Regional Pay
Lord Maude of Horsham Excerpts(11 years, 10 months ago)
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The Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General (Mr Francis Maude)
I beg to move an amendment, to leave out from “House” to the end of the Question and add:
“notes the importance of recruiting, retaining and motivating staff and keeping tight control of public spending; further notes that the then Chancellor of the Exchequer, the right hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath, first proposed a fair framework for local and regional flexibility for pay in his statement to the House of 9 June 2003; supports the Government in asking the widely respected independent pay review bodies to consider how public sector pay can be made more responsive to local labour markets; and believes the Government is correct in awaiting the conclusions of those deliberations before making a decision on bringing forward proposals in respect of public sector pay’.
The shadow Chief Secretary, the hon. Member for Leeds West (Rachel Reeves), began by quoting the Chancellor, so let me quote the Chancellor a little more extensively:
“I can tell the House that the British economy is…better placed to recognise local and regional conditions in pay”.
He continued that, in future, we therefore plan that
“remits for pay review bodies and for public sector workers, including the civil service, will include a stronger local and regional dimension”.—[Official Report, 9 April 2003; Vol. 403, c. 283.]
That was the Chancellor in 2003, the previous Prime Minister. He set that proposal out at time when his advisers were the current Leader of the Opposition and the shadow Chancellor. I do not know whether the shadow Chancellor wrote that passage for the Budget speech—a lot of the Budgets around that time turned out to be “Balls”. Did he write it? Does he agree with it? If not, what has changed in the meantime? [Interruption.] It was clearly the best the right hon. Gentleman could do at that time. I shall come to the history behind the current Government’s approach, because the idea that it is a dramatic new departure is absurd. There is quite a long history, but we now have the opportunity to explore it.
Mr Maude
I shall get started, but I will give way to the hon. Gentleman in due course.
Let me begin by setting out the Government’s approach to this important issue. First, we believe there is a strong case for looking at introducing local market-facing pay and at how that can be done, but let me say clearly that our approach is not about ending national pay bargaining. Pay can be made more responsive to local labour markets within a national bargaining framework. Any benefits from localising pay can be realised without any need to get rid of national pay bargaining.
Secondly, the proposal is not about making further savings. We will continue to operate within tightly constrained overall public sector pay remits.
Mr Maude
I am going to make a little progress, but I will give way in due course.
Those pay remits are currently set at 1% a year. We need those constraints in order to address the appalling legacy of the biggest budget deficit in the developed world, which was left by exactly the people who now complain about its effects. Our approach is not about making further savings, but entirely about creating greater flexibility within those pay remit constraints.
Thirdly, this is not about cutting anybody’s pay. Even if we wanted to, we would not be legally able to do so.
Huw Irranca-Davies
Will the Minister speculate on why the Chief Secretary to the Treasury thinks the sun shines out the backend of this policy, while the Liberal Democrat leader in Wales has told him to stick it where the sun don’t shine?
Mr Maude
That was about as laboured a joke as I have heard in this place, but we will let the hon. Gentleman know.
Like the previous Government, we have said that it is important to look at the level at which public sector pay is set in each labour market over the longer term, which is why, in the autumn statement, the Chancellor announced that there was a case for considering how local pay could better reflect private sector labour markets. He invited the independent pay review bodies to consider the evidence, which is exactly what they are now doing.
Mr Donohoe
I do not know whether the Minister has ever been involved in wage negotiations, but if he looks at the public sector and then at the private sector, he will see that some multinational companies do national negotiations and do not have local rates. Is that not the case?
Mr Maude
They may well have national negotiations. If the hon. Gentleman had listened, he would have heard me say that our proposals do not involve a change to national pay bargaining mechanisms. Actually, though, plenty of companies have preferential pay rates in different parts of the country, as might well make sense in some circumstances. But he clearly did not listen to what I said earlier.
Pay decisions in the civil service, below the senior civil service, are delegated to individual Departments, so it is for each Department to consider the case as it applies to its own work force.
Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)
It has occurred to me that Conservative Members were against the national minimum wage when it was introduced. Will the Minister confirm beyond doubt that this is not the thin end of the wedge and that there will not be any attempt to undermine the national minimum wage through regional pay?
Richard Burden (Birmingham, Northfield) (Lab)
I am trying really hard to understand what the Minister is saying. Will he please tell me whether I have got this right—he does not want to dismantle pay structures or cut pay, but he does want to introduce bargaining and flexibility? Does that mean that there could be no pay cuts for any current or future employee as a result of that flexibility? What would that mean in the west midlands, where to get a house, someone has to raise a deposit of twice the average regional salary? In practical terms, is he talking about those pay levels rising or falling?
Phil Wilson
I think the Minister has been a bit selective in quoting Treasury Ministers in the previous Government. Treasury guidance notes put out by Ministers in 2003 also stated:
“At the extreme, local pay in theory could mean devolved pay…to local bodies. In practice, extremely devolved arrangements are not desirable. There are risks of workers being treated differently for no good reason. There could be dangers of leapfrogging and parts of the public sector competing against each other for the best staff.”
In other words, the previous Labour Government were never going to do what this Government intend to do now.
Mr Maude
Given that the hon. Gentleman has not given me the chance to talk about our plans and approach, perhaps he will be patient and contain himself until that moment.
As I was about to say, nothing has yet been decided. Any proposals for each work force must be based on strong evidence. We want to hear from everyone with a contribution to make, and we are committed to making any future decision on the basis of evidence, which is the right way to approach the matter. That is why we have invited the various pay review bodies to consider the matter on that basis.
However, as I said earlier, we are not the only Government to think that there is a case for looking at this issue. The case was recognised by the last Government, and they gave it, I presume, serious thought. Indeed, in 2003, the then Chancellor announced a stronger local dimension to pay review body remits, noting that there was significant scope to increase the flexibility and responsiveness of public sector pay. He told the House:
“With this national framework for fairness in place, it makes sense to recognise that a more considered approach to local and regional conditions in pay offers the best modern route to full employment”.—[Official Report, 9 June 2003; Vol. 406, c. 412.]
Does anyone on the Opposition Benches disagree with that? It seems a considered and sensible approach to me.
Mr Maude
I will not give way, if the hon. Lady will forgive me, because I need to make some progress and Back-Bench contributions are already likely to be constrained because the debate started rather late.
The then Chancellor also said that pay for the civil service should include a stronger local and regional dimension, while in that year’s Budget he set out
“action to increase regional and local flexibility in public service pay”.
As I have mentioned, the then Chancellor’s advisers included the current Leader of the Opposition and the current shadow Chancellor. It seems pretty opportunistic for Labour, at the 11th hour, to produce this motion, when its own Government took the public sector further down this path than we are at this stage contemplating.
Indeed, Labour did not just talk about localised pay; it actually introduced it. In 2007, the last Government introduced localised pay for civil servants across the courts service. They did so in response to the Treasury’s pay guidance, issued in 2007, at a time when, as far as I can make out, the current Leader of the Opposition was the Minister in the Cabinet Office responsible for civil service matters and the shadow Chancellor was the Economic Secretary to the Treasury. Yet that pay guidance, which went out across the civil service, asked Departments that operated across different locations to differentiate between pay levels across regional labour markets. Following that guidance, which was issued under the aegis of the current Leader of the Opposition and the current shadow Chancellor, the previous Government introduced localised pay in the courts service across the country. That was, if I may say so, a sensible and unusually well-judged move, and it has been successful.
Mr Maude
I am going to make progress now.
That policy was introduced at a time when those who are now on the Opposition Front Bench were intimately involved, so it is worth the House asking itself what happened. Did devilish civil servants somehow slide this wicked measure through, as the attention of the current shadow Chancellor and Leader of the Opposition was elsewhere, no doubt overly occupied in trashing the then Prime Minister?
Why is the shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury taking up valuable parliamentary time attacking in opposition a policy that her own leaders actively promoted in government? It is not as if the Labour party immediately abandoned the idea in opposition that local and regional variations in the cost of living are important. In January, The Guardian reported that the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Mr Byrne)—another previous holder of my post—told a private meeting of Labour MPs that housing benefit
“varies locally and so should a benefit cap”.
In fact, he was reported to have said:
“It makes much more sense to have localised caps…in different parts of the country”.
That revealed that the Labour party still recognises in private the very principle that it is today seeking to oppose. It is humbug, Madam Deputy Speaker. Yet again, the Opposition oppose policies that they introduced in government and that they still support in private.
We know what is behind this. It is the Labour party’s union paymasters who are calling the tune. We know that the Labour party ask their union backers which amendments to vote for and which to oppose. We know that under the current Labour party leader more than 80% of Labour’s donations come directly from trade unions—even more than under the last Prime Minister. No wonder Charlie Whelan boasted that it was Unite that won the current Labour party leadership. Yet again, it is Unison and Unite that are calling the tunes. But even the unions are confused on this matter. As my hon. Friend the Member for Cannock Chase (Mr Burley) said, Unison itself has made the case for local variations.
There is a serious case to be made for local market-facing pay. While private sector pay is typically set according to local markets, public sector pay is usually set on a one-size-fits-all basis at national level. As a result, public sector workers are often paid more than private sector workers in similar jobs in the same area. According to the Institute for Fiscal Studies, the overall gap between public and private sector pay averages 8.3%. However, the gap can be as low as virtually minimal in some places and as high as nearly 20% in others.
Academic research also shows that public sector pay is only 40% as responsive to local labour markets as private sector pay. That has potentially damaging consequences for the public sector and the economy. A one-size-fits-all system for public sector pay could limit the number of public sector jobs that could be supported in lower-cost areas. It militates directly against the relocation of public sector jobs to more deprived parts of the country. Private employers looking for staff to set up or grow their businesses might need to compete with much higher public sector wages. The evidence has yet to be examined, but the public sector could be crowding out the private sector in that way, and holding back the private sector-led recovery that the economy needs. Arguably, this makes private sector job creation less attractive. Importantly, it also makes it less attractive to move public sector jobs out of London and the south-east because, without any differential in pay rates to reflect the differential in living costs, it is much less easy to justify the relocation costs and loss of continuity that relocating inevitably involves.
So this approach is about investigating whether this could be another way of supporting local economies, by helping to provide more public sector jobs for the same level of spending and by helping the local private sector to become more competitive and to expand. This could help poorer areas to grow—[Interruption.] Exactly that point was recognised explicitly by the previous Prime Minister. He made exactly that argument. The hon. Member for Leeds West might want to argue with him, but we think that this is one of the few things on which he was right.
More broadly, this Government are determined to support regional private sector growth. Since the last election and the formation of the coalition Government, 843,000 private sector jobs have been created, and promoting regional growth—[Interruption.]
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)
Order. I am sorry, Minister. It is not necessary for Members on either side of the House, especially those on the Front Benches, continually to shout across the Floor. This is an important and heated debate—[Interruption.] I do not know why you are tut-tutting, Ms Bray; you have been doing a fair bit of shouting as well.
Mr Maude
We would have made better progress if, every time anyone stood up, the hon. Member for Leeds West had not recited the number of public sector workers in their constituency. She could just have laid the document before the House and we could have taken it all as read. It was a pretty poor substitute for an argument, but I suppose it was the best that she could do.
We are committed to supporting regional private sector growth. As I was saying, 843,000 private sector jobs have been created since the general election, and promoting regional jobs is at the very heart of our growth strategy. In the autumn statement, we announced an additional £30 billion of investment—
Rachel Reeves
I do not think that the Minister wants to cut their pay. Does he think that teachers in Horsham should be paid more than those in Leeds West?
Mr Maude
Under the hon. Lady’s own Government’s policy of introducing academies, it will increasingly be a matter for the management of those academies to set their own pay rates. So the policy that her Government set in train will, over time, lead to differentials coming into existence. Perhaps she will tell us whether she supports the policy of giving academies more freedom to make their own decisions—or is that another subject on which she is going back to her old, left-wing, statist ways?
Rachel Reeves
The last Labour Government did not give less money to schools in Leeds than they did to schools in Surrey. Is that this Minister’s policy?
Mr Maude
Under the last Government, a lot of schools in a lot of places found they were getting a lot less support than they were in other places—funny, that. The fact is that we announced an additional £30 billion of investment in major infrastructure projects across all regions of the UK, and in the Budget we laid out an additional investment of £420 million to stimulate local economic growth.
