Oral Answers to Questions

Lord Maude of Horsham Excerpts

Wednesday 19th November 2014 Commons Chamber

[Sheryll Murray (South East Cornwall) (Con)]

1. What recent progress the Government Digital Service has made on moving public services online.

[The Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General (Mr Francis Maude)]

We have designed and created the award-winning and world-leading gov.uk, the central web domain for Government information. We are redesigning 25 major Government services to make them simpler, clearer and faster to use. That will not only provide savings to the taxpayer, but improve delivery for the public, focused on user need, not Government convenience.

[Sheryll Murray]

What steps is my right hon. Friend taking to make sure that individuals who are not digitised, many of whom live in rural constituencies such as mine, are not disadvantaged if they cannot access digitised public services or can do so only at low speeds?

[Mr Maude]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. When, on the recommendation of Baroness Lane-Fox, we adopted the digital-by-default approach—if it can be done online, it should be done only online—we stressed that there must be an assisted digital alternative for those who are not online, and we will ensure that that is the case.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

May I congratulate the Minister on much of the innovative work he has done in the digital area, thanks to Martha Lane Fox, the Cross-Bench Member of the House of Lords? Will he, however, take on board the fact that older people in this country find it very difficult to make the transition from the traditional to a digital way of communicating with the Government?

[Mr Maude]

I am very grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his compliment. We are trying to make a lot of progress, and the British Government are now regarded as world leading, after having been, frankly, a byword for failure in Government IT. Other Governments are now using the source code for gov.uk, and imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. Baroness Lane-Fox leads the Go ON UK charity, which is dedicated to getting more people online, which is the key purpose. When we provide the assisted digital option, we ideally want to frame contracts so that they incentivise the provider not just to provide a service, but to use it to help individuals to get online so that their lives are enriched more widely.

[Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire) (Con)]

In answer to the very good question from my hon. Friend the Member for South East Cornwall (Sheryll Murray), the Minister responded that those, like many in my constituency, who have no access to computers and are not online will be given something called an “assisted digital alternative”. Will he perhaps tell us what that is?

[Mr Maude]

It can take many forms, but the point is that the service is provided or the transaction is conducted digitally—it is conducted online—although not necessarily by the citizen themselves. For example, it could be done in a library, where someone sits alongside the citizen to help them to input data or conduct the transaction, or it could be done on the telephone, with someone on the other end to put data into the web service. There are a lot of different ways of providing it, and they will be fashioned around the needs of the user, not the convenience of the Government.

[Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab)]

In the spring, the Minister announced his digital inclusion strategy to exclude 5 million people. In the summer, he told pensioners to get online or lose access to Government services. In the autumn, farmers found that they needed a credit reference from Experian to apply for common agricultural policy grants. The list of people he is excluding grows day by day. Next week, a report for the Labour party will highlight the impact of his policies on the most vulnerable, and how a Labour Government will change that. How many more people does he intend to exclude from public services before he is voted out of office?

[Mr Maude]

I invite the hon. Lady to dream on, on that front. Her party is ill-equipped to criticise us. The last Labour Government’s definition of an online service was enabling people to download a form from the web, print it off, fill it in by hand and send it off by post. They regarded that as an online transaction—they were not quite in the modern world. We are glad that she is catching up, but she still has a long way to go.

[Mr Henry Bellingham (North West Norfolk) (Con)]

2. When he next plans to meet the Charity Commission to discuss the operation of legislation relating to charities.

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[Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South East) (Lab)]

4. What recent steps he has taken to address barriers to small and medium-sized enterprises participating in Government procurement.

[The Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General (Mr Francis Maude)]

Central Government spend with SMEs increased from £3 billion in 2009-10 to £4.5 billion in 2012-13. They benefited from a further £4 billion in indirect spend through the supply chain, so we are on track to deliver our ambition that 25% of Government’s direct and indirect spend should be with SMEs. In addition, we are implementing further changes to procurement rules that will benefit small businesses.

[Yasmin Qureshi]

The majority of local authorities are still not using the Government’s Contracts Finder, resulting in local SMEs losing out on opportunities. What are Ministers doing to ensure that more local authorities submit their procurement opportunities to the website?

[Mr Maude]

I draw the hon. Lady’s attention to the fact that a new and greatly improved version of Contracts Finder will be launched early in the new year. It is a massive opportunity for local authorities to procure better and cheaper, but also to be able to support local businesses. There are now more than 1,000 suppliers on our G-Cloud framework, 87% of which are SMEs, a number of them based in Bolton. They are all now able to provide services directly to public sector purchasers, which helps growth and jobs as well as providing better value for the taxpayer.

[Charlie Elphicke (Dover) (Con)]

What is being done to encourage innovative SMEs to get in on public procurement, and will the Minister update the House on the effectiveness of the mystery shopper tool?

[Mr Maude]

We have enabled suppliers who suspect that a procurement is being done in the old-fashioned way that we inherited to raise it directly with my officials in the Cabinet Office, who can then intervene with the public sector procurer-commissioner to ensure that it is done in the modern way, which does not exclude small businesses from supplying to government in the way that was routinely the case in the past. We have made a huge amount of progress, but we still have a long way to go.

[Ann McKechin (Glasgow North) (Lab)]

5. What his policy is on the deduction of trade union subscriptions from payroll in the civil service.

[The Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General (Mr Francis Maude)]

The policy is delegated to individual Departments.

[Ann McKechin]

I am interested in the Minister’s response because I understand that the Chief Secretary to the Treasury has been writing e-mails and letters to other Secretaries of State, asking them not to write off. Will the Minister confirm whether that is correct, and will he make clear all correspondence between him and other Liberal Democrat Ministers concerning their opposition to this Tory attack plan on worker representation?

[Mr Maude]

I can do no better than quote a member of the Public and Commercial Services Union—she is just identified as June—who said that direct debit is

“the easiest way of paying my union subs. You know then that it’s going to get paid because you’re not dependent on your employer taking it from your wages. I think it’s better.”

I agree with June.

[Andrew Jones (Harrogate and Knaresborough) (Con)]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that the relationship between trade unions and their members ought to be direct and not intermediated by the civil service?

[Mr Maude]

As the PCS said in the document from which I quoted, check-off is an archaic way of operating that pre-dates the existence of bank accounts and direct debits. Most civil service unions use direct debits, not check-off, because they think that is the modern, direct way for an organisation to have a relationship with its members.

[Helen Jones (Warrington North) (Lab)]

The Department for Work and Pensions estimated that the cost of ending check-off across Departments was £1 million. The Minister denies that, so will he tell the House exactly how much it will cost to implement what is a political attack by the Conservative party, rather than a policy worthy of Government?

[Mr Maude]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for raising that point and she is completely correct to say that an official produced the figure of £1 million. However, when asked for the workings and calculations that underpinned that number they were unable to produce them, and it turned out to be a completely fictional number. The correct calculation of the cost is more likely to be a negative number and a saving to the taxpayer, as well as being a measure that enables the PCS to do what its members now prefer and have a direct relationship with them.

