid".

Whoever is to blame for a policy failure, a new minister must deal with the fall out. When Lidington arrived at the Ministry of Justice, he inherited "a breakdown between Liz Truss as lord chancellor and the senior judiciary... resetting that was a priority". Six months later, Lidington was gone.

There are undoubtedly times when moving a minister is the right thing to do. But their successor will always need time to get up to speed. Given the size of the PM’s to-do list, he should encourage them to learn from the experience of previous ministers and allow his team govern for the long haul. 

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