We have already taken considerable action to achieve strong sustainable and balanced growth that is more evenly shared across the country, but there is a lot more to do. It is not easy, but we have not shirked our responsibility and we will leave no stone unturned to promote a sustainable balance and fair private sector recovery across the UK. First and foremost, that has meant tackling the record deficit that we inherited, ensuring that the UK remains to the greatest extent possible insulated from the storm that undermines our eurozone neighbours. Public sector pay restraint has to play a vital role in that fiscal consolidation. At the same time, by considering the case for local public sector pay, we can ensure that we continue to have high-quality public services across the entire UK and help to support a private sector recovery. I commend the amendment to the House.
Civil Service Reform
Lord Maude of Horsham Excerpts(11 years, 10 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General (Mr Francis Maude)
With permission, Mr Speaker, I would like to make a statement about the civil service.
The British civil service plays a crucial role in modern British life. It is there to implement the policies of the Government of the day, whatever their political complexion. Its permanence and political impartiality enable exceptionally rapid transitions between Governments. Most civil servants are dedicated and hard-working, with a deep-seated public service ethos. Like all organisations, the civil service needs continuous improvement, and I want today to set out the first stage in a programme of practical actions for reform.
In 2010 we inherited one of the largest budget deficits in the developed world, and despite success in improving Britain’s financial standing, we still face significant financial and economic challenges, as well as rapid social, technological and demographic changes. The Government have embarked upon a programme of radical reform of public services to improve quality and responsiveness for users and value for the taxpayer. We need a civil service that is faster, more flexible, more innovative and more accountable in order to succeed. Our civil service is smaller today than at any time since the second world war, and this has highlighted where there are weaknesses and strengthened the need to tackle the weaknesses.
We need to build capabilities and skills where they are missing. We need to embrace new ways of delivering services. We need to be digital by default. We need to tie policy and implementation seamlessly together. We need greater accountability, and to require much better data and management information to drive decisions more closely. We need to transform performance management and career development.
Today, Sir Bob Kerslake, the head of the civil service, and I are publishing a civil service reform plan that clearly sets out a series of specific, practical actions to address long-standing weaknesses and build on existing strengths. Taken together, and properly implemented, those actions will deliver real change. They should be seen as a first step in a programme of continuing reform for the civil service. This is not an attack on the civil service, and civil servants have not been rigidly resistant to change, but the demand for change does not come just from the public and from Ministers—it comes from civil servants themselves, many of whom are deeply frustrated by a culture that is overly bureaucratic, hierarchical and focused on process, rather than outcomes.
That was revealed in the responses to our “Tell Us How” website, aimed at getting fresh ideas from staff about how they could do their jobs better. Civil servants themselves bemoaned a risk-averse culture, rampant grade-ism, and poor performance management. The action plan is based heavily on feedback from civil servants themselves, drawing on what frustrates and motivates them, while many of the most substantive ideas in the paper have come out of work led by permanent secretaries. Reform of the civil service never works if it feels like it is being imposed on civil servants by Ministers, but neither would it succeed if the civil service were simply left to reform itself. Because we want this to be change that lasts, we have discussed the proposals widely, including with Ministers of the previous Government, to draw on their experiences and ideas.
The civil service of the future will be smaller, pacier, flatter, more digital, more accountable for effective implementation, more capable, with better data and management information, and more unified, consistent and corporate. It must also be more satisfying to work for. These actions must help to achieve that. Under published plans, the civil service will shrink from around 500,000 in 2010 to around 380,000 by 2015—it is already the smallest it has been since the second world war. Sharing services between Departments will become the norm. That has been discussed for years; it is now time to make it happen.
Productivity also needs to improve. For too long, public sector productivity was at best static, while in the private services sector it improved over the same period by nearly 30%. Consumer expectations are rising and, as we have been told, there is no money. The public increasingly expect to be able to access services quickly, conveniently and in ways that suit them. We are conducting a review with Departments to decide which transactional and operational services can be delivered through alternative models. Services that can be delivered online should be delivered only online. Digital by default will become a reality, not just a buzz phrase.
We should no longer be the prisoner of the old binary choice between monolithic in-house provision and full-scale privatisation. We are now pursuing new models: joint ventures, employee-owned mutuals and new partnerships with the private sector. MyCSP, which manages the civil service pension scheme, became the first joint-venture mutual to spin out of Government recently, and it provides a model for future reforms.
The civil service culture can be slow moving, hierarchical and focused on process rather than outcomes. Changing that would be really hard in any organisation. We can make a start by cutting the number of management layers. There should only exceptionally be more than eight layers between the top and the front line, and frequently many fewer. That will help to speed up decisions and empower those at more junior levels. Better performance management needs to change the emphasis in appraisals emphatically towards delivery outcomes and reward sensible initiative and innovation.
We also need to sharpen accountability, which is closely linked to more effective delivery. Management information in Government is poor, as the National Audit Office, the Public Accounts Committee, the Institute for Government and departmental non-executive board members have vigorously and repeatedly pointed out. Therefore, by October this year we will put in place a robust and consistent cross-Government management information system that will enable Departments to be held to account by their boards, Parliament, the public and the centre of Government.
We will also make clearer the responsibilities of accounting officers for delivering major projects and programmes, including the expectation that former accounting officers can be called back to give evidence to the PAC. The current arrangements whereby Ministers answer to Parliament for the performance of their Departments and the implementation of their policy priorities will not change but, given their direct accountability to Parliament, we believe that they should have a stronger role in the recruitment of permanent secretaries.
We will therefore consult the Civil Service Commission on how to strengthen the role of the Secretary of State in the recruitment process for permanent secretaries. The current system allows the selection panel to submit only a single name to the Secretary of State. At other levels, appointments will normally be made from within the permanent civil service or by open recruitment but, where the expertise does not exist in the Department and it is not practicable to run a full open competition, we are making it clear that, as now, Ministers can ask their permanent secretaries to appoint a limited number of senior officials for specified and time-limited executive/management roles.
By common agreement, both inside and outside the civil service, there are some serious deficiencies in capability. Staff consistently say in surveys that their managers are not strong enough in leading and managing change. In future, many more civil servants will need commercial and contracting skills as services move further towards the commissioning model. While finance departments have significantly improved their capabilities, many more civil servants need a higher level of financial knowledge. As set out elsewhere in the plan, the civil service needs to improve its policy skills and fill the serious gaps in digital and project management capability.
By autumn we will have for the first time ever a cross-civil service capabilities plan that identifies which skills are missing and sets out how those gaps will be filled. Staff consistently say in surveys that their managers are not strong enough in leading and managing change, so, for the first time, leadership and potential leadership talent will be developed and deployed corporately.
As long ago as 1968, the Fulton commission identified that policy skills in the civil service were consistently rated more highly than operational delivery. That is still the case today. We will establish, therefore, the expectation that permanent secretaries appointed to the main delivery Departments will have had at least two years’ experience in a commercial or operational role, and we will move over time towards a position in which there is a more equal balance between those departmental permanent secretaries who have had a career primarily in operational management and those whose career has primarily been in policy advice and development.
A frequent complaint of civil servants themselves concerns performance management. They feel that exceptional performance is too often ignored and poor performance is not rigorously addressed. In future, performance management will be strengthened by a senior civil service appraisal system that identifies the top 25%, and the bottom 10%, who will need to show real improvement if they are to remain in the service. Departments are already introducing similar appraisal systems for grades below the senior civil service.
The Government are committed to ensuring that the civil service will be a good, modern employer and continue to be among the best employers in the country. Departments will undertake a review of terms and conditions to identify those that go beyond what a good, modern employer would provide. We will also ensure—again, meeting a consistent concern of civil servants—that staff get the IT and security arrangements that they have been asking for, so that they can do their jobs properly. That is a part of doing what is necessary to make civil service jobs more satisfying.
Another key goal is to improve and open up policy making so that there is a clear focus on designing policies that can be implemented in practice. Too often in the past policy has come from a narrow range of views, but Whitehall does not have a monopoly on policy-making expertise, and in future open policy making will become the default and we will create a small central fund to pilot policy development commissioned from outside Whitehall.
I repeat that this plan is just the first stage in a programme of reform and continuous improvement. It responds to concerns expressed by Parliament, by Ministers and former Ministers and, most importantly, by civil servants themselves. None of the actions in the plan is in itself dramatic, and none will matter unless it is properly implemented, but together, when implemented, they will represent real change.
I will oversee the implementation of the plan, and, as the paper sets out, Sir Bob Kerslake, as head of the civil service, and Sir Jeremy Heywood, the Cabinet Secretary, will be accountable for its delivery through the cadre of permanent secretaries.
Change is essential if the civil service is to meet the challenges of a fast-changing world. I commend the plan to the House.
Mr Maude
I am grateful for the shadow Minister’s welcome for much of what we have said, although I regret the tone of some of his contribution.
On the hon. Gentleman’s last point about potential politicisation, we are very concerned that that should not happen. Any proposals about the involvement of Ministers in appointments, which has operated in various ways for a long time, must be regulated properly by the Civil Service Commission, whose task it is to ensure that there is no taint of cronyism or favouritism. There have been many suggestions, particularly in the time of the previous Government, that cronyism has been a feature of the way in which Governments operate. Because of that, the Civil Service Commission is particularly concerned to ensure that any changes are made extremely carefully. I and my colleagues strongly support that.
I have not announced any further reductions in the size of the civil service. The figure of 380,000, which is the consequence of the plans that Departments already have, is already out there. The reductions are obviously taking place in a planned and considered way by Departments, and they are alert to the need for front-line services to be protected wherever possible.
The hon. Gentleman mentioned issues of morale in the civil service. However, the people survey, which is a consistent survey across the whole civil service that is done every year—a welcome innovation by Lord O’Donnell under the previous Government—suggests that morale has remained remarkably stable at a time of uncertainty, a pay freeze, the reform of pension schemes and significant downsizing. Turnover, as measured by resignations from the civil service, has also remained stable. There is obviously a reduction in the size of the senior civil service, but that is simply a consequence of the overall reductions in size across the civil service.
I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman’s support for our plans for digitisation. That will not always be without controversy, but it is important. The Government lag behind most providers in making services available to consumers online. Too many online Government services fail, meaning that the non-digital delivery of transactions by post, phone or physical contact has to be retained. That is much more expensive and a lot less convenient for the user. It is important to tackle that problem. He will be aware of the invaluable review that was done by Martha Lane Fox 18 months ago, on which we are drawing heavily to drive our plans forward with urgency.
I accept the hon. Gentleman’s point about interaction with the private sector. I do not make the assumption that the answer to every problem in the civil service is to bring in people from the private sector. In fact, much more needs to be done to equip existing civil servants with skills. That is where interaction is so important. The culture in the civil service needs to feel much more recognisable to people from the private sector, so that when there is interaction, they do not feel like they have stepped on to a different planet. We believe that enhanced interaction will contribute to that.
The only moves that there have been towards regional pay were made under the previous Government, when the Ministry of Justice introduced a degree of regional pay. No final decisions have been made on the matter and we will not proceed without good evidence and a strong rationale for doing so.
Finally, the hon. Gentleman’s response reflected the widespread consensus that there is a need for change. Our proposing change which responds very much to concerns within the civil service does not mean that we think that the fundamental model is wrong. Arguments are made for a more American approach, but one would lose many important benefits such as the institutional knowledge, continuity and ease of transition through that approach. We have therefore worked within the constraints of the model as it is, but much can be done within those constraints. None of the changes need be massively controversial or dramatic, but together they will make a real difference to the way in which the country is governed.
Mr Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)
I thank my right hon. Friend for publishing a civil service reform plan, which will prove to be the comprehensive cross-departmental change programme that the Public Administration Committee has long been calling for. Will he engage all his fellow Ministers to ensure that they lead the programme alongside permanent secretaries? Without effective leadership, no change programme will succeed. Finally, will he reaffirm that the civil service must remain one of our great institutions and a force for the stability of government, our constitution and our nation?
Mr Maude
I am grateful to my hon. Friend, who has been urging me to publish a civil service reform plan for some time. I have said many times that I am keener on civil service reform than I am on civil service reform plans, but we have set out the plan and what we aim to achieve. It will require concerted political leadership, and there must be no hiding place. The political leadership of the Government and wide consensus across the party divide, which I think there is, together with the leadership of the civil service, will provide the best chance of implementing the plan successfully. I completely accept his point that the civil service is an important component of our stability, but we need to ensure that stability does not equate to a lack of any movement.