[Jonathan Ashworth (Leicester South) (Lab)]

The Paymaster General has reiterated his support for getting rid of check-off, even though the Chief Secretary to the Treasury has written to Departments saying that there could be legal costs associated with that. A leaked HMRC memo talks about marginalising the unions, which could lead to industrial action among civil service unions. Does that show that Ministers are playing irresponsible party politics with the trade unions, and that the right hon. Gentleman should abandon his plans to get rid of check-off?

[Mr Maude]

It is always reassuring to find that the old truths turn out to be enduring and that Labour speaks for its paymasters, the trade unions.

[Mr Brian H. Donohoe (Central Ayrshire) (Lab)]

T1. If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.

[The Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General (Mr Francis Maude)]

My responsibilities are for efficiency and reform, civil service issues, public sector industrial relation strategy, Government transparency, civil contingencies, civil society and cyber-security.

[Mr Donohoe]

The right hon. Gentleman is also responsible for the list of Ministers’ interests, and it is some time since that was done—I wonder when it will be. I am interested to know whether his right hon. Friend the Prime Minister is still a honorary member of the Irvine Burns club, and whether the Minister still lists the Blind Trust as part of his financial interests, and whether we can see where we are going on this subject.

[Mr Maude]

I have no idea what that was all about, but I am sure it can be pursued through different channels.

[Jeremy Lefroy (Stafford) (Con)]

T3. My constituents Callum Brogan and Parvathi Thara have been selected as National Citizen Service leaders for 2014-15, and have told me how much the NCS means to them. Will my hon. Friend tell me his future plans for the NCS?

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[Lucy Powell (Manchester Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is good to see the Deputy Prime Minister this morning talking up family-friendly working, but what is the right hon. Gentleman doing to ensure best practice on family friendly across the civil service, in particular on access to high-quality and high-level part-time and flexible opportunities? Is it not about time that the Government showed leadership, instead of lecturing others on what they are not doing?

[Mr Maude]

I warmly welcome the hon. Lady to her post. I have slightly lost count, but on my reckoning she is the fifth incumbent of the shadow post and I am sure the best. I look forward to a warm relationship with her over the coming period.

On the hon. Lady’s valid point about the need for the Government to exercise leadership in providing family-friendly opportunities for flexible working, I very much agree that we should do that, and we are already doing that. We are providing more opportunities and we think there are significant productivity improvements in enabling people to work more flexibly. However, it is always to be stressed that it is not an entitlement; it has to be according to the needs of the business.

[Neil Carmichael (Stroud) (Con)]

T5. What assessment has the Minister made of Labour’s proposals for a mansion tax on legacy giving, which is so appreciated by our charities?

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[Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)]

T2. Several Ministers, including, it has to be said, the Prime Minister, fail to handle data with a certain amount of precision. Indeed, two weeks ago the Prime Minister told the House that there were 1,000 extra GPs when in actual fact there are 36 fewer. Will the Minister, who is responsible for consistency and co-ordination across government, clamp down on these bad practices and perhaps help the Prime Minister to correct the record today?

[Mr Maude]

We are really not going to take any lectures on this kind of thing from the party that brought the whole idea of fiction writing into dispute during its time in office.

[Stephen Metcalfe (South Basildon and East Thurrock) (Con)]

T8. Like the Minister I, too, have seen at first hand the benefits of the National Citizen Service and believe that every young person would benefit from taking part in the programme. Will he tell the House how he intends to increase both participation and the availability of the programme across the whole UK?

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[Andrew Percy (Brigg and Goole) (Con)]

I have previously praised the important role parish councillors play during national emergencies, as they did in my constituency during the flooding last year, but the picture nationally remains patchy in terms of parish councils with emergency plans in place. May I urge the Minister, ahead of this winter, to push again to ensure that parish councils take up their responsibility for emergency planning?

[Mr Maude]

My hon. Friend, who works hard in this area, makes a valid point, and I will ensure it is taken onboard and acted on.

The Prime Minister was asked—

Ministerial Responsibilities

Lord Maude of Horsham Excerpts

Tuesday 18th November 2014 Written Statements

[The Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General (Mr Francis Maude)]

The new “List of Ministerial Responsibilities” has been published today. Copies have been placed in the Vote Office and the Libraries of both Houses. Copies will also be sent to each hon. Member’s office in this House.

The list can also be accessed on the Cabinet Office website at:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/government-ministers-and-responsibilities

Public Bodies Reform Programme

Lord Maude of Horsham Excerpts

Monday 10th November 2014 Written Statements

[The Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General (Mr Francis Maude)]

In May 2010, the Government committed to review public bodies, with the aim of increasing accountability for actions carried out on behalf of the state. Nearly four years on, I am pleased that the public bodies reform programme has made excellent progress in the biggest reform of the public bodies in a generation. Earlier this year the National Audit Office commended this progress and

“major simplification of the public bodies landscape”.

Today I am placing in the Library of the House an update setting out progress. It is the first comprehensive update since the Public Bodies Act received Royal Assent in 2011. The achievement now stands at over 95% of planned abolitions and mergers completed.

The public bodies reform programmes’ successes include:

Reducing the number of public bodies by over 285—by abolishing more than 185 and merging over 165 bodies into fewer than 70.

Improved accountability through bringing the functions of over 75 bodies closer to democratically elected representatives.

Increased funding from alternative sources and volunteering by moving some organisations outside the public sector under innovative delivery models.

Achieving cumulative administrative spend reductions as at March 2014 of £2.0 billion since 2010.

The programme is now on track to exceed cumulative spend reductions of £2.6 billion by the end of March 2015.

Full details of the reforms are available at https://www. gov.uk/public-bodies-reform.

Today the Cabinet Office is publishing “Public Bodies 2014”—detailing the broad range of public bodies sponsored by the UK Government.

The “Public Bodies” annual report was first published by the Cabinet Office in 1980. Initially it reported on the size, expenditure and membership of non-departmental public bodies (NDPBs), but since 2010 it has been expanded. Today it is a single transparent source of top-level data on all NDPBs, Executive agencies and non-ministerial departments. “Public Bodies 2014” also contains an annual update of the progress in rationalising the public bodies landscape, the savings made and the legacy delivered by the work on the sponsorship and triennial review programme, which will continue reform.

“Public Bodies 2014” will be an online publication, available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/ public-bodies-2014, and the data set will be updated quarterly where applicable.

Continuing reform

We have delivered our promise. The landscape is now smaller, more accountable and efficient, with reduced administrative costs, ensuring better value for money to the public. This remarkable achievement is thanks in no small part to the committed public servants who have embraced the spirit of reform. We will continue to work in partnership with the chairs and chief executives of public bodies to build on these achievements, and improve accountability, embracing innovation and, most importantly of all, raising the quality of services. This is efficiency and reform at its best—not just cutting costs, but actually finding new and better ways of providing services that people can rely on.

Triennial reviews provide regular, rigorous review of the form and function of public bodies to guarantee that NDPBs exist for a clear purpose, deliver the services their users want, maximise value for money for the taxpayer and do not outlive their useful purpose. The Cabinet Office and Departments have worked together to apply lessons from the first phase of the triennial review programme, firmly embed good practice for the next phase and build the civil service’s capacity for good governance of the landscape of arm’s length bodies.

