Conservative peer Lord Bailey has said he believes the country could get to a point where the public feel it is them against the Civil Service after ONS staff voted to strike.
Speaking to GB News, he said: “I think there are three things to be said about the Civil Service. Firstly, they’re not all bad, but some of them are very, very bad, and it seems like the very, very bad ones are in the ascendancy and have the voice.
“More importantly, though, it’s just unfair. We are setting up a society where if you are a working man or woman; you’re a bus driver, you work at a nursery, you’re a plumber or whatever, you have to come to work, bearing in mind, you are paying the bills of these people who don’t have to come to work, who’ll have a considerably better pension than you and probably earn more than you.
“I’m not accusing the Civil Service of earning too much money, some do, most don’t, But the most important thing is they’re going to get to a point where it’s a public versus a Civil Service, and they will lose.
“If a politician leaks, yes, it’s out of order, but they’re politicians. The Civil Service has a code, and as a politician, as a minister, you can’t run this country unless you could have a conversation in front of civil service that isn’t going to appear in the newspaper.
“And also they then open themselves up to the very real criticism that they’re a campaigning organisation. And I really do think the Civil Service needs to get hold of the people who are dragging it into disrepute, because they’ll all suffer.
“The day they have to confront the public a politician will say, ‘I’ll get rid of the Civil Service’ or ‘I’ll change it radically’, and that politician will get in and do that.
“Much of what the Civil Service does is very, very important, and they’re able to hide behind that.
“But you look at the councils across this country, a different version of civil service. They are suffering, they are penniless. And it is indefensible to have all these jollies and do all these extracurricular activities that lower your productivity when that money could go directly to councils.
“These are front line services. Let’s take some of this waste from the civil service and give it to councils.”
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