Mr Jack Straw (Blackburn) (Lab)
I welcome the substance of what the Minister said and the bipartisan tone in which he put it. In particular, may I welcome his proposals for greater involvement by Secretaries of State in the appointment of their permanent secretaries? I say by way of confession that, although I am not sure what the rules were at the time, in each of the three permanent secretary appointments that I made—in the Home Office, the Foreign Office and the Ministry of Justice—I insisted that there was a shortlist of at least three candidates from which I should choose. There was not the least allegation that I had acted in a partisan or cronyist way. The point that I made to those Departments was that if I was to take responsibility for the whole Department and for the work of that permanent secretary, I needed to have some confidence in the individual at the official top of the organisation.
Mr Maude
I am extremely grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his point of view, which I think most people who have been Ministers would recognise and respect. As Ministers we come to the House of Commons and, more or less cheerfully, take responsibility and are held accountable, sometimes in very robust terms, for what our Departments deliver and how they perform. The relationship between a permanent secretary and a Secretary of State is the most important one in a Department, and it is not reasonable for a Secretary of State to feel that he or she has no real choice in the appointment of that permanent secretary.
Mr Mark Williams (Ceredigion) (LD)
Will the Minister reiterate that one of the great strengths of the reform agenda that he has put forward today is that it responds to the demands of ordinary civil servants themselves? History shows that if the Cabinet Office acts in isolation, the project is doomed to failure. We require much wider leadership of the reform agenda, right across the civil service.
Mr Maude
My hon. Friend makes the point very well that it would not work if we tried to impose reform that went against the grain of the hard-working majority of civil servants, who come to work to do a good job and serve their fellow citizens, and who want to go home at the end of the day feeling that they have been able to make a difference. The plan would not have a chance of being successfully implemented. We need to call on the leadership of the civil service, but also on those throughout the civil service who see a need for change and want to be part of it.
John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)
It is opportune that the Public and Commercial Services Union parliamentary reception is taking place at the moment, to which all Members, including the Minister, are invited. That union represents staff who have had job cuts, privatisation, pay cuts and pay freezes and who have had their pensions undermined. They have even had their redundancy payments cut. Will he call in and explain to those staff what is meant by “Departments will undertake a review of terms and conditions to identify those that go beyond what a good…employer would provide”? Does that mean that there will be more cuts to job security, maternity cover, paternity leave or sick pay? Will he explain precisely what it means?
Mr Maude
Depending on how long this statement goes on, I would be delighted to call in to the PCS reception and renew old acquaintances and friendships.
To which terms and conditions does the statement refer? Civil servants hate it when outlandish and archaic terms and conditions, many of which they will not have known exist, get picked up by the media and lampooned. Such terms and conditions enable the media to project civil servants—quite unfairly—as feather-bedded and pampered, which is demoralising for them. We want the civil service to be a good, modern employer, and among the best employers, but that means that such outlying terms and conditions, which are hard to defend in the modern world, must be addressed. They include, for example, the fact that as soon as people become civil servants, they are entitled to six months’ full sick pay. That is out of kilter with anything that exists in the wider public sector or the private sector. That sort of thing will need, over time, to be addressed.
Mr Douglas Carswell (Clacton) (Con)
I welcome the Minister’s talk of sharpening accountability and of better accountability upwards to departmental boards. He even talks of giving Secretaries of State more of a say on appointments. Why has he not considered enhancing accountability to the Select Committees of the House? Surely without that change, the mandarin is not truly outwardly accountable to the public.
Mr Maude
I completely understand my hon. Friend’s point. He will know that the right hon. Member for Barking (Margaret Hodge), the Chair of the Public Accounts Committee, who is away on Committee business at the moment, strongly takes that view. The Government have not opined on that suggestion at this stage, because the House of Lords Constitution Committee is conducting an inquiry into exactly that issue and we do not want to pre-empt its deliberations. My hon. Friend’s point, however, is a powerful one.
Dr William McCrea (South Antrim) (DUP)
In his statement, the Minister said that the “demand for change…comes from civil servants themselves”, and yet went on to say that changing the civil service culture would be “really hard”. There seems to be a contradiction in that. Can we be sure that the reorganisation of the civil service is in the interests of service to the community, and not simply a cost-saving exercise?
Mr Maude
We need to save costs—that almost goes without saying—and every Department is working under a severe financial constraint, one consequence of which is the significant reduction in the size of the civil service, to which I have referred. The proposals are about ensuring that, in such circumstances, when there is a smaller civil service and less money around, citizens can be served and receive public services of a good standard, and in many cases we hope a better standard than they currently receive.
Michael Fallon (Sevenoaks) (Con)
Is it fair that businesses outside London and the south-east must compete for staff against public offices whose pay and conditions are set nationally? If local pay works so well and flexibly for the Courts Service, why would we be squeamish about extending it?
Mr Maude
At the risk of my hon. Friend’s eyebrows going into overdrive, may I say that no final decisions have been made? He makes the argument. We have invited the pay review bodies to look at that proposal but no decision will be made until the evidence has been properly examined and the existence or otherwise of a strong rationale has been established.
Ms Gisela Stuart (Birmingham, Edgbaston) (Lab)
I would like to return to the issue of accounting officers being recalled to Select Committees. In his statement, the Minister referred only to the Public Accounts Committee. May I urge him to consider other Committees, such as the Defence Committee, given that procurement decisions can cover 10, 15 or 20 years? Will he consider not only making that clearer, as he said in his statement, but making it a duty?
Mr Maude
For the PAC, it is becoming the practice that, in the right circumstances, former accounting officers can be called back. I hear what the hon. Lady says; it is a powerful case. Actually, I would not find it objectionable if former Ministers were called back to Select Committees to talk about decisions they were involved with in a previous life. I see the right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw), the former Lord Chancellor, nodding assent, which is courageous of him.
Mr Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)
As my right hon. Friend said, as long ago as 1968 the Fulton commission identified that policy skills were consistently rated more highly than operational delivery. Forty years later, during my time on the PAC, we found out that not a single permanent secretary had ever run a project. After all these reviews, will he really achieve where everybody else has failed, and get fewer permanent secretaries who have an Oxbridge degree in Latin, can write a beautiful minute and are charming, and actually get people who can run a project and be on the right pay scale for it?
Mr Maude
I hope that my hon. Friend, who stewarded the PAC with such distinction and speaks with great authority on this subject, would recognise that the appointment as head of the civil service of Sir Bob Kerslake, who has a formidable history of operational delivery in local government and running big local authorities, is a step in the right direction. If my hon. Friend looks across the piece, he will see that there are more, but not yet nearly enough, permanent secretaries with a background in operational delivery. We need to go further, however.
Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)
On 23 May, in answer to my question about bonuses, the Prime Minister told the House that there was
“no place in the modern civil service for a presumption of good performance.”—[Official Report, 23 May 2012; Vol. 545, c. 1130.]
Why has the Minister not taken the opportunity, in his excellent paper, to outlaw the culture of bonuses for senior civil servants, especially in failing organisations, such as the UK Border Agency? Giving senior civil servants bonuses of £3.5 million cannot be right.
Mr Maude
Performance pay is always controversial, whether in the public or private sector. The paper suggests that a voluntary earn-back scheme, such as that suggested by Will Hutton in his report on fair pay, might be worth considering. We will invite the Senior Salaries Review Body to consider such a scheme for the senior civil service. Civil servants would be invited to put, say, 5% of their basic pay at risk, so that they have to earn it back, with the possibility of exceeding it with exceptional performance. That would not feel like a one-way bet.
Mr John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)
How will these reforms enable the civil service to deliver much higher quality and with greater accuracy, given the high error rates typical in areas such as benefit distribution?
Mr Maude
For a start, there needs to be better performance management and much better management information. It is a constant complaint that the quality of data is poor and inconsistent. It is hard to hold Departments and parts of Departments to account when we do not know how well they are performing. I point out to my right hon. Friend that when we turned MyCSP, the organisation that delivers the civil service pension scheme, into a joint venture mutual, its levels of productivity and accuracy, doing difficult processing work, improved markedly as it moved towards the vesting date.
Kelvin Hopkins (Luton North) (Lab)
I hope I am not alone in having a great sense of unease about the greater involvement of Ministers in selecting permanent secretaries. When permanent secretaries have to succumb to ministerial favour, is there not a danger of moving towards a presidential system, with more politicisation, less impartiality and civil servants fearing to speak truth unto power lest their careers not advance? I hope that I am not alone in saying that, and I hope that the Minister has a good answer.
Mr Maude
The answer is that we are absolutely not moving to the presidential-type system. I recommend that the hon. Gentleman talk to his right hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn, who has experience of this. The simple truth is that if a Minister is to be accountable for what their Department does, it is not that unreasonable to suppose that they should have a better degree of choice in selecting the principal instrument for the performance of their Department.
Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)
If local residents in the borough of Kettering phone Kettering borough council, of which I have the honour and privilege of being a member, they speak to a human being who answers the phone within 10 seconds. We ran the British empire with fewer civil servants than we have now, and if Kettering borough council can do that, should not organisations such as the Inland Revenue helpline be told that they have to do the same?
Mr Maude
My hon. Friend makes a powerful case, not just for the merits of Kettering borough council, but for what central Government and the civil service can learn from the best in local government. We make that point in the plan. There is, for example, good experience in local government of local authorities sharing services to a much greater degree than in the past—including, in many cases, sharing chief executives. We have suggested that this is also something that central Government could learn from.
Jonathan Ashworth (Leicester South) (Lab)
I listened with great interest to what the Minister said about opening up policy development work. I note what he said about the Civil Service Commission, but I wonder whether he will expand on it. I am not making a partisan point, but he will recall answering questions recently about suggestions—allegations and so on—that, for example, Mr Peter Cruddas had influence over the No. 10 policy making machinery. If policy making is outsourced to think-tanks, there are bound to be occasions when suggestions are made that outside bodies—donors and so on—have undue influence over those think-tanks, so is the Minister anticipating some sort of regulatory framework? Will he expand a little further on that for us?
Mr Maude
The first thing to say is that this proposal is only a modest move. It will be piloted and reviewed to see what works and what does not. I completely concede the hon. Gentleman’s point that the work needs to be done carefully. It is not, I hasten to add, a recipe for giving more business to consultants—we have massively cut the business that central Government give to consultants—but we think there is scope for commissioning policy development work from academics, for example, which seems to be a fruitful idea that is worth pursuing to see what the benefits are.
Tessa Munt (Wells) (LD)
It is important that those who choose the civil service as a career path should still have a wide experience and keep up to date with the knowledge, skills and experience that will be useful. Has the Minister considered whether the parliamentary term and timetable—our cycle—might offer time for development and training opportunities for those staff, or time for fast-track staff in particular to take paid sabbaticals in industry, commerce and the voluntary and philanthropic sectors, which are at the cutting edge of personnel development?
Mr Maude
That is a valuable point, which we address. Such development is available and possible, but it happens to a much lesser extent than is desirable. Exposure to different worlds and different experiences can enrich the ability of senior civil servants to deliver effectively for citizens.
Valerie Vaz (Walsall South) (Lab)
The Minister referred to a central fund. How much will be in it, and will it come from separate Departments? Will he be using a tendering process, or will he just be appointing one particular person?
Mr Maude
It is a modest fund of £500,000 from the Cabinet Office, to be matched by Departments, if they want to bid to use it. I would not generally expect there to be a single appointment. Under the circumstances, we would want to get different groups in to pitch their ideas for how they would develop the work and so on. However, these are early stages. We want to explore how to do the work effectively, but we think it is worth pursuing.
Stephen Barclay (North East Cambridgeshire) (Con)
Will my right hon. Friend clarify whether he will be publishing the personal objectives of permanent secretaries and the interim project milestones of senior responsible owners? Further to the question that my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Mr Leigh) asked, given that 70% of civil servants work in operational roles, will he clarify how many permanent secretaries do not have two years’ experience in such roles?
Mr Maude
I do not have the last fact immediately at my fingertips, although it could no doubt be there soon. On my hon. Friend’s first point, yes, we do plan to publish permanent secretary objectives. They ought to be set in a rigorous way through agreement with the Secretary of State, with the lead non-executive on the Department’s board, with the Prime Minister and with the head of the civil service. That needs to be done. We will then publish those objectives, because the public need to be able to see the extent to which they are being met. My hon. Friend also asked about milestones. We are becoming much more open and saying much more about the way in which the major projects are governed, and about their performance, than has ever been the case.