To ensure that Departments improve the way they sponsor public bodies in the long term a sponsorship specialism has been established this year for over 500 officials across Government. Independent analysis of the public bodies reform programme undertaken by academic experts at the universities of Birmingham and Sheffield demonstrate that a step change has been achieved in Government capacity to undertake public bodies’ sponsorship, but we will continue to work to improve this.

We are also pressing forward with a review of the classification system for public bodies in order to ensure that it is fit for purpose.

The Osmotherly Rules

Lord Maude of Horsham Excerpts

Friday 17th October 2014 Written Statements

[The Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General (Mr Francis Maude)]

On 2 October 2014 the Prime Minister announced that John Manzoni had been appointed to the new position of Chief Executive of the Civil Service. Details of that announcement can be found on gov.uk: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/chief-executive-for-civil-service-appointed

The Government have also published the latest progress report on Civil Service reform. This report can also be found on gov.uk: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/civil-service-reform-plan-progress-report

Our Civil Service Reform Plan committed to reviewing the Osmotherly Rules—the guidance to departments governing the nature of Ministers “and civil servants” interactions with Select Committees. Following consultation with the Liaison Committee I will today publish updated guidance on gov.uk. This restates the primacy of the principle of ministerial accountability but confirms that the Senior Responsible Owners (SROs) of the Government’s major projects (as defined by the Major Project Authority’s Portfolio) will now be directly accountable to Parliament for the implementation of their project. We also confirm that former Accounting Officers can be called to give evidence about their previous responsibilities within a reasonable time period. We will publish a list of SROs in due course and update it periodically.

The updated guidance is available at:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/departmental-evidence-and-response-to-select-committees-guidance

Industrial Action Update

Lord Maude of Horsham Excerpts

Thursday 10th July 2014 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General (Mr Francis Maude)]

With permission, Mr Deputy Speaker, I would like to update the House on today’s industrial action called by some public sector unions.

I start by thanking the large majority of public servants who have turned up for work today as normal. This reflects their dedication to their public service calling.

This is the fourth one-day public sector strike in the past few years. The proportion of public sector workers going on strike has fallen on each occasion. So far as the civil service is concerned, it has fallen from 32% in November 2011 to 23% in May 2012 and 21% in March 2013, and today it has fallen below 20%. Every jobcentre opened this morning. Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs has seen a surge in the use of digital services, which helps the drive towards greater efficiency and more convenience for taxpayers. I am told there have been no major issues at the borders. The majority of schools have remained open.

The Government have put in place contingency measures to minimise the impact of strike action, but where there is disruption the responsibility lies unequivocally with union leaders.

When unions go on strike, it is hard-working people who suffer the consequences most, including vulnerable people who depend on public services and parents who are forced to take a day off work or arrange child care because their local school is closed. These strikes risk damaging those who are working hard to get this country moving again.

There can be no escape from the realities of our economic situation. We are still dealing with the damage left by the great recession. As part of their long-term economic plan, the Government have taken tough decisions to reduce the budget deficit—which I remind the House was the biggest in the developed world. This includes pay restraint while protecting those earning under £21,000. By reforming public sector pensions in the way we have done, we have ensured that they remain among the very best available, while making them affordable and sustainable into the future.

We cannot afford to go backwards. It is only by taking difficult decisions in the long-term interests of the country that we can deliver the economic growth that we need if we want to carry on investing in our public services, our schools and hospitals and the dedicated staff who work in them.

Trade unions can, of course, play a constructive role in the modern workplace. That is why the Government will continue to talk with the unions and listen to their concerns.

The right to strike is an important freedom under the law, but it must be exercised responsibly. Only one in five of eligible members of Unite and Unison took part in these recent ballots, meaning the strikes were approved by only a fraction of the unions’ eligible members.

The National Union of Teachers—the only teaching union calling a strike today— has not even balloted its members. Instead, it relies on a ballot from back in 2012—nearly two years ago. This cannot be right. The more often unions call strikes based on outdated mandates and ballots with pitifully low levels of support, the stronger the case becomes for reform of the law.

Growth is returning to the British economy, but we have a responsibility to ensure that the economy that emerges from the great recession is strong and sustainable. We must never again allow Britain’s public finances to fall so catastrophically into deficit.

I commend this statement to the House.

[Michael Dugher (Barnsley East) (Lab)]

May I begin by thanking the Minister for advance sight of his statement in the nick of time?

Let us be clear: we on these Benches have said repeatedly that no one wants to see strikes, not least because of the impact they have on children, parents and all of us who rely on our vital local public services.

The Minister is right to say that it is hard-working people who suffer the consequences most, but should not the Government bear much of the blame for the situation today? Instead of ramping up the rhetoric, the Government should have been getting people around the table. Strikes represent a failure on all sides, and all sides have a responsibility to prevent strikes from taking place.

Will the Minister outline exactly what specific talks he has he had with the unions to prevent today’s strike action? What has he done specifically to encourage both sides to get around the table and prevent this industrial action? When was the last time he discussed the issue with the trade unions in his own Department and those more widely engaged in the public sector? What are the Government going to do to change their approach to prevent future strikes from happening in the future?

Instead of a negotiated settlement being sought, have we not had yet another depressing demonstration of a Cabinet full of millionaires demonising the lowest paid workers in society? In local government, nearly 500,000 workers are paid less than the living wage.

When the Minister mentioned outdated mandates and ballots with pitifully low support, I thought he was referring to the police and crime commissioner elections introduced by the Government. I remind him that the trade union legislation we have today was introduced by Margaret Thatcher, who was not known for her warmth towards the trade unions. We await any details of the Minister’s proposals—there was none in the statement.

It is important to recognise that, if we look at the total number of all those eligible to vote in the Minister’s own Horsham constituency, where he enjoys a comfortable majority, we will see that he secured only 38% of support at the last general election. No one would question his legitimacy—or, indeed, that of any Member—to be a Member of this House. Members of this House are in no position to lecture the unions about legitimacy. At the last general election—an election the Conservatives failed to win, by the way—the Conservative party secured only 36% of the popular vote, but here it is, four years later, still in office, so it is a bit rich for Ministers to be lecturing anyone else about legitimacy.

This week we have seen the ongoing, unedifying spectacle of the Minister rowing in public once again with his own civil service. He is like a man trying to fight everyone in the pub at the same time. When the country needs to see a negotiated settlement, what have we got? We have ministerial belligerence revelling in confrontation, where strike action by the unions is almost a public policy success for a Government desperate for a fight. It is sabre rattling, it is union bashing and it is playing politics. It is a deliberate distraction and, frankly, it is pathetic.

We are all desperate to see the Government getting all sides around the table to reach a negotiated settlement so that teachers can get back to teaching and vital local government workers can get back to work. The truth is that Ministers are making that task harder, not easier.

[Mr Maude]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for the succession of compliments he paid me. Perhaps I can deal with some of the issues he raised. He first raised the issue of the legitimacy of the Government. I point out that the parties that form the coalition Government secured the support of nearly 60% of the voters at the last election, which compares with the 29% that his party secured, so I am grateful to him for drawing attention to that.

