8 June 2001
The Prime Minister has made a number of major changes to the machinery of government. Taken together, they will ensure a much sharper focus on the Government’s priorities and the need to deliver better public services.
An Office of the Deputy Prime Minister will be established in the Cabinet Office. The Deputy Prime Minister will chair a number of key Cabinet Committees. He will act with the full authority of the Prime Minister in overseeing the delivery of the manifesto pledges, as well as dealing with important cross-departmental issues, including social exclusion. The Regional Co-ordination Unit, the Government Offices in the Regions, along with the Social Exclusion Unit, will report to the Deputy Prime Minister in the Cabinet Office. He will also represent the UK on the British Irish Council and retain a leading role in international climate change negotiations.
A new Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs will spearhead a major new drive on green issues and the countryside. In addition to taking over responsibility for agriculture, the food industry and fisheries from MAFF, it will take on the environment, rural development, countryside, wildlife and sustainable development responsibilities of the former Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions (DETR). It will sponsor the Environment Agency, the Countryside Agency and English Nature. It will also take on responsibility for animal welfare and hunting from the Home Office.
A new Department for Transport, Local Government and the Regions will give a much sharper focus to the old DETR’s responsibilities for transport, as well as local government, housing, planning, regeneration, urban and regional policy. It will take over responsibility for the fire service and electoral law from the Home Office.
The Department of Trade and Industry will take over the Regional Development Agencies where they will sit alongside that Department’s regional economic responsibilities. The DTI will also assume sponsorship of the construction industry which has hitherto rested with the DETR. The shared responsibility of the DTI and FCO for British Trade International will be reinforced by the appointment of a single Minister of State with lead responsibility for its work, holding office in both departments.
The Home Office will be streamlined, losing a number of functions which are not central to its work, to allow it to focus on tackling crime, reform of the criminal justice system and asylum. As part of this, the UK Anti-Drugs Co-ordination Unit will transfer into the Home Office from the Cabinet Office.
As part of this streamlining the Lord Chancellor’s Department will take over from the Home Office its wider constitutional responsibilities including Freedom of Information, Data Protection and Human Rights. The Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) will similarly take on from the Home Office responsibility for gambling, licensing, censorship and video classification, horseracing, and planning for the Golden Jubilee. The Department of Trade and Industry will take over the Home Office’s responsibilities for summertime and Sunday trading.
A new Department for Work and Pensions will continue the reform of the welfare state. It will bring together the previous Department of Social Security and the Employment Service to enable the Working Age Agency (now Jobcentre Plus) to be established with a single and clear line of Ministerial accountability. The Department will combine the employment and disability responsibilities of the former DfEE with the welfare and pensions responsibilities of the DSS.
The new Department for Education and Skills will focus on raising standards in education further. Primary school standards improved in the last Parliament. There will now be a clear focus on improving standards in secondary education. The new Department will seek to get more students into higher education and to improve work-based training and lifelong learning.
The Ministry of Defence will take on responsibility for the Security Services Group from the Cabinet Office and the War Pensions Agency from the former Department of Social Security.
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