Mark Durkan (Foyle) (SDLP)
As well as suggesting a greater role for Secretaries of State in the recruitment process for permanent secretaries, the right hon. Gentleman referred to Ministers being able to ask permanent secretaries to appoint a limited number of senior officials to time-limited executive or management roles. Has he any plans to circumscribe or, better still, proscribe any involvement, interference, intervention or influence by special advisers in relation to such matters? Does experience not teach us that special advisers should not taste, touch or handle any aspect of such a process?
Mr David Ruffley (Bury St Edmunds) (Con)
I welcome the thrust of the reform, but will the Minister clarify one point? Does he support the idea that a Secretary of State should have the final say in the recruitment of a private sector individual to the post of permanent secretary, provided it is done on a fixed-term, performance-related basis?
Mr Maude
Yes, I do believe that. Obviously, that would need to follow a selection and recruitment process that had been regulated by the Civil Service Commission to ensure that the appointment had been made on merit following fair and open competition, as the law requires. Given that degree of regulation, however, and the assurance that that should give that the individual was an appointable candidate for not only the current Secretary of State but any future ones, there is no obvious reason why that should not happen.
John Healey (Wentworth and Dearne) (Lab)
The Minister said that there was nothing dramatic in his plans. Is it not time for a bigger reform than one that simply involves the appointment of permanent secretaries? Should not a change of Government mean a change at the top of those agencies delivering the most important parts of the new Government’s programme? Perhaps we should consider a system closer to that of the United States, in which Ministers would propose appointments which would then be confirmed or rejected at hearings in this House. Those who were appointed would then, like Ministers, be publicly accountable as well as directly accountable to Parliament.
Mr Maude
I hear what the right hon. Gentleman says. As an experienced former Minister, his views attract respect and deserve careful consideration, but his suggestion would involve a fundamental change to the model that we have in this country. That is not unthinkable, but a deep change would be involved. We believe that our system works really well—or is capable of doing so—and that we can make these changes within the current model to deliver real change. We can also get on with that quite quickly.
Conor Burns (Bournemouth West) (Con)
My right hon. Friend rightly began his statement by saying of the civil service: “It is there to implement the policies of the Government of the day, whatever its political complexion.” He will be aware, through his role as a constituency Member of Parliament and as a Minister, of the frustrations expressed by many Ministers at the lack of determination of some in their Departments to implement the programme on which the Government of the day were elected. What assurances can he give us that this programme of reform will keep its central facet—namely, that the civil service is there to implement the will of the people as expressed by those elected to the House of Commons?
Mr Maude
That is a fundamental tenet of our system, and if there were widespread concern that that was not happening, pressure to change the system along the lines that the right hon. Member for Wentworth and Dearne (John Healey) has outlined would become hard to resist. The key point, however, is that the permanent secretary of a Department is under an obligation to provide Ministers with officials who are capable of delivering the Minister’s priorities. If that is not happening, Ministers are entitled to—and should—make quite a fuss.
Nia Griffith (Llanelli) (Lab)
While I fully agree that we need to deal with poor performance effectively, and I look forward to seeing the Minister’s capabilities plan, will he tell me why he has chosen to use norm-referencing at an arbitrary 10%, which is going to encourage colleagues to have a dog-eat-dog approach and to vie with each other to get out of the bottom 10%, like in some ghastly TV game show, rather than to deal with poor performance where and whenever it occurs?
Mr Maude
All the evidence suggests that without some, by its very nature, relatively arbitrary way of ranking performance, we will not get the focus on dealing with poor performance. I do not take a simplistic view of poor performance that suggests that anyone who is underperforming should immediately exit the civil service because the first thing that should be done is to provide proactive support and development of the individual to get them to improve. If that does not prove possible, then it is not right and it is not fair to the rest of the civil service, who work hard and are dedicated, to see the civil service’s reputation pulled down by those who are consistently underperforming.
Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)
When looking at civil service reform, will my right hon. Friend continue to ensure the curtailing of millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money spent on civil service management conferences? Will he also curtail the huge spending on expensive head-hunters by civil service departments, often staffed by former senior civil servants themselves?
Mr Maude
Spending on all those things has massively reduced since the coalition Government were formed. We can often do these things much more effectively. Management-type conferences, away-days and all that sort of thing now take place largely in the Government’s own property at much lower cost. It is sometimes necessary to use head-hunters to do particular recruitments, but this should be the exception rather than the rule.
Ms Margaret Ritchie (South Down) (SDLP)
I thank the Minister for his statement, in which he said that the civil service of the future would be smaller. In light of that, what will be the staffing head count implications for those parts of the civil service that reside within the devolved regions, such as the Northern Ireland Office and Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs?
Mr Maude
Those decisions will be taken by those Departments themselves. We do not expect to do that by central diktat. So far as civil servants in the devolved Administrations are concerned, that is of course the responsibility of those Administrations. The Northern Ireland civil service is slightly different as it is separate, but in Scotland and Wales, the permanent secretaries of both those Administrations have been involved in the development of these plans.
Martin Horwood (Cheltenham) (LD)
Civil servants at GCHQ and elsewhere in my constituency already deliver what I call a gold-plated service to government, despite serious challenges to recruitment and retention. Will these reforms strengthen the hand of unique institutions such as GCHQ in the face of serious private sector competition for highly expert staff?
Mr Maude
I am very aware of the amazing work done by GCHQ and of the extraordinary talents that get attracted to Cheltenham, and by and large retained there, in support of work of the highest importance for the safety of the nation. There is certainly nothing that we are doing that will inhibit the ability of organisations such as GCHQ to do what is necessary to recruit and retain the very best.
Nick de Bois (Enfield North) (Con)
There are many talented public servants at all levels of the civil service, but will my right hon. Friend assure me that these plans will allow that talent to be recognised and advanced by rewarding innovation and successful outcomes?
Mr Maude
My hon. Friend makes a very good point—that the system does not always reward those who innovate. We make the point in the paper that no one’s career ever seems to suffer if they continue to preside over an inefficient status quo, but if people try something new that does not work, they can feel very exposed. We need to be as rigorous in examining, testing and challenging the status quo as we are with innovation and change. We need to be supportive of those who try new things. Not everything new that gets tried will work, but the best organisations learn at least as much from things that are tried and do not work as they do from things that are tried and do.
Mark Reckless (Rochester and Strood) (Con)
The Prime Minister recently stated in Malaysia that “Yes Minister” remains true to life. The Minister has said today: “There should only exceptionally be more than eight layers between the top and the front line…That will help to speed up decisions and empower those at more junior levels.” Could we not be a little more ambitious?
Mr Maude
I am always open to encouragement of that nature. In a really big organisation—and some parts of central Government are very big organisations—eight is not an inordinate number of layers. Those are still quite big spans of authority. In most cases, however, the number should be significantly lower. We particularly want the changes to empower people at the front line to make decisions and judgments without constantly having to refer them up the hierarchy, because that will make their jobs more rewarding and satisfying.
Mr David Nuttall (Bury North) (Con)
Can my right hon. Friend confirm that a reduction in the size of the civil service will not be offset by an increase in the number of former civil servants who are subsequently re-employed as consultants?
Mr Maude
I have no control over whether former civil servants obtain employment as consultants. I can say, however, that the amount of money that the Government spend on consultants has fallen by some 60% since the election, that it remains at a much lower level, and that it will continue to do so.
Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)
I am delighted that my right hon. Friend is prepared to learn from local government. The Communities and Local Government Committee is conducting an inquiry into the operation of mutuals and co-operatives, and other forms of working. The evidence is still coming in, but it is clear that such arrangements lead to better services, more job satisfaction, and innovation. However, in order to go forward, people need support: they need financial backing, and they need to be encouraged to take the work on. What measures will my right hon. Friend take to provide them with that opportunity?
Mr Maude
We have set up a mutuals information service so that we can provide ready access to information. We have also set up a small fund that can buy legal and commercial advice for groups of public sector workers who want to establish themselves as mutuals. That is beginning to succeed, but what is needed above all is for the managers in such public sector organisations to support those who want to spin themselves out as public service mutuals. There is a tendency for managers to feel that that is somehow a threat and to resist it, but they should see it as a big opportunity, for all the reasons that my hon. Friend has so eloquently cited.
Rory Stewart (Penrith and The Border) (Con)
The 2001 reforms of the Foreign Office led to a torrent of management jargon, and to officials managing themselves instead of getting to grips with foreign countries. Will the Minister reassure us that this round of reforms will not promote people on the basis of abstract management skills at the expense of the energy, imagination, practical wisdom and courage which are at the heart of good administration?
Charlotte Leslie (Bristol North West) (Con)
Bristol is currently negotiating its exciting city deal, which will create a revolution in regional growth. Can my right hon. Friend confirm that the reforms will enable the civil service—particularly in the vital Department for Transport, which oversees the infrastructure for growth—to be as dynamic, growth-focused and, indeed, business-minded as Bristol, our regions and the nation need it to be?
James Morris (Halesowen and Rowley Regis) (Con)
I welcome the statement. Does the Minister agree that one of the most important things the modern civil service needs to do is look at new ways of delivering public services, particularly given the challenges of the digital era?
Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)
My right hon. Friend touched on the importance of importing the very best of transformational change from the enterprise sector. Will he say a little more about that?
Mr Maude
We want a civil service culture that is much more recognisable to those who come from the private sector so that there can be greater interaction. Where people do move from one sector to another, frequently it does not work because they feel like they have landed on a different planet. It is particularly valuable for civil servants to spend some time in the private sector as they will pick up additional skills, as well as vice versa. There can be very valuable cross-fertilisation. This has often been tried, but it has worked far too rarely. We are going to have another go.
Cabinet Office
Lord Maude of Horsham Excerpts(11 years, 10 months ago)
Ministerial CorrectionsRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mr Maude
By looking at the Contracts Finder website, which is the main source of Government contracts over £100,000. That is the place where they should look, and I hope that they will, but since February 2011, when we announced our new approach, about a third of new contracts have already been awarded to SMEs.
[Official Report, 13 June 2012, Vol. 546, c. 308.]
Letter of correction from Francis Maude:
An error has been identified in the oral answer given on 13 June 2012 to the hon. Member for Colne Valley (Jason McCartney).
The correct answer should have been:
Mr Maude
By looking at the Contracts Finder website, which is the main source of Government contracts over £10,000. That is the place where they should look, and I hope that they will, but since February 2011, when we announced our new approach, about a third of new contracts have already been awarded to SMEs.
Oral Answers to Questions
Lord Maude of Horsham Excerpts(11 years, 10 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Graham Evans (Weaver Vale) (Con)
1. What savings to the public purse have resulted from changes to the Government estate in the last two years.
The Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General (Mr Francis Maude)
The moratorium on new leases and on passing over breaks in existing leases has helped us across central Government to save the taxpayer some £278 million from property in just the first 10 months of the coalition Government’s time in office. To date, central Government have got out of more than 900 leases and released freeholds, and last year alone the size of the estate fell by 6%.
Graham Evans
Will my right hon. Friend reassure the House that the Government will get value for taxpayers’ money by ensuring that, wherever possible, the publicly owned freehold estate is used to avoid the need for expensive leases?
Mr Maude
That is exactly our approach. Far too much of the freehold estate is under-occupied and far too many expensive leasehold properties are occupied in a very inefficient way. In Bristol alone we discovered that central Government, in their different forms, occupied 115 separate addresses, which is very inefficient and not at all conducive to joined-up government.
Jon Trickett (Hemsworth) (Lab)
As you know, Mr Speaker, we should always watch what Ministers do, rather than simply listening to what they say. The problem with this Minister is that he promised millions of pounds of savings from other Departments while sneakily building up his own empire. In truth, his Department’s agencies had 23,000 square metres of office space when he came to office, but that figure has more than doubled to a staggering 56,000 square metres. Squeezing others while fattening up his own Department is hardly a policy that will incentivise colleagues to reduce their estate. When will he deliver the savings, and not just mythical ones?
Mr Maude
The hon. Gentleman ought to look a little more carefully at the facts. He will see that the National School of Government and the Central Office of Information, which had been part of quangoland under the previous Government, have been brought in-house and so have been closed down.
Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)
May I satisfy the Opposition Front-Bench spokesman and give the Minister for the Cabinet Office good news by suggesting that even more money could be saved by relocating out of London and coming to Wellingborough?