The hon. Gentleman asked about discussions with the unions, which is a very important question. When we dealt with the long overdue issue of public sector pension reform, the Chief Secretary to the Treasury and I conducted long discussions and negotiations with the TUC over a long period. They were incredibly valuable, and as a result we were able to make some changes to the configuration of the proposals. That enabled us both to secure public sector pensions that still remain among the very best available, on a basis that was sustainable and affordable for the future and to meet the particular concerns of particular unions. The process was valuable, and if the hon. Gentleman talked to any of the trade union leaders who took part in it he would find that they say that that enterprise was taken forward in a spirit of proper partnership and deliberation.

The hon. Gentleman asked about recent discussions with the trade unions. I can tell him that talks were planned with the civil service unions a couple of weeks ago, but they had to be aborted because the Public and Commercial Services Union was picketing the building in which the discussions were to take place. None of the union leaders felt able to cross the picket line so, sadly, the discussions had to be postponed.

[Michael Dugher]

Would you have crossed the picket line?

[Mr Maude]

Yes, I would, but it takes two to take part in discussions, so that was all a bit unfortunate.

Let me point out that

“public sector pay restraint will have to continue through this parliament. There is no way we should be arguing for higher pay when the choice is between higher pay and bringing unemployment down… That’s something we cannot do, should not do and will not do”,

and

“the priority now has to be to preserve jobs. I think that’s a recognition that everybody would see all round the country. We have got to do everything we can to preserve employment”.

Those are not my words, but those of the shadow Chancellor and the Leader of the Opposition.

It is just worth pointing out that all the right hon. Gentlemen’s brave words supporting public sector pay restraint fall away when we understand how much money the Labour party gets from the unions that have called the strikes today. What is it? Some £23.6 million has been given to the Labour party since the current Leader of the Opposition became its leader. Unite has donated £12.5 million, Unison £5.7 million and the GMB £5.2 million. That is why it is no surprise, as the Prime Minister pointed out yesterday, that the Labour party’s guidance on the strikes is: “Do we support strikes? No. Will we condemn strikes? No.” Weak, weak, weak.

[Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that pay restraint has helped to keep jobs and to reduce the deficit we face in this country?

[Mr Maude]

My hon. Friend is completely right. About £12 billion will have been saved as a result of pay restraint in the current spending round period, which is equivalent to the cost of employing 65,000 teachers or 71,000 nurses over that time. The 5% pay claim made by PCS for the civil service would cost £500 million every year, which is equivalent to further civil servant work force reductions of 18,000. Every increase in pay means fewer jobs.

[Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)]

The Electoral Commission report on the police and crime commissioner elections in November 2012 stated that the turnout of 15.1% was

“the lowest recorded level of participation at a peacetime non-local government election in the UK.”

Does that mean that the Government’s flagship policy of police and crime commissioners and those who have been elected lack any legitimacy?

[Mr Maude]

I point out to the hon. Lady that what the police do locally affects every single resident in the area, and every single resident over the age of 18 has the right to vote in those elections. When unions call strikes that affect local residents, parents and vulnerable people who depend on public services, such people are not consulted. It is not asking very much to require a union, when it calls its members out on strike in ways that damage the public, to have to rely on a vote of substantive quantity, with a majority behind it.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

I call birthday boy Sir Tony Baldry.

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[Mr Maude]

My right hon. Friend asks a very pertinent question. The answer is that we do not know. There has been no suggestion of any increase, but we note that when Mr Len McCluskey recently promised to fund the Labour party campaign from Unite’s political fund, he said that he expected a union representative to sit at the Cabinet table. I think we know what the answer to that one will be.

[Mr David Winnick (Walsall North) (Lab)]

Is the Minister aware that, despite all the Tory smears and slurs today, those taking industrial action are fighting for justice and fairness, and that they have absolutely nothing to be ashamed about? As for trade union money coming to Labour, what about the vast sums that the richest people in the country have been giving to the Tories in recent weeks, and rightly so, because the Tory Government are out, as they always have been, to defend the interests of the richest people in this country?

[Mr Maude]

I would have thought that the hon. Gentleman, after all his time in Parliament, might have come up with something a little better and more original.

[Mr Winnick]

It is the truth.

[Mr Maude]

The truth is that the coalition Government inherited the biggest budget deficit in the world—bigger than in Greece, Spain, Portugal or Ireland—[Interruption.] The hon. Member for Barnsley East (Michael Dugher) says, cheerfully, that we should have cleared it by now. Yes, if we had inherited a country in a better state than that in which he left it, the deficit might have been cleared by now. The truth is that we now have the strongest growing economy in the developed world, and part of that is undoubtedly due to the difficult decisions made in the long-term interests of the country, with precious little support from Opposition Front Benchers.

[Mark Pritchard (The Wrekin) (Con)]

Will the Minister join me in thanking all the teachers in Shropshire and in Telford and Wrekin who have turned up for work today? Does he agree that this minority strike is causing huge disruption to families and parents throughout the county of Shropshire, and that teachers must get back to work as soon as possible?

[Mr Maude]

I join my hon. Friend in thanking, as I did at the start of statement, all those public sector workers—the vast majority—who have gone to work today, despite the blandishments and calls to go on strike. They recognise that their public service ethos means that they want to be at work to support the people they are there to provide services for. I hope that the strikes, which are based on very old mandates and very little support among union members, will come to an end.

[Stephen Pound (Ealing North) (Lab)]

The Minister referred to the suffering of hard-working people. May I try to persuade him that many of the people striking or supporting the strike today are also suffering and are also hard-working, and that strike action is a course of last resort? This action has not been taken lightly, but with a heavy heart.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Maude]

The hon. Gentleman, for whom I have some respect, says that strikes are not entered into lightly, but as far as the union leaders are concerned, they have been entered into very lightly. The NUT leaders did not call a ballot; they relied on a ballot that is two years old, and did not consult their members. The leaderships of the other unions—Unite, Unison and the GMB—have called this strike despite having recent ballots with extraordinarily low levels of support for strike action. I absolutely know that no one goes on strike lightly, but I think that when the hon. Gentleman looks at this, in his heart of hearts, he will conclude that trade unions leaders have called the strikes lightly and that they are causing damage to vulnerable people.

[Mr Rob Wilson (Reading East) (Con)]

Many of my constituents will be inconvenienced today because of the politically motivated actions of union leaders. Does my right hon. Friend agree that the private sector has absorbed cuts to pay and pensions due to the circumstances in which the country found itself, and that unfortunately, other sectors including the public sector will have to do the same?

[Mr Maude]

My hon. Friend draws out a really important point, which is that since the recession pay in the public sector has risen by more than it has in the private sector. The comparators show that average pay in the public sector is higher than in the private sector. I know that there are people on low pay in the public sector, as there are in the private sector, but the fact is that, given the appalling legacy that the outgoing Labour Government left the coalition Government, there have been tough decisions to be made and many people have had to make sacrifices along the way.

[Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)]

More than 1,000 jobs have gone from Stockton borough alone since this Government came to power, and the value of public sector pay, including for some of the lowest-paid part-time workers in our communities, has gone down by about 20% since 2010. Just 1% of £6,000, which is what many of those people are paid, would buy a loaf of bread each week for a year. If the Government can afford to give millionaires a tax cut worth many times more than public sector workers get paid in a year, why can they not find a way better to reward the people who clean the streets, empty the bins and look after our most vulnerable people?

[Mr Maude]

I hear what the hon. Gentleman says. In his own area, many jobs have been created in the private sector, and the local growth initiatives that my right hon. and hon. Friends launched earlier this week will bring even more jobs there.

[Alex Cunningham]

In the north-east, unemployment is going up.

[Mr Maude]

I have to tell the hon. Gentleman that, for every increase in public sector pay, there is a price to be paid in lost jobs.

[Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)]

Will my right hon. Friend acknowledge that there are millions of trade unionists who have not gone on strike today, a third of whom vote Conservative? I ask him to tread very carefully in regard to getting rid of the majority principle. I accept that it is important to have annual or regular ballots, as he has described, but if a law were brought in to remove the majority principle, it could have implications for other organisations and institutions.

[Mr Maude]

I hear what my hon. Friend says. He has rightly been a passionate supporter of people’s right to join a trade union. He has made the point that trade unions are an embodiment of much of what we believe in as the big society and civil society, and I agree with him on that. He will also know from the things I have been saying during the four years that I have had the privilege to hold this office that I have resisted the repeated blandishments to go down the path of further legislation. I have consistently said that the more often the unions call strike action irresponsibly on the basis of outdated mandates and ballots with very low levels of support, the stronger the case for reform of the law becomes. The action that has been called for today has made that case significantly stronger.

[Dr Eilidh Whiteford (Banff and Buchan) (SNP)]

Public sector workers have taken disproportionate real-terms cuts in their pay, conditions and living standards over the past five years, and no one has been harder hit than those in lower-paid public sector jobs. The Scottish Government are committed to paying at least the living wage of £7.65 an hour to all their public sector workers and have guaranteed no compulsory redundancies. Why cannot the United Kingdom Government make similar commitments?

[Mr Maude]

What the hon. Lady says is simply not the case. Over the past five years, public sector pay has increased by an average of 13%, which is more than four times the average increase of 3% in the private sector. As far as the lowest-paid people are concerned, we have been at pains throughout this process to exempt people earning below £21,000 from any pay freezes, so what she says is simply not correct.

[Nigel Adams (Selby and Ainsty) (Con)]

As hundreds of schoolchildren across Selby are being denied access to their education by the National Union of Teachers today, what message does the Minister have for the hundreds of families affected, including the parents who have been forced to pay for child care, and for the businesses that have been forced to give people time off work because of this illegitimate action by the NUT?

[Mr Maude]

I would invite them to reflect that the responsibility for the damage that is undoubtedly being caused, despite all the effective contingency measures that we have put in place, lies squarely on the shoulders of the union leaders who have called this strike action on the basis of inadequate or outdated mandates. I would also invite them to ask the Labour party where it was when the strikes were called and whether it condemned them, and to look at the correlation between the amount of money paid to the Labour party by those unions and the Labour party’s action.

[Mrs Mary Glindon (North Tyneside) (Lab)]

I support the public sector workers withdrawing their labour today, and I am pleased to say that I am an associate member of the Public and Commercial Services Union, which is not affiliated to our party. The Minister has said that we cannot afford to go back, but he seems happy to take public servants back with a 20% cut to their living standards as a result of Government policy.

[Mr Maude]

It simply is not the case that public sector workers have suffered more than private sector workers. I shall repeat this at dictation speed: public sector pay has risen in the past five years—the period since the great recession—by more than pay in the private sector has risen.

[Robert Jenrick (Newark) (Con)]

Will my right hon. Friend join me in thanking the teachers and staff in my constituency, many of whom are union members, who have ensured that all but two schools there have remained open today? One of the two that have closed is a special school, and the parents have found it incredibly difficult to make alternative child care arrangements. How can it possibly be right for those parents to suffer what they have suffered today on the basis of a ballot taken two years ago that provided such a small mandate?

[Mr Maude]

My hon. Friend makes a really powerful point. I join him in supporting and thanking all those people, including governors and other volunteers, who have rallied round to ensure that, wherever possible, schools could be kept open. That is very much to their credit. The strikes have been called on the basis of increasingly thin mandates, and people’s determination to keep public services open and available has increased. It is particularly wrong that a special school of the type that my hon. Friend describes should have been closed in that way.

[Gavin Shuker (Luton South) (Lab/Co-op)]

Ordinary hard-working people, such as those I represent in Luton, should have the right to withdraw their labour in a responsible way and to stand up against people, many of whom are on much higher salaries, such as us here in Parliament. The right hon. Gentleman talks of mandates and legitimacy. Some police and crime commissioners were recently elected on the strength of securing just 5% of first-preference votes. Does he accept that that shows the lunacy of what he is saying?

[Mr Maude]

I repeat the point that I made earlier, which is that all local residents are affected by policing decisions and that all local residents who are voters have the right to vote in those elections. The constituents of my hon. Friend the Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick) whose children have been denied access to the special school they depend on were never consulted about this. They had no say in it; they just have to take what happens as a result of a strike called by union leaders on flimsy, outdated mandates, and I think that that is wrong.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

Parents in Kettering whose children have been affected by today’s industrial action have telephoned me this morning to make the reasonable point that parents are now subject to fines if they take their children out of school during term time but that such legislation does not apply to teachers who deny loads of children their education for a day. Will my right hon. Friend bear in mind that very reasonable point when drawing up future legislation to prevent such industrial action in schools?

[Mr Maude]

I hear what my hon. Friend says; he makes an interesting suggestion. Children being able to attend school on a predictable and regular basis is incredibly important in relation not only to their education but to the interests of their hard-working parents who want to go to work in order to support their families week in, week out. When arbitrary action is called in this way, based on flimsy and outdated mandates, damage is done to children and to their parents.

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

As somebody who has taken part in negotiations and been involved in strikes, I assure the Minister that people are very reluctant to strike. He has to understand that the trade unions are reflecting the concern over the cost of living because the purchasing power of wages has dropped by about 6% over the past three or four years. I urge everybody in the House to stop having a slanging match, because at some point, as the Minister and I know, he will have to sit down with the very same trade unions and negotiate a settlement. I urge him to do so as soon as possible.

[Mr Maude]

I hear what the hon. Gentleman says, but I remind him that negotiations and discussions with the civil service trade unions were due to take place in the Cabinet Office only two or three weeks ago. Sadly, that meeting had to be aborted because the PCS was picketing the premises where the meeting was to take place and none of the union leaders was willing to cross the picket line.

[Mr Marcus Jones (Nuneaton) (Con)]

Is my right hon. Friend as concerned as I am that many of my constituents will be forced to take a day off work today—and that many of them will lose a day’s pay—to look after their children because of a strike that was balloted on more than two years ago?

[Mr Maude]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Those people will be very resentful that their attempts to go to work and earn a living to support their families have been frustrated in that way.

