John Major: The Autobiography - John Major

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the policy of every department. This is gruelling, but it offers an insight into Whitehall that is unavailable to any other minister. Years later, as prime minister, the bank of knowledge I built up as chief secretary was immensely useful in giving me an understanding of what lay behind ministerial proposals. I often found that the most important point of policy-making was not what was proposed, but why.

      Although my first few months as chief secretary were tough, I felt at home at the Treasury, and my two years in the job were amongst my most enjoyable in government. The amount of detail to be absorbed is formidable, but since I believe that every pound of taxpayers’ money which is spent has to be justified I did not mind that at all. I found that I was easily able to absorb and recall at will a huge amount of detail about public spending, which gave me a tremendous advantage in negotiations with ministers. Nor did I find it difficult to predict accurately how colleagues would couch their arguments: I simply put myself inside their minds and considered what I would do in their place. The volume of work meant that I did not contribute much to macro-economic policy-making, but since Nigel Lawson listened to others only as a prelude to announcing what he had intended to do anyway, this did not much matter. I had no ideological baggage on economic and financial policy, and I admired Nigel’s skills.

      Nigel carried the role of chancellor with great self-assurance. He had reached the peak of his authority in government, and no trace of self-doubt ever crossed his mind. He often worked in his study at Number 11 Downing Street rather than at the Treasury, summoning officials and ministers when he needed them. When he did appear at the Treasury it was often for large meetings of all his ministers and senior officials. These he conducted like a professorial seminar. Nigel would pronounce. Comment would be invited. Nigel would adjudicate. Policy was decided. Government was made to seem very simple.

      Nigel was supported by an impressive team of officials and ministers. Sir Peter Middleton, the Permanent Secretary, was a sharp Yorkshireman, level-headed and pugnacious to the extent of provoking an argument simply for the intellectual joy of having one. An intensely private man, he was a close friend of Nigel, and was very perceptive about events and people. Robin Butler, the Second Permanent Secretary in charge of public spending, had been Margaret Thatcher’s Principal Private Secretary at Number 10, and knew the Whitehall machine and all its ways. No one was surprised when he leapfrogged over more senior colleagues to become Secretary to the Cabinet and Head of the Civil Service. He was easy-going, helpful and efficient – and one of the most competitive men I have ever met, a fine sportsman who excelled at rugby and cricket. The third of the main figures was Terry Burns, the Economic Adviser. Tousle-haired, youthful, genial and without pomposity or malice, Terry was a man of passionate interests. Life was never boring to him, and he never seemed downcast (except momentarily when his beloved Queen’s Park Rangers were having a string of bad results). He had made his reputation as an economic forecaster for the London Business School.

      Amongst the other ministers at the department, I had an amiable but wary relationship with Norman Lamont, the Financial Secretary to the Treasury. The Financial Secretary is number three at the Treasury, and after the election Norman must have hoped for promotion to chief secretary. If my appointment was a setback to him, he gave no outward sign of it, although our conversations were usually guarded. We did not share cheery confidences. The erudite Peter Brooke was the minister of state responsible for VAT and Europe. I had first met him in my days as parliamentary candidate for St Pancras North, and he was always ready with a good-humoured story. The final Commons minister, the Economic Secretary, was Peter Lilley. Previously Nigel’s PPS, Peter was rather shy and withdrawn for a politician, but was highly intelligent, with a fine analytical mind, and sometimes surprisingly waspish. It was a talented team, all of whom were to reach the Cabinet. In the Lords, the able Simon Glenarthur had the difficult task, which he performed admirably, of speaking for all Treasury ministers. I often wished that he too had been in the Commons to supplement the talent available there.

      In early September I began the detailed bilateral discussions with ministerial colleagues. The toughest negotiator of them all was Peter Walker, the Secretary of State for Wales. Peter believed in the virtues of public spending, and was determined to use it to the full in the Principality. His general air was of a man who did not care whether he remained in the Cabinet or not, and was not remotely interested in being a team player if that meant making concessions to an economic policy he distrusted.

      As a negotiating tactic this was devastating. Peter simply asserted that his bids were the minimum necessary; he could not manage with less; the Prime Minister had promised him the money when she gave him a job he had not asked for; he did not much like the Treasury, because it got in the way of good policy; and so, like it or lump it, he expected us to cough up. Since (apart from his opinion of the Treasury) much of this was true, there was not much that could be done with Peter. It was perhaps fortunate for me that most of the Welsh budget was a fixed proportion of the sums available to English departments for the same responsibilities. Peter’s bids, therefore, were only for small amounts – which made his approach even more infuriating, since in the midst of discussions for much larger sums, they were not worth the argument. He knew this, and his stubbornness was a deliberate tactic. His approach to the Treasury was best summed up by an annotation in my appointments diary which simply read: ‘3.30 Public Expenditure Settlement – Wales (Secretary of State, Dick Turpin).’ Highway robbery was his forte.

      Kenneth Baker, the Education Secretary, was the polar opposite of Peter. He would bound in full of enthusiasm, with lots of new ideas, all of which, he assured me, would be hugely popular with the electorate and would guarantee yet another election victory. Ken cared a lot about education, and in Cabinet committees he handled the Prime Minister on the subject better than anyone else I ever saw. As a former Education minister herself, she enjoyed picking holes in his plans, particularly when he was devising changes to the curriculum. It was a game they both enjoyed. ‘That’s absurd,’ she would say. ‘I know which official suggested that.’ Ken would demur, deny that it was that official, make a joke of it, deflect her criticism, and gradually manoeuvre the Prime Minister into a position where he made tiny concessions to her, and she would have appeared graceless to seek more.

      It was good spectator sport for the rest of the committee, and I admired the way he performed, but his technique was less effective where the issue was money and not ideas. When detailed questions on cost were put to Ken, he was often poorly briefed. His spending plans were grossly inflated, and it never took long to remove the padding. At the end of our negotiations Ken bounded out as cheerfully as he had come in, but with much less money than he had sought.

      Kenneth Clarke, the Health Secretary, simply enjoyed a good argument. It was evident to me why Ken had chosen the law and then politics as a profession. Our meetings always took a long time as we argued points of detail, agreeing the facts but disagreeing about the conclusion. It was good-natured but very time-consuming. Eventually, when we had reached stalemate, I suggested we throw the officials out and do a deal between ourselves. Behind closed doors I told Ken that his bids were outrageous. Rather disarmingly he agreed, but added that if he had frankly admitted it, I would have asked for even more reductions. This, of course, was true. Having agreed that he was asking for too much and I was offering too little, we soon reached an acceptable compromise. We then sat chatting over a drink before re-admitting the officials and announcing the outcome.

      The Home Secretary Douglas Hurd was a subtle negotiator who began his meeting with a rather discursive statement setting out all the desirable expenditure he had himself excluded from the bids before he submitted them. ‘All very necessary,’ he would say, ‘and we’ll have to do it one day, but’ – and here he would shake his head sadly – ‘I know there are many demands to be met.’ It was a clever technique, designed to cut off many of the Treasury’s traditional arguments. Douglas was reasonable in manner but tough on substance. He would lean back in his chair, his right ankle across his left knee and an agonised expression on his face if any reduction to his bids was suggested. All this talk of money was obviously distasteful to him. If the Treasury case was good enough he would gradually concede, but eventually he would begin jingling a large bunch of keys in an agitated fashion. The key-jingling was a sign that he had reached his bottom line. Jill Rutter once said to me that Douglas and I would never have finished a negotiation if he had left his keys at home.

      The

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