Mr Maude
I am confident that, under my hon. Friend’s benign guidance, Wellingborough is an incredibly good place for people to work. The size of the civil service is falling to its smallest since the second world war and we are reducing the number of people who need to be in central London, but if the opportunity to relocate people out of London arises, I am sure that Wellingborough will have a very good case to make.
Gloria De Piero (Ashfield) (Lab)
When it comes to making savings for the public purse, a constituent of mine has written to me: she works for the civil service and is travelling two to three times a week from Nottinghamshire to London to attend meetings that last about an hour. Is that not a ridiculous waste of money, and what are Ministers doing about it?
Sandra Osborne (Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock) (Lab)
2. What steps he plans to take to measure the social impact of Big Society Capital.
Mr Wayne David (Caerphilly) (Lab)
3. What steps he is taking to support civil servants facing redundancy.
The Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General (Mr Francis Maude)
All Departments are rightly required to maximise opportunities for redeployment within the Government and to make all reasonable efforts to avoid compulsory redundancies. All Departments also have in place appropriate support for those employees affected, including retraining, career coaching and advice, and help with CV writing.
Mr Maude
As I said a little earlier, the size of the civil service has already fallen to its smallest since the second world war, and there will be further downsizing, as we have made clear. The resignation rate of senior civil servants is stable: there is no higher turnover than before.
Mr Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)
Will my right hon. Friend confirm that next week the Government are going to publish their civil service reform plan, and that this issue may be one that the plan addresses as the Government try to set out a clear change programme for the whole of government?
Jason McCartney (Colne Valley) (Con)
4. What steps he is taking to encourage small and medium-sized enterprises to bid for Government contracts.
The Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General (Mr Francis Maude)
It is our aim and aspiration that by the end of this Parliament 25% of central Government spend with outside providers should be with small and medium-sized enterprises. We have launched a series of radical measures to simplify the procurement process in order to make it easier and cheaper for all companies to see the business available with the Government and to bid and compete effectively. Our direct spend with SMEs since the Labour party left office is already on track to double.
Jason McCartney
How can SMEs in my constituency find out more about how to do more business with the Government?[Official Report, 18 June 2012, Vol. 546, c. 3-4MC.]
Mr Maude
By looking at the Contracts Finder website, which is the main source of Government contracts over £100,000. That is the place where they should look, and I hope that they will, but since February 2011, when we announced our new approach, about a third of new contracts have already been awarded to SMEs.
Mr Iain McKenzie (Inverclyde) (Lab)
Will the Minister advise the House on what help or education have been given to small and medium-sized businesses regarding online e-procurement? Many small businesses in my constituency find it quite challenging to go online.
Mr Maude
I will look into that, but the hon. Gentleman might like to bring some of those suppliers to me to talk through the difficulties, because we want to make the process as easy as possible. Suppliers tell me that bidding for public sector contracts costs them typically four times as much as bidding for private sector contracts. The changes that we are making will radically reduce that, but we want to make sure that the process works, so I should be grateful for his help.
Mr Mark Williams (Ceredigion) (LD)
According to the Federation of Small Businesses, 40% of businesses still say that the tendering process is too complex. There are some very good messages in the procurement pledge on the website that the Minister mentioned. What steps is he taking to encourage people to adopt the principles of the pledge?
Mr Maude
That is policy within central Government, and it should happen, although I am not for a moment claiming that it is universal yet. We want to hear about procurements that are not being done in the right way. In the wider public sector, we can do no more than exhort and encourage, and we will do so. However, it remains the case that if we are alerted to procurements being done in the old-fashioned way, which is very antagonistic to small businesses, we will intervene. We have got a number of those changed for the better.
Michael Dugher (Barnsley East) (Lab)
The latest official figures continue to show that the proportion of procurement spend going to SMEs is decreasing in the majority of Government Departments. A recent survey by the FSB found that 40% of SMEs believe that the tendering process is too complicated, while 37% believe that they are being “sidelined” by the Government. Does the Minister agree with Mark Thompson, an adviser to his own Department, who said:
“The reality is, government has very little idea of how to deal with SMEs and has very little in the way in terms of concrete plans here”?
Mr Maude
The main change is that for the first time there are official figures for this spend—the previous Government did not even bother to count it—and the numbers are going up. Obviously within each Department there will not necessarily be an even progress all the time—I would have thought that even the hon. Gentleman ought to be able to understand that—but across the whole of Government spend with SMEs has doubled. I would hope that he would enthusiastically welcome that.
Mr Mark Spencer (Sherwood) (Con)
5. What steps he is taking to reduce the administrative and regulatory burdens that affects the number of people who volunteer.
Andrew Bridgen (North West Leicestershire) (Con)
6. What progress he has made on his plans to place civil service pensions on a sustainable footing.
The Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General (Mr Francis Maude)
We are committed to ensuring that the reform of public sector pensions means that public servants will continue to receive pensions that are among the very best available. These now provide a fair deal for public service workers while being an affordable deal for the taxpayer and a good deal for the country that is sustainable in the long term. We have spent months negotiating a new scheme that was put to the civil service unions some months ago. I am pleased that four unions have now accepted the proposals.
Andrew Bridgen
I am sure that the 85% of the work force in my constituency who work in the private sector will welcome that response given that their pensions are, on average, far less generous than those available in the public sector, which they are also expected to fund. Will my right hon. Friend give the House an estimate of the sum that the taxpayer would be expected to pay for public sector pensions over the next 25 years if these reforms did not take place?
Seema Malhotra (Feltham and Heston) (Lab/Co-op)
7. What discussions Ministers in his Department have had with their ministerial colleagues on charitable donations.
Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)
10. What steps he has taken to ensure clarity and efficiency in the delivery of policy across Government.
The Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General (Mr Francis Maude)
On 31 May we published business plans for 17 Government Departments, which clearly set out the actions that Departments will take to implement the Government’s reform priorities and by when. The No. 10 website publishes monthly updates on which actions have been completed and which are overdue.
Debbie Abrahams
Will the Minister explain how one Government policy operating in direct conflict with another—for example, the withdrawal of the right to flexible working conflicting with support for carers—amounts to efficiency?
Mr Douglas Carswell (Clacton) (Con)
11. What steps he is taking to reduce fraud in Government procurement.
The Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General (Mr Francis Maude)
We are committed to tackling fraud and error in all areas of Government business, including public procurement. We believe that we can save the taxpayer billions of pounds a year by doing that across Government. Every central Government body will carry out a spend recovery audit by the end of next year, which should generate savings of between £50 million and £100 million. The Home Office and the Department for Transport have already recovered significant amounts by doing this.
Mr Carswell
In welcoming the greater efficiencies and economies of scale that come from centralised procurement, does my right hon. Friend recognise the danger that centralised procurement can, in effect, throw up barriers to entry for smaller suppliers? Might this not help to explain why small and medium-sized enterprises are not always getting their fair share?
Mr Maude
As I said earlier, SMEs are increasing their share of Government business. It has doubled since the election and is set to continue further. I point my hon. Friend to what happened with the Government’s aggregated travel contract when we brought it together: one of the two contracts for travel across the whole of Government was won by a small business, which is rapidly becoming a bigger one.
Duncan Hames (Chippenham) (LD)
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 the public sector Efficiency and Reform Group, civil service issues, the industrial relations strategy in the public sector, government transparency, civil contingencies, civil society and cyber security.
Duncan Hames
In March, Ministers confirmed in this place that the Department was conducting a review into the long-term funding challenges facing the charity advice sector, as was promised to me by the Prime Minister last October. Will the Minister tell the House and the busy advisers, such as those at Wiltshire’s citizens advice bureau, what conclusions he has reached?
Mr Maude
Advice providers, like other parts of the voluntary sector, are facing a difficult funding situation. In the Budget, the Chancellor made £20 million available in each of the next two years to support the not-for-profit advice sector as it adapts. Our transition fund also provides support to 45 CABs and 17 law centres, and the Ministry of Justice is increasing funding for mediation services by £15 million to encourage greater use of mediation in disputes.
Mr Gareth Thomas (Harrow West) (Lab/Co-op)
Twelve months ago, the Minister for the Cabinet Office gave the Work programme as an example of the big society in action. A year on, some of the charities that signed up originally have gone bust and almost 100 have withdrawn their welfare-to-work expertise from the programme completely. Is this yet another example of the lack of leadership from Cabinet Office Ministers for charities across Whitehall, or can we finally expect some action to sort this mess out?
Mr Maude
I do not know from that question whether the hon. Gentleman believes it is right for social enterprises to play a major role in the provision of public services. We do, and more than 500 social enterprises and voluntary organisations are involved in the supply chain. I would have thought that he welcomed that.
Mr Speaker
Order. Far too many noisy private conversations are taking place in the Chamber. Let us have a bit of order for Nicola Blackwood.
Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)
T2. The Department for Work and Pensions has no right to data. Absurdly, its Ministers have banned Work programme providers from publishing any data on their performance. That is the opposite of this Minister’s open data policy. What is he doing about it?
Caroline Dinenage (Gosport) (Con)
T7. What assessment has the Minister made of last year’s National Citizen Service pilots?
Luciana Berger (Liverpool, Wavertree) (Lab/Co-op)
T3. The Government came to power promising a bonfire of the quangos. Will the Minister confirm, however, that the Health and Social Care Act 2012 creates more quangos than the Public Bodies Act 2011 abolished?
Adam Afriyie (Windsor) (Con)
T9. The Minister for the Cabinet Office must be praised for his efforts in driving forward the open data agenda, through which dusty Government datasets are beginning to provide the jobs and economic growth that the country so desperately needs. What further measures does he have in mind to open up such dusty public sector datasets?
Mr Maude
My hon. Friend has been a formidable, expert and passionate advocate of the open data agenda. Open data are the new raw material and can drive a huge amount of business growth. The Government are already the world leader in opening up data, but there is more to come. [Interruption.]
Mr Speaker
Order. It is very unfair on the Minister that he is not being heard. He should be heard, as should all Members.
Valerie Vaz (Walsall South) (Lab)
T4. The Government have sold off 250 freeholds of the nation’s buildings and land. If they are going to continue to do that, will the Minister ensure that there is a covenant in the conveyancing to ensure that the public have access to public land?
State of the Estate 2011
Lord Maude of Horsham Excerpts(11 years, 11 months ago)
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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, “The State of the Estate in 2011”. This report provides an assessment of the efficiency and sustainability of the Government’s civil estate and records the progress that Government are making in this area. The report is published on an annual basis.
Ministerial Pensions
Lord Maude of Horsham Excerpts(12 years ago)
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The Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General (Mr Francis Maude)
On 15 March I laid before the House an amendment scheme to the ministerial pension scheme to introduce an increase in member contributions from April 2012 and set out the detail in a written ministerial statement, Official Report, column 33WS. In order to ensure that this change in contributions does not inadvertently increase the benefits earned by the members of this pension scheme, which are determined by a complex calculation, it is now necessary to make some further small technical changes by way of an amendment scheme.
I have notified the trustees of the Parliamentary Contributory Pension Fund, the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority and the Government Actuary of the need for this further technical amendment scheme to deliver the contribution increase on which I consulted last year.
The details of the amendment scheme have been laid before the House.
Ministerial Responsibilities
Lord Maude of Horsham Excerpts(12 years ago)
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The Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General (Mr Francis Maude)
The new list of ministerial responsibilities has been published today. Copies are available in the Vote Office and have been placed in the Library. A copy will also be sent to every hon. Member.
The list can also be accessed on the Cabinet Office website at
http://www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/resource-library/government-ministers-and-responsibilities.
Election and Referendum Guidance
Lord Maude of Horsham Excerpts(12 years, 1 month ago)
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The Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General (Mr Francis Maude)
Guidance has today been issued to civil servants in UK Departments and those working in non-departmental public bodies (NDPBs) on the principles which they should observe in relation to the conduct of Government business in the run up to the forthcoming elections to local authorities in England, Wales and Scotland, to the London Assembly and for the London, Salford and Liverpool mayors. The guidance also covers the referendums on directly elected mayors in several English cities. These elections and referendums are taking place on 3 May 2012.
The guidance sets out the need to maintain the political impartiality of the civil service and the need to ensure that public resources are not used for party political purposes. The period of sensitivity preceding the elections starts on 12 April.
Copies of the guidance have been placed in the Libraries of both Houses and on the Cabinet Office website at:
http://www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/resource-library/election-guidance
Party Funding
Lord Maude of Horsham Excerpts(12 years, 1 month ago)
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The Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General (Mr Francis Maude)
With permission Mr Speaker, I would like to make a statement on party funding.