[Mr David Nuttall (Bury North) (Con)]

My constituents in Bury, Ramsbottom and Tottington will be astonished to learn that the NUT strike is being justified on the basis of a ballot that was held almost two years ago. Does my right hon. Friend agree that there should be a much shorter period between a ballot and any action, and that it should be measured in weeks rather than years?

[Mr Maude]

That is exactly the issue that has been raised by the circumstances in which these strikes have been called. The ballots are very outdated. The NUT ballot took place nearly two years ago. Why did the leadership of the NUT have so little confidence in balloting their members on strike action again? Is it because they saw what happened to the other unions, such as Unite and Unison, that did hold ballots, which saw less than 20% of eligible members voting and very small numbers of eligible voters voting in favour of strike action? Possibly. The fact is that these strikes are being held on the basis of flimsy and outdated mandates. The case for reform of the law gets stronger every time that happens.

[Mr Robert Buckland (South Swindon) (Con)]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that those who say that they do not support the strikes, yet in the same breath fail to condemn them, take the art of casuistry to new heights?

[Mr Maude]

I could not put it better myself.

Oral Answers to Questions

Lord Maude of Horsham Excerpts

Wednesday 25th June 2014 Commons Chamber

[Alec Shelbrooke (Elmet and Rothwell) (Con)]

1. What recent progress he has made on reform of trades union facility time in Government Departments.

[The Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General (Mr Francis Maude)]

Mr Speaker, with permission I will take questions 1 and 10 together.

At the time of the last general election, there was no monitoring of taxpayer-funded trade union facility time in the civil service. We now have controls in place that saved £19 million last year, and we have already reduced the number of taxpayer-funded full-time union officials from 200 in May 2010 down to around a dozen this month.

[Mr Speaker]

I allowed the right hon. Gentleman to continue his answer, but my office advises me that it has not been notified of the grouping to which he refers. It might have been the intention, but my office indicates that it has not been notified of it, which obviously it should have been.

[Alec Shelbrooke]

In the past, Departments gave paid time off for union conferences. Can my right hon. Friend confirm that this Government will not be spending taxpayers’ money packing civil servants off to the seaside?

[Mr Maude]

Under the rules that operated under the last Government, it was absolutely the case that thousands of union officials, paid for by the taxpayer as civil servants, were given paid time off—sometimes, extraordinarily, with paid travel and expenses—to attend union conferences at the seaside. We have stopped this. They can take unpaid time off to attend conferences, and any decision to award paid time off is entirely at the discretion of the Minister in charge of that civil servant’s Department.

[Mr Tom Clarke (Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill) (Lab)]

Will the right hon. Gentleman ensure that the guidelines will allow those people responsible to the Home Office for the efficient administration of passport services to be involved in the consultation to find a solution to the crisis, given that they predicted it in the first place?

[Mr Maude]

It remains and has always been the case that union officials are entitled to paid time off to pursue their union duties, as opposed to activities. If those discussions are in pursuit of their duties because they relate to particular employment issues, that will of course continue to be the case.

[David Morris (Morecambe and Lunesdale) (Con)]

10. What has my right hon. Friend put in place to monitor and indeed limit the facilities provided to trade unions at taxpayers’ expense within the civil service?

[Mr Maude]

Again, there were no arrangements at all to monitor what facilities were being made available to union officials at taxpayers’ expense. We have now put in place arrangements to try to find out exactly what is going on, but I regret to say that the data are not yet complete. However, we will continue to pursue this.

[Jonathan Ashworth (Leicester South) (Lab)]

The Paymaster General will of course be aware that many private sector employers, such as Rolls-Royce, Jaguar Land Rover and Airbus, all take advantage of facility time, because they know it helps with workplace relations and with their obligations to consult. The private sector can recognise the benefits of facility time, so rather than knocking facility time in the public sector, why can he not recognise its benefits for that sector?

[Mr Maude]

I do recognise the benefits, which is why—even if we wanted to, which we do not—we are not proposing to get rid of it altogether. All we are saying is that it should be in accordance with the law and the obligations that the statute places on us as employers. I am the first to recognise that there are often advantages in being able to resolve disputes quickly and locally before they escalate, which is why some facility time will continue to be available.

[Nick Smith (Blaenau Gwent) (Lab)]

2. What recent progress he has made on the Government’s efficiency agenda.

[Charlie Elphicke (Dover) (Con)]

7. What estimate he has made of the savings arising from measures to increase departmental efficiency; and if he will make a statement.

[The Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General (Mr Francis Maude)]

On 10 June, my right hon. Friend the Chancellor and I announced savings through efficiency reform of central Government of £14.3 billion for 2013-14, against a 2009-10 baseline. Those savings are both recurring and non-recurring items, and include £5.4 billion from procurement and commercial savings, £3.3 billion in project savings and £4.7 billion from work force reform and pension savings.

[Nick Smith]

The Government have said that they want to move jobs out of Whitehall and into areas such as south Wales, but in August 1,000 jobs could be offshored, perhaps to India, from the Ministry of Justice shared services centre in Newport. Will the Minister look at this again?

[Mr Maude]

Earlier this week, the MOJ announced its plans to take forward the agreed plans on shared services, which were first put forward under the Labour Government in 2004 but did not begin to be implemented until 2012. There are major efficiency savings to be made. I am sure that SSCL—Shared Services Connected Ltd—the shared service company the MOJ proposes to use, will look carefully at all the facilities and will want to concentrate activity at the most effective and efficient ones, and I see absolutely no reason why Newport’s should not be among those.

[Henry Smith]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for his answer and for the significant amounts of taxpayer money that the Cabinet Office is saving. What role can greater digitisation play in obtaining further efficiencies?

[Mr Maude]

Moving public services online has a major part to play, both in making services more convenient and designed around the needs of the user rather than the convenience of the Government, and in making major savings. Typically, the cost of an online transaction is about one fiftieth of the cost of the transaction being done face to face, but for those people who are not online there will always be an assisted digital option.

[Charlie Elphicke]

Does the size of the savings being made not highlight the truly galactic waste of money by the previous Labour Government? Will my right hon. Friend set out his vision for further savings in the future?

[Mr Maude]

No good organisation gives up on pursuing efficiency savings year after year. The Office for National Statistics has shown that in the public sector productivity remained static during the Labour years while it rose by nearly 30% in the private services sector. If productivity had risen by the same amount in the public sector, the budget deficit that the coalition Government inherited could have been many, many tens of billions of pounds lower.

[Jessica Morden (Newport East) (Lab)]

I want the Minister to understand just how fearful and uncertain staff at the MOJ shared services centre in Newport feel after this week’s announcement of privatisation. How can he justify the hypocrisy of the Prime Minister talking about the UK becoming an onshoring nation when under this contract jobs could be offshored? What guarantees are the Government offering that these jobs could stay in Newport?

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Speaker]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady.

[Mr Maude]

The hon. Lady is making assumptions about what will happen to those jobs which I have no reason to believe are justified. If the quality of the work and the efficiency at Newport is as good as she believes, I am sure that the management of SSCL will want to look carefully at retaining jobs there.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

Which part of which Department has provided the most fertile ground for efficiency savings?