As set out in the coalition Government’s programme, party funding in Britain needs to be reformed. The last major attempt at reform came in the cross-party talks between 2006 and 2008, chaired by Sir Hayden Phillips, which I led for the Conservative party. The right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw) led for the Labour party and the present Parliamentary Secretary, Office of the Leader of the House of Commons, my hon. Friend the Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr Heath), led for the Liberal Democrats. The origin of those talks was a genuine desire on the part of my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister—[Hon. Members: “ Where is he?”]—and Tony Blair and the right hon. and learned Member for North East Fife (Sir Menzies Campbell) to resolve these issues, which were disfiguring the face of British politics. The expectation was that there could be some increase in state funding if there were a cap on donations, but crucially a cap applying to all donations, whatever their source. Those talks came agonisingly close to securing agreement for long-term reform, but in the event agreement proved impossible. That was a serious missed opportunity. Since then, the need for change has become more, not less, pressing. Accordingly, at the last election, all three main parties promised in their manifestos to make progress.
This Government have an explicit commitment in the coalition agreement to
“pursue a detailed agreement on limiting donations and reforming party funding in order to remove big money from politics”.
It was helpful when, in the early months of the coalition Government—[Interruption.]
Mr Speaker
Order. The Minister for the Cabinet Office is ploughing on manfully—perhaps I should say “personfully”—through his statement, but he should not have to put up with this level of noise. It is not acceptable. We do not want this sort of noise from either side of the House. Let us hear the statement and the response. The House can rely on me to ensure that there will then be a full opportunity for Members in all parts of the House to question the Minister, but let us listen to his statement with courtesy.
Mr Maude
I am not particularly surprised that the Labour party wants to drown out this statement, because its role in this saga is a shameful one.
It was helpful when, in the early months of the coalition Government, the Committee on Standards in Public Life launched a review. That Committee reported last November. My right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister, with support from the Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office, who is responsible for political and constitutional reform, leads for the Government and, in that capacity, responded to the report. He welcomed the recommendations and confirmed that the report contained a useful guide to the principles and areas that are essential for party funding agreement.
However, the Government could not see a case, at that time of austerity, for additional state funding for political parties. The Committee’s view that an increase in state funding was required meant that its recommendations could not be adopted in full. Instead, as he told the House last month, the Deputy Prime Minister wrote to party leaders asking for nominations to take part in cross-party discussions. Nominations have been received from all three parties. With Lord Feldman, I will lead for the Conservative party. The talks will begin shortly. Events over the last weekend have demonstrated the importance of making progress.
What Peter Cruddas said was completely unacceptable and wrong, and much of what he said was simply not true, as he himself has since stated. As the House will know, all donations to any party headquarters above £7,500 have to be declared to the Electoral Commission and comply with detailed electoral law. These requirements are rightly extremely detailed and demanding, and should be meticulously complied with by all parties. This Government have already gone much further than any previous Government in revealing details of Ministers’ meetings with outside organisations and individuals. My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has set out this morning that the Conservative party will now go much further. I hope that all other parties—[Interruption.] As the Leader of the Opposition has taken the trouble to come to the House today, I hope that he will set out what his party will do.
What we are now doing builds on the major improvements to transparency in public life that this Government have introduced. We are the first Government to introduce such transparency and the first Government to tackle the problem of lobbying, with our proposals for a statutory register of lobbyists currently out to consultation. We have published more data than any other Government in history about the activities of Ministers and Government Departments.
Let me return to the forthcoming party funding talks. There is a way of solving this problem. Across the House, we broadly know the issues we need to address. We need to look at donations and how to limit them, and we need to look at affiliate bodies. The Prime Minister has once again said that he is ready to cap donations, but only if it is agreed that the cap applies to all donations, whatever their source. We could also look at how to boost small donations and broaden the support base for parties, at the way in which existing state funding works, and at how we might further increase transparency around fundraising activities. The challenge for us all across the House is to make this process work, to reach agreement across all sides, and to deal with the problem of party funding once and for all. I look forward to the enthusiastic support of all parties for this course.
Edward Miliband (Doncaster North) (Lab)
Let me say first to the Minister for the Cabinet Office that it should not be him at the Dispatch Box today; it should have been the Prime Minister who came to the House, because the revelations this weekend concern his office, his policy unit and his judgment. It shows utter contempt for this House that the Prime Minister could make a statement to the media just three hours ago but refuse to come here to face Members of Parliament. I think we all know why: he has something to hide.
I will come to the wider party funding issues that the Minister raises, but let us be clear that the reason why he has come to the House today is not the long-standing debate about party funding, but this weekend’s revelations. Let me remind the House that this is about the Prime Minister’s chief fundraiser seeking cash for access. What did he say? He said:
“The first thing we do… is get you at the Cameron and Osborne dinners, and in fact some of our bigger donors have been for dinner in No. 10 Downing Street”.
It is about seeking cash for influence. [Interruption.] I think that hon. Members should listen and hear about the seeking of cash for influence. He said:
“We get a chance to ask the Prime Minister questions… What do you think we are going to do about the top rate of tax… Everything is confidential”.
And it is about seeking cash for policy. I quote:
“If you’re… unhappy about something… we’ll listen to you and we’ll put it into the policy committee at No. 10.”
These represent grave allegations about the way access is gained and policy is made. They are about a breaking down of the lines between support for a political party and Government policy.
First, will the Minster accept that it is completely inadequate, given the scale of these allegations, for an investigation into what happened to be conducted by the Conservative party? A Conservative peer, appointed by the Prime Minister, an inquiry into the Conservative party, by the Conservative party and for the Conservative party—it is a whitewash and everyone knows it. We need a proper, independent inquiry appropriate to the gravity of what is at stake. Will the Minister now agree to an inquiry conducted by the independent adviser on ministerial interests, Sir Alex Allan?
On cash for access, the inquiry should specifically cover all the donors the Prime Minister has met in Government buildings—Downing street and Chequers—since May 2010; whether any of those meetings were in response to promises of cash for access; and whether other senior Ministers, including the Chancellor, have held such meetings.
On cash for influence, the inquiry should cover whether Conservative party donors were offered the chance, as Peter Cruddas said, to put forward policy ideas in exchange for donations; whether any of these ideas were forwarded to the No. 10 policy unit; which of them found their way into the Chancellor’s Budget; and whether Government Departments have been asked by Downing street to facilitate ministerial and official meetings with donors. Above all, the inquiry needs to investigate the breaking down of the boundary between the Prime Minister as leader of his party and the Prime Minister as Head of the Government.
Yesterday we were told that the only people who had been to dinner in Downing street were a few “long-standing friends” invited to the private flat. Today Downing street has admitted that some of them were not invited because they were long-standing friends at all and that it was not in the private flat; it was a thank-you dinner for donors to the Conservative party held inside Downing street. In total, £18 million came from 12 donors. It was not the premier league, but the champions league of Tory donors—I bet they did all right in the Budget. And even that is not a complete list, because the Prime Minister has refused to name donors he met on Government property who donated less than £50,000. What is the excuse? It is that only donations of £50,000 are significant donations. Only this Prime Minister would think a donation of £49,000, twice the average salary, was not significant.
Next, does the Minister for the Cabinet Office agree that the rules on party political funding are clear? It is illegal to solicit donations—[Interruption.] I would have thought he would like to hear about this; it is about illegality and allegations of illegality. It is illegal to solicit donations through overseas companies and illegal to disguise those donations, yet there are allegations that this was exactly what Mr Cruddas was suggesting. Will the Minister now undertake to recommend to the Prime Minister that he refer the Conservative party to the Electoral Commission to investigate this practice by Mr Cruddas and whether it has been practised by other Conservative party donors?
Thirdly, on the issue of party funding, I am somewhat surprised by the Minister suddenly now saying that he wants to restart talks. Let me provide the House with some background. The Deputy Prime Minister wrote to me and the Prime Minister on 8 February, seeking cross-party talks with heads of terms to be decided by Easter—very soon. I replied with my suggested nominees 12 days later. Such was the Government’s enthusiasm for reform, that in the five weeks since then I have heard precisely nothing about those talks, and neither has either of my nominees.
What are we to make of the Government’s new-found enthusiasm for reform? What a coincidence—the day after the Tory treasurer seeks cash for access. And who have they nominated for those talks? The Minister, and another great reformer, the Conservative party chairman, Lord Feldman. He is the man who fatally undermined the Kelly inquiry by writing at the eleventh hour to say that a £10,000 cap on donations was unacceptable because it would
“hugely inhibit the ability of political parties to engage with the electorate.”
Perhaps he should have said, “hugely inhibit the power of rich individuals to influence policy in Downing street.” We are happy to have proper talks about funding, but it is ridiculous for the Government to seek to use them as a smokescreen for the revelations this weekend.
The problem is that these people, as we saw with last week’s Budget, think they can get away with anything—and they have been found out. The weekend’s revelations show this Government cannot deliver the change we need. They promised transparency, they promised to clean up politics; now they will not even agree to a proper inquiry, and the Prime Minister is too ashamed to come to this House to explain his conduct.
This scandal speaks to the conduct and character of the Prime Minister and the Government. Anything short of an independent inquiry will leave a permanent stain on this Government and this Prime Minister.
Mr Maude
For 13 years the Leader of the Opposition was at the heart of the Labour Government. For 13 years they had the chance to make government transparent. For 13 years they had the chance to reform party funding. For 13 years they did nothing—nothing. And, worse than nothing, they blocked reform, because who was it who stopped the Hayden Phillips reforms going through? It was Labour. The House need not rely on me for that; it can rely on Peter Watt, the then general secretary of the Labour party, who said:
“My primary emotion during the process was intense frustration, because my own party”—
Labour—
“was the biggest block to reform.”
So the right hon. Gentleman should not come here, grandstand and claim the moral high ground. His party has a shameful role in the past. He should come here to say sorry for blocking the reform that was there to be had.
Labour in office gave us the cash for honours affair and a police investigation into proxy donations, and I remind the right hon. Gentleman, lest he forget in his new-found enthusiasm for independent investigation, that the investigation into the David Abrahams affair was conducted not by some independent person but by Lord Whitty, a former general secretary of the Labour party. And now that Labour is in opposition, its donors do not just buy policy—they elect the leader. That is why, after the right hon. Gentleman was elected Leader of the Opposition, the first thing he did was to go up to the leaders of Unite, put an arm round their shoulders, and say a warm, heartfelt “Thank you.”
We have heard about cash for policy, and cash can buy policy, but not on this side of the House. It was shocking recently to discover that votes can be decided on the basis of money paid and a cheque cashed. In fact, Labour, back in 2004 in the Warwick agreement, drew up its election programme on the back of an agreement to have union donations that would fund its campaign, so the right hon. Gentleman should not come here and lecture us about cash for policy, because Labour Members are the past masters at it—and look where it has got them. The shadow Health Secretary—he is over there—tabled amendments pushed by his union backers. [Interruption.] The shadow Justice Secretary could not confirm Labour’s own—[Interruption.]
Mr Speaker
Order. [Interruption.] Order. [Interruption.] The Minister should resume his seat, which he has done. First of all, there is far too much noise, a lot of it, but not all, from a sedentary position; and, secondly, I simply say—[Interruption.] Order. I simply say to the Minister that the terms are inevitably wide, but I know that he will want to respond to the questions asked in conformity with the convention governing ministerial statements and that he will want to make a statement of the policy of the Government.
Mr Maude
It is the policy of the Government that there should be cross-party discussions about reform to party funding. It is very important, as we go into this, that we understand the basis on which those important discussions are going to take place, and each party’s background in that respect.
I was just commenting on the shadow Justice Secretary’s inability to confirm Labour’s policy because he was “checking with the GMB”, which, by the way, gave the Labour party over £1.5 million while the Leader of the Opposition was its leader—and we know that when he pulled a sickie saying that he was too ill to attend an NHS rally, he was in fact meeting his very own six-figure donor at Hull City.
We have heard a lot about Labour and Mr Andrew Rosenfeld. I know Mr Rosenfeld; I met him when I was party chairman, and I can tell you, Mr Speaker, that we did not take his money. The Prime Minister has said what the Conservative party is doing to put its house in order. We have already been far more open than Labour ever was when it was in office. I hope that in the course of these discussions the Leader of the Opposition will tell us what he is doing to open up the Labour party. Will he commit to publishing details of every single meal that he has had with donors? Is he going to own up about the dinner with Roland Rudd, whose attendees he promised to reveal months ago but still has not? Will he reveal details of all the meetings with Labour donors in No. 10 that Tony Blair and the previous Prime Minister had when in office? Will he commit to publishing any shadow Cabinet contact with Labour’s union donors? It is no good expecting a list from the Leader of the Opposition. We know that there would be one name on it again and again: Len McCluskey, Len McCluskey and Len McCluskey.