[Mr Maude]

That is a very good question, but if I were to go through that in elaborate detail, you would cut me short, Mr Speaker. There are opportunities for efficiency savings right across Government and the public sector. We have made significant progress, but, as my hon. Friend would expect, there is considerably more that can and should be done.

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

Serco had to repay £68 million and G4S £104 million because they overcharged the Ministry of Justice. Why are they still receiving contracts when they have obviously been very good at efficiently taking money off the taxpayer?

[Mr Maude]

The practices to which the right hon. Gentleman refers date from contracts let by the previous Government, and those malpractices had been going on for many years. It is because the quality of contract management in Government is at last beginning to improve that those malpractices came to light at all. Therefore, the taxpayer was able to be recompensed for the money that had been wrongly pumped out of the door during that time. We are making progress on this, but again there is more to be done.

[Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab)]

The Minister boasts that his efficiency agenda is cutting hundreds of millions of pounds from Government IT spend, but figures that we have seen show that IT spend is flat overall, and has in his Department and others, including the universal credit maxed out Department for Work and Pensions, risen massively between 30% and 70%. Will the Minister confirm that IT spend is not falling, and accept that it is his lack of leadership in allowing continuing turf wars between the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, the Cabinet Office and DWP that is preventing the IT transformation that we need?

[Mr Maude]

The hon. Lady is completely right that we need an ICT transformation. What we inherited—the legacy—was a series of extremely expensive, opaque IT contracts. The Government did not even know what they were getting for what they were spending. We need to reform that. We must wait for some of these contracts, which were excessively long, to come to an end. That process is beginning. The British Government were spending more on IT per capita than any other Government in the world, yet our rankings, until recently, were falling. There is much to be done, but she is in no position from where she sits to be lecturing this Government, who are grappling with the issue.

[Kelvin Hopkins (Luton North) (Lab)]

3. What steps he is taking to ensure the accuracy of Government statistics.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Nicholas Brown (Newcastle upon Tyne East) (Lab)]

4. Which Departments have responded to his cross-departmental review of check-off deductions of union subscriptions.

[The Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General (Mr Francis Maude)]

We have asked Departments to review their own arrangements. The civil service management code requires Departments to recover the cost of the provision of this service, but most do not do so. These reviews, therefore, are very timely.

[Mr Brown]

A number of Secretaries of State have already rejected the idea. The only one to take it forward ended up in court. They lost and had costs found against the Government. There is no public interest or cost saving in what the right hon. Gentleman is doing, so why does he persist in attacking the Government’s own employees for trying to act in combination by joining a trade union?

[Mr Maude]

This is in no sense an attack on membership of trade unions. [Hon. Members: “Yes, it is.”] We can see who speaks for the trade unions and for their paymasters. The right hon. Gentleman ought to know better, from his experience. Why is it that many trade unions do not rely on check-off at all but use the modern means of connection with their members of direct debit, which is available to all?

[Pat Glass (North West Durham) (Lab)]

6. What steps he is taking to maintain the level of youth services provision.

--- Later in debate ---

[Peter Aldous (Waveney) (Con)]

T1. If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.

[The Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General (Mr Francis Maude)]

My responsibilities are for efficiency and reform, civil service issues, public sector industrial relations strategy, Government transparency, civil contingency, civil society and cyber-security.

[Peter Aldous]

In March my right hon. Friend visited East Coast Community Healthcare, a staff-owned social enterprise providing community-based NHS and social care in my constituency. At present it is disadvantaged by having to pay more for insurance and IT than if it had remained in the NHS. Can my right hon. Friend give me an assurance that the Government will work with social enterprises such as ECCH to address such obstacles to their long-term success?

[Mr Maude]

I will certainly talk to my right hon. Friend the Health Secretary about that issue, but my hon. Friend will have seen, as I did when we visited that public service mutual, the extraordinary level of enthusiasm, commitment and dedication which, having spun out of the NHS to be a staff-owned mutual, was invested in their activity.

[Michael Dugher (Barnsley East) (Lab)]

An excellent report published last week by the Centre for Regional Economic and Social Research at Sheffield Hallam university on the state of the coalfields confirmed that the most deprived areas of the country have the lowest concentration of voluntary sector organisations. On top of that, we know that local authorities in those same areas are suffering disproportionate cuts—a double whammy for the poorest parts of the country. Why are the Government not doing enough specifically to help the voluntary sector in the poorest parts of the country?

--- Later in debate ---

[Julian Smith (Skipton and Ripon) (Con)]

T4. As part of their long-term economic plan, this Government have saved £1.2 billion by rationalising the Government estate. That is the equivalent of 26 Buckingham palaces. What more can be done by local councils and local authorities to replicate such savings?

[Mr Maude]

We have already done a great deal on this front, as my hon. Friend recognises, but there is much more that can be done to collocate different public sector agencies, including local government. That not only saves a lot of money by sharing the overhead, but provides a much more convenient place for the citizen and businesses to interact with the state in its different forms.

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

T5. The Government agreed to refund the Big Lottery Fund the £675 million taken for the Olympics. With the sales of the Olympic assets, is that still going ahead? How will the lottery be refunded if Olympic assets are leased instead of sold?

[Mr Speaker]

If the Minister heard that, I congratulate him on his hearing. The acoustics were not great.

[Mr Maude]

I heard some of it, Mr Speaker—enough to know that the right thing for me to do is to write to the hon. Gentleman with a detailed answer.

[Mr Speaker]

Before I call Mr Damian Collins at the start of questions to the Prime Minister, I wish to inform the House how I will be applying its sub judice rules to any exchanges on Mr Coulson’s case. I ask the House for some forbearance, as it is important to Members and those outside the House that the position is clear.

The House will know that Mr Coulson has now been convicted on a charge of conspiracy to intercept communications. The court has not yet sentenced Mr Coulson for that offence. There has as yet been no verdict on two charges against him of conspiracy to commit misconduct in public office. The rules of the House’s sub judice resolution, which the House rightly expects me to enforce, apply to criminal cases which are active. They cease to be active when

“they are concluded by verdict and sentence”,

so they apply in this case.

At the same time, the House’s resolution gives the Chair discretion in applying the rules. I have taken appropriate advice, as the House would expect—and, indeed, been in receipt of unsolicited advice, for which I am of course grateful. In the light of all the circumstances, I have decided, one, to allow reference to Mr Coulson’s conviction; two, not to allow reference to his sentencing by the court, such as speculation on the nature of that sentence; and three, not to allow reference to those charges on which the verdict is awaited. I rely upon hon. Members to exercise restraint, but if that proves unavailing, I will of course intervene. I hope that that is helpful to the House.

Hillsborough Wikipedia Edits

Lord Maude of Horsham Excerpts

Tuesday 17th June 2014 Written Statements

[The Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General (Mr Francis Maude)]

As the House is aware, the LiverpoolEcho reported on 25 April 2014 that extremely unpleasant amendments to the Hillsborough and Anfield Wikipedia pages, in 2009 and 2012 respectively, had been made from Government computers. Further unacceptable edits to various other Wikipedia pages were subsequently discovered.