Tony Baldry (Banbury) (Con)
Does my right hon. Friend agree that what all political parties need is for more people to join them? If we had a lot more members of political parties, Labour would not be so dependent on the trade unions and other parties would not be dependent on significant donors. We all have an incentive to encourage more people to join all of us, rather than to engage in this yah-boo politics, which simply puts people off joining political parties.
Mr Maude
I very much agree with my hon. Friend. It was a pity that the opportunity was not taken in the Hayden Phillips discussions to go ahead with the reforms that were so close to agreement, because one of the proposals was to have more state funding to match smaller donations. That would have achieved exactly what my hon. Friend is talking about, which is increasing the spread of those who support political parties. We sometimes lose sight of the fact that it is good for people to support political parties. Democracy depends on it.
Mr Jack Straw (Blackburn) (Lab)
Will the right hon. Gentleman first confirm that the only legislation on party funding of any significance was put through by the previous Government in the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000 and the Political Parties and Elections Act 2009?
Secondly, will the right hon. Gentleman explain to the House what is wrong with having Sir Alex Allan, a distinguished civil servant who has served Labour and Conservative Governments, including the Thatcher Administration, so well, hold an inquiry into this scandal, which differs wholly in its character from those that have gone before, because it goes to the role of the Prime Minister?
Thirdly, the right hon. Gentleman, who was at the talks in 2007, as was I and as was the Parliamentary Secretary, Office of the Leader of the House of Commons, the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr Heath), is right to recall that we came “agonisingly close” to an agreement—so close that we almost initialled the agreement in June 2007. However, to use not my words but those of the Parliamentary Secretary, Office of the Leader of the House of Commons, the Conservative party walked away, and he described the right hon. Gentleman’s approach as “bogus”. What guarantee can we have that if new talks take place, the right hon. Gentleman will not operate in the same way?
Mr Maude
The investigation is not fundamentally about ministerial propriety, but about party funding. No money changed hands, nor was it ever likely to, because what was suggested by Mr Cruddas was fantasy and could never have come to fruition. If it was good enough for a former general secretary of the Labour party to investigate the Labour party’s scandal over donations by proxy, it is good enough for a distinguished lawyer to conduct the investigation into this matter.
On the right hon. Gentleman’s comments about the breakdown of the talks with Sir Hayden Phillips, I refer him to what was said by Peter Watt, the then general secretary of the Labour party, who represented the Labour party with the right hon. Gentleman. He said in absolutely clear terms how frustrated he was that it was the Labour party that was blocking reform. Those are not my words, but those of Peter Watt.
Mrs Eleanor Laing (Epping Forest) (Con)
Will the Minister confirm that the Prime Minister has voluntarily disclosed far more information about his meetings and meetings held by his Ministers than any previous Prime Minister? Will he tell the House what the Government’s policy is in this matter and explain how it compares with the policy of previous Governments?
Mr Maude
I simply confirm what my hon. Friend says, and what I said earlier. This Government have by a quantum leap disclosed more information about Ministers’ activities and their meetings with outside organisations and individuals than the last Government ever contemplated. They operated behind closed doors; we have let the sunlight in.
Ms Gisela Stuart (Birmingham, Edgbaston) (Lab)
The Minister said in his statement that “what Peter Cruddas said was completely unacceptable and wrong”, and that much of it “was simply not true”. Is it now official Conservative party policy to lie to its donors?
Lorely Burt (Solihull) (LD)
Sir Christopher Kelly concluded in his report that
“the only safe way to remove big money from party funding is to put a cap on donations, set at £10,000.”
Does my right hon. Friend agree?
Mr Maude
I agree that it is essential that there should be a cap on donations, and we agreed in the previous discussions that an appropriate level—[Interruption.] Actually, all three parties agreed that the appropriate level was £50,000. There is room for discussion about that, which is fine. Sir Christopher Kelly also said, absolutely unequivocally, that the other side of the coin of a cap on donations was an increase in state funding, and I doubt whether anyone in the House wishes to go out to hard-pressed taxpayers at the moment and claim that the first call on their funds should be additional funding for political parties.
Sir Gerald Kaufman (Manchester, Gorton) (Lab)
Is it not a fact that before the election the hon. Member for Lewes (Norman Baker), now a member of the Government, complained to the Standards and Privileges Committee that the Leader of the Opposition—the leader of the Conservative party—was using his office in the House of Commons to meet the members of The Leader's Group, and that the Committee upheld the complaint? It stated:
“Mr Cameron was in our view ill-advised to link directly…the issues of access to his office and party fund-raising.”
If that was an offence for the Leader of the Opposition, how much worse an offence is it for the Prime Minister to use No. 10 Downing street? He is the leader of a Government who are incompetent, arrogant, extreme right-wing and corrupt.
Mr Sam Gyimah (East Surrey) (Con)
Does my right hon. Friend agree that progress on party funding requires co-operation and transparency from all the main political parties? Will he join me in asking the leaders of all parties to publish the list of donors they have met recently?
Mr Angus Brendan MacNeil (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (SNP)
The revelations that Peter Cruddas and the Prime Minister have spoken about Scotland and its referendum in rude and pejorative terms mean that Westminster can have no part in Scotland’s referendum, but does the Minister agree that if any law has been broken it is a matter not for politicians but for the police?
Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)
It is patently obvious that the Prime Minister and the Government are not corrupt, but will the Minister confirm that it is still the Government’s position that there will be no additional state funding of political parties?
Mr Maude
The Deputy Prime Minister, for whom I know my hon. Friend has particular affection, has said on behalf of the Government that we think it is inappropriate at this stage, in this age of austerity, to contemplate another call on taxpayers’ funds being made to fill the pockets of political parties.
John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)
In the past 12 months, there has been the most intensive lobby by the aviation industry of the Government to reverse their policy on the third runway at Heathrow. This weekend, senior members of the Conservative party briefed the media that they were reconsidering their position, and now we have the cash for access scandal. To dispel any doubt that that is anything other than a coincidence, will the Minister ensure that details of all meetings between aviation industry representatives, the Prime Minister, Ministers, civil servants, policy advisers and party officials are published on the register?
Duncan Hames (Chippenham) (LD)
When will we learn from the crisis that engulfed the House three years ago that the response to such situations is not simply to point fingers at one another, but to address with renewed urgency the need to deal with the source, which in this case is the continuing escalation in the political party funding arms race? Will the Minister therefore apply a renewed sense of urgency to tackling that very point?
Mr Maude
I can only say yes, that is exactly what we are doing. It is important that we look at all the issues involved in party funding. As I have said—the right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw) confirmed this—we came very close to reaching agreement. I am sorry only that the Labour party last time blocked the reforms.
Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)
In the context of these revelations, the public will be concerned not only about policy change but about policy absence. Will the Minister confirm whether any donors related to the legal loan sharking industry have made representations on the Government’s absence of a cap on the cost of credit?
Conor Burns (Bournemouth West) (Con)
Does my right hon. Friend agree that one of the great sadnesses of the last 24 hours is that our politics is in the news again for all the wrong reasons? Does he further agree that any settlement on the funding of political parties must include the trade union movement? Lastly, does he agree that as well as a cap on donations, we should be looking at a national cap on spending that will bring to an end silly spending for pointless reasons?
Mr Dennis Skinner (Bolsover) (Lab)
Why has the Prime Minister not turned up to answer questions? Is it because there is not enough money on offer? Is it not a fact that the Prime Minister has been surrounded by sleaze ever since he walked through the doors of No. 10, a public property that he has been using for his own and his party’s ends? The truth is that it is time this matter was cleaned up in a proper manner. It is time it went to the police.
Mrs Anne Main (St Albans) (Con)
I hope the Minister will stick to his resolve not to pick the public’s pocket on raising any levy for political parties, just as constituents of mine have expressed annoyance that the unions pick their pockets and all the funding is used to support the Labour party, despite their political allegiance.
Mr David Winnick (Walsall North) (Lab)
Should The Sunday Times not be congratulated on exposing this story? Is it not clear that had The Sunday Times story not shown the squalid way in which the Tory party raises money, the Minister would not be making this statement today?
Kris Hopkins (Keighley) (Con)
Will my right hon. Friend assure me that any review of party funding will seek to eliminate any influence that donors might have on selecting parliamentary candidates?
Mr Michael Meacher (Oldham West and Royton) (Lab)
How many private dinners with the Prime Minister or the Chancellor that involved party fundraising have there been since the election? What was the total sum raised? Will the Minister require in future that all private dinners or meetings with Ministers involving party fundraising will be officially recorded on the official register?
Mr Maude
The Prime Minister announced this morning that, as leader of the Conservative party, he is committing the Conservative party to going to an unparalleled degree of openness about engagement with the major donors. We look forward to hearing the same commitment from the leader of the right hon. Gentleman’s party.
George Eustice (Camborne and Redruth) (Con)
The Minister mentioned the cross-party talks chaired by Sir Hayden Phillips five years ago. Will he confirm that early in those talks the former Prime Minister, Tony Blair, accepted the need for the cap to apply to trade unions as well, but that ultimately the rest of the Labour party was a roadblock to such reform?
Mr Maude
My hon. Friend is completely right. There was a concern that if the Conservative party was to get over its deep-seated opposition to increasing the amount of state funding for political parties, the other side of the coin had to be that the Labour party would give up its addiction to trade union funding. Sadly, the latter part did not come through.
Barbara Keeley (Worsley and Eccles South) (Lab)
Any claim that the Minister made earlier to openness and transparency is ruined by the Prime Minister's not coming to the House today. That is a key point. He made a partial statement outside the House about some of his dinners with significant donors, but that will not do. We need an independent inquiry and the fullest list imaginable not just of dinners but of breakfasts, lunches, teas, drinks and any other occasions involving Ministers as well as the Prime Minister.
Mr Maude
The hon. Lady fulminates about the absence of the Prime Minister being the key point, but she knows that that is not the case. She knows that that is not what this is about. She should address the substantial issues, and I look forward to hearing her say that she will support genuine reform of party funding, which will have to address the issue of donations from the trade union movement to the Labour party. Will she do that?
Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)
If the former Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown), ever turns up again to the House of Commons, will my right hon. Friend discuss this matter with him to ensure that members of the previous Government publish details of all their dinners, breakfasts and meetings with donors over the past 15 years?
Steve Rotheram (Liverpool, Walton) (Lab)
It appears that the cost of a meal with the Prime Minister is about a quarter of a million quid. We can only imagine what the cost would be for the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, who is just leaving the Chamber, in “Dodgy Dave’s Downing Street Diner”. Does the Minister understand that when stories such as this emerge, it only confirms what we in Liverpool already know—the Tories are not interested in ordinary people; they are interested only in buying favour and making their rich friends even richer?
Margot James (Stourbridge) (Con)
Will my right hon. Friend confirm that no such policy committee as described by Mr Cruddas exists at No. 10 and that there is no evidence that any policy has been changed by private lobbying, unlike the shameful record of the last Government?
Mr Maude
It is completely impossible for any policy to be changed in that way. Policy in the coalition Government has to be agreed not just by Conservative Ministers but collectively with Conservative and Lib Dem Ministers, so the idea that there is a direct route from Conservative party donors to policy change is absolutely absurd.
Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)
In the Budget, the Chancellor announced a number of tax changes to the regimes for gambling and financial services. Can the Minister tell the House whether Peter Cruddas, in his role of treasurer—he is also the market leader in internet spread betting—had any influence at all?
Mr Maude
I very much doubt it, but I suspect—[Interruption.] As I have said repeatedly, anyone who has been in government knows that in the run-up to a Budget, we get representations from all sorts of people, in favour of everything and against everything. I have no doubt that the Chancellor received lots of representations from all directions on this and other subjects.
Martin Horwood (Cheltenham) (LD)
Given the acrimonious, childish and partisan shouting, jeering and accusations that have accompanied this statement—[Interruption.]—such as that! Does the Minister agree that we should set a short time scale—perhaps by the next Queen’s Speech—for when politicians can be expected to sort this out for themselves, and that if that has not worked by then, we should simply accept the recommendations of the independent Kelly inquiry, which has already met?