The Government have treated this matter with the utmost seriousness. Our position from the very start has been that the amendments made to Wikipedia are sickening. The behaviour is in complete contravention of the civil service code, and every canon of civilised conduct. It is entirely unacceptable.

On 25 April we launched immediate enquiries. Our first priority was to establish the facts and to examine the issues raised. This investigation was led by the Cabinet Office permanent secretary, Richard Heaton, who is responsible for the Government computer network. He worked closely with the director-general for propriety and ethics and her team, as well as other senior officials. He was also advised by Mr Denis Edgar-Neville, Chair of the British Computer Society Cybercrime Forensics Specialist Group and head of the Centre for Cybercrime Forensics at Canterbury Christ Church university. From the outset we consulted and involved the right hon. Member for Leigh (Andy Burnham).

Mr Oliver Duggan, the journalist who wrote the story of 25 April for the LiverpoolEcho, passed the Cabinet Office information which he believed could identify who was responsible for some of the edits in question. That information has proved extremely helpful, and provided a significant investigative lead. I would like to thank him for this and for co-operating with my Department over the past weeks.

Extensive further inquiries were taken forward as a civil service disciplinary matter, involving potential breaches of the civil service code and of individual Departments’ policies on acceptable behaviour. An individual was then subject to a formal disciplinary investigation and dismissed for gross misconduct, on the grounds of responsibility for the 2012 edits. The individual in question was a young, junior administrative officer. It is a long-standing established practice that in such cases an individual’s name will not be made public.

There are substantial technical obstacles to investigating the other edits. The deletion of internet data logs in the ordinary course of business means that tracing historic edits to a particular Department, building or individual has proved extremely difficult. In the absence of other specific leads, and despite a great deal of forensic and other work, it has not been possible to identify the originators of the 2009 edit or any of the others in question.

Subject to further information or leads coming to light, the investigation into the edits is therefore concluded.

These incidents have given rise to questions about the Government secure intranet, about the way in which the internet is accessed from Government and its use recorded, and about social media policies in Departments. We will continue to encourage and enable civil servants to use the internet and social media, as essential tools enabling them to work openly and to be connected to the society they serve. But the misuse of social media is unacceptable and carries consequences. We will be reminding all civil servants of their responsibilities and updating social media guidance.

Throughout this work, Richard Heaton has been in contact with the right hon. Member for Leigh, the right Rev James Jones (the former Bishop of Liverpool), and with lawyers for the bereaved families. Richard Heaton and I have also met the members of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on the Hillsborough disaster. I am extremely grateful to all of those people for their advice.

I would like to thank the families themselves for their patience during the weeks it has taken to bring this matter to a conclusion. I was deeply distressed that, at a time when the hearings of the Hillsborough inquests were unfolding, the civil service was brought into disrepute by these edits. No one should be in any doubt of the Government’s position regarding the Hillsborough disaster and their support for the families of the 96 victims and all those affected by the tragedy.

Open Government Partnership Summit

Lord Maude of Horsham Excerpts

Thursday 5th June 2014 Written Statements

[The Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General (Mr Francis Maude)]

The UK Government hosted the open government partnership (OGP) annual summit on 31 October to 1 November 2013. The summit marked the end of the UK’s chairmanship of the OGP and brought over 1,500 people together to: learn from each other; reflect on the OGP’s achievements to date; set ambitious new commitments for greater openness and demonstrate that open government tangibly improves the lives of citizens. The ambition was to bring together as many Government and civil society reformers as possible from across the OGP network, as well as business leaders, journalists and bloggers and representatives from international organisations—in the end we welcomed over 1,500 participants from 83 Governments and civil society organisations around the world. The Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre in Westminster was hired as sufficiently large enough to accommodate a varied and innovative agenda and it offered the flexibility to operate different kinds of sessions simultaneously. The venue was well equipped for our security needs, as Heads of Government were invited from a number of countries. It also provided the facilities needed for translation services.

The summit was co-ordinated by the Cabinet Office with involvement from the Foreign Office, the Department for International Development, the OGP support unit and other interested civil society representatives. The event production company WRG was hired to run the event logistics, which included managing the venue and on-site media operation, producing delegate materials and liaising with speakers. Foreign Office embassies were involved in engaging the participation of 82 overseas Governments in the event, and their lobbying efforts helped to secure the announcement of new commitments on openness from 37 Governments at the summit.

Due to a number of high-profile Ministers being in attendance, the Metropolitan police provided security and special protection for VIPs. Further questions about the police operation should be directed to the Metropolitan police. A pre-summit reception and dinner was held for 300 guests in Lancaster house on 30 October, and a reception sponsored by the World Bank was held for all delegates in the summit venue on 31 October.

It was important for the event to engage the widest possible audience. It was live streamed online and video content from each session was subsequently uploaded to the OGP website and YouTube channel. Live streaming enabled individuals around the world to participate remotely, including the US Secretary of State John Kerry who took part in one of the plenary sessions via video link. The venue housed a media centre for press conferences and to enable key participants to be interviewed. Interpreters provided simultaneous translation of the main plenary session in addition to some breakout sessions in French, Spanish, Russian and Arabic. Broadcast, print, online and social media meant we were able to reach millions of people around the world who did not attend the summit. This considerable external interest in the summit was evidenced by the fact that it was placed second on the BBC news website and that #OGP13 was trending on Twitter in the UK.

The emphasis on peer learning in the OGP led to the development of an exhibition of 60 innovative projects from across the globe that had either developed to facilitate or as a consequence of open government initiatives. The aim of the festival was to provide participants with the opportunity to learn how to make progress on open government, explore the work of others, create new ideas, solutions or services and encourage networking.

The central funding for the event came from the Cabinet Office, supported by funding for the pre-summit reception from the Foreign Office. We agreed a budget of £1.6 million for the summit but every effort was made to balance the need to deliver a powerful event engaging the widest possible audience with the need to reduce costs. As a result the actual amount spent was significantly less, at under £1.3 million. In-house resources were used as much as possible and delegates were required to cover their own costs to attend. The Cabinet Office did not provide any travel support to delegates, and instead a travel support fund was co-ordinated by the OGP support unit. The Cabinet Office furthermore secured sponsorship from Omidyar Network for live streaming costs and the World Bank for the main reception on 31 October.

Below is a breakdown of the summit costs:

State of the Estate in 2013

Lord Maude of Horsham Excerpts

Thursday 5th June 2014 Written Statements

[The Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General (Mr Francis Maude)]

I have today laid before Parliament, pursuant to section 86 of the Climate Change Act 2008, “State of the Estate in 2013”. This report provides an assessment of the efficiency and sustainability of the Government’s civil estate and records the progress that Government are making. The report is published on an annual basis.

Handling Member's Correspondence

Lord Maude of Horsham Excerpts

Tuesday 13th May 2014 Written Statements

[The Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General (Mr Francis Maude)]

I am today publishing a report on the performance of Departments and agencies on handling correspondence from Members and peers during the calendar year 2013.

Details are set out in the table below. Correspondence statistics for 2012 can be found in the Official Report, 13 May 2013, column 23W.

Departmental figures are based on substantive replies unless otherwise indicated. The footnotes to the table provide general background information on how the figures have been compiled.