Mr Maude
The problem with what my hon. Friend suggests is that, as the Deputy Prime Minister has set out, it is simply not realistic at the moment to propose that we should significantly increase the amount of state funding for political parties. Having a set of reforms of the nature set out by Sir Christopher Kelly’s committee is absolutely dependent on increasing state funding, which I do not think anyone in this House will feel comfortable proposing to their constituents.
Mr Ben Bradshaw (Exeter) (Lab)
If this is not about cash for access, could I bring a pensioner and a working parent from Exeter to see the Prime Minister, at Downing street or Chequers, so that he can explain why he cut taxes for millionaires but clobbered them with a granny tax and a cut in family tax credits?
Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)
What was in The Sunday Times was woeful. All Members, from all parts of the House, agree on that, and it has a history, in all parts of the House. Does my right hon. Friend agree that all political leaders should give explicit instructions to those charged with raising funds that this should never happen again?
Luciana Berger (Liverpool, Wavertree) (Lab/Co-op)
Can the Minister explain how Mr Cruddas knew about the change to the 50p rate of tax before this House did?
Andrew Bridgen (North West Leicestershire) (Con)
Does my right hon. Friend agree that we need much greater transparency in the way political donations are solicited, including the £1 million in cash that Labour solicited from Andrew Rosenfeld, a former tax exile and a man whose firm left Allders pensioners high and dry?
Hugh Bayley (York Central) (Lab)
Shortly before the general election, the Bribery Act 2010 was passed with all-party support. Under certain circumstances the Act requires the director of the Serious Fraud Office to seek permission from the Attorney-General before investigating or prosecuting. Can the Minister give the House an absolute assurance that neither the Attorney-General nor the Solicitor-General will exercise a veto over an investigation or prosecution, if that is what the director of the SFO believes is in order?
Gavin Barwell (Croydon Central) (Con)
I declare an interest as a former registered treasurer of the Conservative party. Does not this affair, like the similar affairs under the previous Government, damage this whole House and all political parties? Is not the answer complete transparency about whom those on the Front Bench and the shadow Front Bench meet, and a cap on all political donations—individual, company and trade union?
Mr Maude
I completely agree. We approached the previous discussions absolutely in that spirit, and we will approach the new discussions in that same spirit, too. [Interruption.] I make the point again to the Labour Chief Whip, who is muttering from a sedentary position, that it was Labour’s own general secretary who said that it was Labour that blocked the last reforms.
Steve McCabe (Birmingham, Selly Oak) (Lab)
Surely the public have a right to know how many of the Prime Minister’s donor diners made representations to the policy unit on tax policy from which they stood personally to benefit?
Kwasi Kwarteng (Spelthorne) (Con)
Has the Minister had any indication from the Labour party that it would be willing to accept a cap on trade union donations?
Mr Maude
It affects the mysterious matter of affiliation fees. Theoretically, union members have the right to opt out of paying the political levy, except that people have to be very persistent to find out A—that there is a right to do it; B—how to do it; and C—that they will not save any money even if they do so.
John Mann (Bassetlaw) (Lab)
A compliance officer has, by law, to be appointed by every single political party under the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000. The Conservative party compliance officer and deputy treasurer, Mike Chattey, is given specific responsibility to ensure that donations are kept legal. In view of what The Sunday Times has reported Mr Chattey to have said, does the Minister agree that that is without question a breach of section 61 of the Act, which states that “any concealment or disguise” of a foreign donation is illegal? Why is Chattey still in his job?
Mr Maude
As has been made abundantly clear, the treasurer’s department at CCHQ—Conservative campaign headquarters—did not know that this meeting was taking place. No donation was advanced, and nor could it possibly have been, for exactly the reason that the hon. Gentleman sets out—that it would have been illegal.
Penny Mordaunt (Portsmouth North) (Con)
Does the Minister have any plans to introduce a 1,000 Club, as the Opposition have? It is apparently a resource of ideas from donors.
Mr Maude
All political parties have donor clubs. It is one way to raise money. I am delighted that the Labour party is extending its reach and trying to raise money from others than simply the trade unions, which we should remember have provided 87% of the entirety of Labour’s finances since the Leader of the Opposition has been in his post.
Mr Denis MacShane (Rotherham) (Lab)
I was elected 18 years ago, almost to the month, and the Conservative party then was convulsed by sleaze. As a Minister in the last Government, I urged major reform, but I failed to convince colleagues. Again, we are where we are today. Every parliament in the Commonwealth and Europe has had to accept that democracy pays for democracy. Believe me—even if I am alone in wanting this—if we do not reform this completely and utterly, this issue will return to haunt this Government and possibly my own party.
Mr Maude
I hear what the right hon. Gentleman says. We did reluctantly accept, in the context of the previous discussions, that there could be a long-term settlement for a generation that would involve an increase in state funding. It went against the grain, I freely say, for the Conservative party, but we thought that that sacrifice might need to be made. Sadly, the Labour party felt unable to make the equivalent sacrifice of getting rid of its addiction to trade union funding.
Jonathan Ashworth (Leicester South) (Lab)
The Paymaster General talks of transparency, yet casually dismisses out of hand the prospects of an independent inquiry. Given that we have heard some very serious allegations about donors’ access to the No. 10 policy unit, which the Minister admitted a few moments ago is staffed by career civil servants, he is obviously confident as the Minister for the Cabinet Office that nothing untoward has gone on. Why not have an independent inquiry so that we can all be reassured and share his confidence?
Mr Maude
Because this is not about access to the policy unit, which is staffed—[Hon. Members: “Yes, it is!” ] If there has been the slightest suggestion anywhere that that has happened, I should like to hear it. However, it has not happened; nor could it happen, so the hon. Gentleman should calm down a bit.
Harriett Baldwin (West Worcestershire) (Con)
As you know, Mr Speaker, the bedrock of our constituency party funding is provided by the hundreds of thousands of individual men and women who join our party because they believe in our values of responsibility. Will the Minister confirm that as long as he is involved in the Conservative party, we will continue to enjoy one person, one vote?
Mr Speaker
Order. The Minister corrected himself perfectly clearly. I heard him; we all heard him.
Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)
The Prime Minister, as Leader of the Opposition, responded to the report mentioned by my right hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Gorton (Sir Gerald Kaufman), entitled “Conduct of Mr David Cameron” and relating to the 2006-07 Session, by saying:
“I would like to assure the Committee”
—in relation to lunches for donors held in his parliamentary office—
“that this will not happen again. I will not hold lunches for members of the Leader’s Group in my Parliamentary office in the future, nor will my office be mentioned in any promotional literature.”
Having had to make that apology to the House, should not the Prime Minister have been extra careful to obey the ministerial code and ensure that there could not even be any possible perception of impropriety in the dinners that he held on public property at No. 10 Downing street?
Mr Speaker
Order. The question has been asked, and the answer must be heard.
Sajid Javid (Bromsgrove) (Con)
Given that the Prime Minister has published a list of all those with whom he has dined in a private capacity, has the Minister received any assurances from the two previous Prime Ministers that they will do the same?
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
Is it not a bit shabby of the Prime Minister to engineer a situation in which he will not have to answer a single question in the House on his unfair Budget for four weeks, and has not had to answer a single question in the House this afternoon because he has sent his marionette along instead? It is particularly important that this is about the Prime Minister’s judgment. When we look at Coulson, Brooks, Werritty and, now, the Cruddas scandal, it is clear that it is a question of his judgment. How did this Government become so casually corrupt so fast?
Jacob Rees-Mogg (North East Somerset) (Con)
Having had the pleasure of listening to my right hon. Friend for almost an hour, may I ask whether he has drawn the same conclusions as me? Has he, too, concluded that there is a lot of synthetic nonsense about this, that the Labour party has its snout in the trough to a far worse extent than we ever did, and that the Prime Minister is to be commended for his honesty, straightforwardness and transparency in revealing the names of all the people whom he has met?
Nia Griffith (Llanelli) (Lab)
My constituents have been absolutely shocked by what they have seen on the video footage of Peter Cruddas this weekend. Can the Minister explain to them why there will not be a fully independent inquiry? Does he think that there is any way in which the Prime Minister can now convince my constituents that he has a grain of responsible judgment left?
Mr Maude
I am delighted that the hon. Lady has already had an opportunity to consult all her constituents on this matter. I merely point out, however, that this Prime Minister has been more transparent and has disclosed more about his engagements with donors than any other Prime Minister—and certainly much, much more than either of the two Labour Prime Ministers who led the previous Government for 13 woeful years.
Tessa Munt (Wells) (LD)
No one will be enjoying this knockabout as to who has been stopping who by blocking reform over the years. The public instinctively know what is right, and we know what is right, too. Does the Minister agree that the time has come for reform, because if we wait for agreement, we will wait for ever? Surely, we should get the job done, put in place a limit of £10,000 per annum, and get some legislation on to the statute book?
Mr Maude
If my hon. Friend is willing to go to her constituents and say, “Actually we’re going to spend more of your taxpayers’ money on filling the pockets of political parties—”[Interruption.] Well, if we are going to do what Sir Christopher Kelly recommended, then that is part of the deal, but, as my right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister said, it is not on offer at the moment.
Dr William McCrea (South Antrim) (DUP)
The Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000 banned donations from foreign nationals. There is, however, an anomaly, in that political parties in Northern Ireland are permitted to be funded by citizens and organisations from another state. As that is not the practice anywhere else in the United Kingdom, when will it end in Northern Ireland?
Charlie Elphicke (Dover) (Con)
Does the Minister agree that for the last two decades all major parties in this House have been affected by donor scandals of one sort or another, and that, rather than more hammering and rock throwing, we should in the next Session get on and legislate to bring in a donor cap, without state funding for political parties?
Mr Maude
I would be delighted if we were to do that. It is a long-established convention that reform of party funding proceeds by way of consensus. That was definitely the view that the right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw), my hon. Friend the Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr Heath) and I took when we conducted previous discussions on this topic. We need to have another try at that. It is unsatisfactory for the party in power to legislate unilaterally to change the party funding system. If at all possible, we must proceed by consensus, as before, so we will strain every fibre to try to achieve consensus.
Mrs Sharon Hodgson (Washington and Sunderland West) (Lab)
A number of Government Members, including the Minister in almost every other answer, have cited trade union funding of the Labour party as if it is a defence for what The Sunday Times has exposed. I am a former trade union official, and I am sure that the Minister is aware that trade union funding comes not from one person, but from, not tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of members, but millions of members who pay small contributions and happily affiliate to the Labour party. The Minister proposes putting a cap on funding as if it is some sort of threat. I am sure that the unions would happily give the names of all those funders.
Mr Maude
This connection is not hard to understand. If we had had a cap in place, which was on offer, the events at the weekend would not have taken place; they would have been out of court. The simple point is that the individual union member who pays the political levy and affiliation fees cannot choose which party that funds. The fees are given to the Labour party at the whim of the leadership of the union, not based on the choice of individual union members.
Paul Uppal (Wolverhampton South West) (Con)
We have heard terms used such as “casual corruption” and “shocking”. Does my right hon. Friend agree, however, that the rot set in when Bernie Ecclestone was able to change policy by paying £1 million? Does he also agree that that is the only example of a policy change having been bought?
Mr Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)
If the Minister is right that the bankers, insurers, property developers and private health companies get nothing at all for the millions of pounds they give the Tory party, will he publish details of not only when they have met the Prime Minister and how much they have given, but what policies were discussed at those meetings?
Alec Shelbrooke (Elmet and Rothwell) (Con)
I was, for a long time, a member of the Unite union and I found it exceptionally hard to opt out of the political levy—money that was used to fund the campaign against my colleague in the seat of Pudsey. Does my right hon. Friend agree that a step forward on affiliation fees would be for people to opt in and to indicate which party they would like the money to go to?
Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)
Access to the policy unit goes to the heart of this cash-for-access scandal. The Budget took from pensioners to give to millionaires, and this weekend’s revelations show that millionaires were paying to change Government policy for personal gain. So can the Minister tell us which millionaires paid for meetings with the Prime Minister and then benefited from last week’s Budget?
Mr Maude
The hon. Gentleman should not believe and read out everything he is handed outside the Chamber. This was a fair Budget, which actually increased the state pension for pensioners more than has ever been done by any Government previously. The very richest in our society will pay five times more as a result of these tax changes than the tiny amount lost through the change to the top rate of tax, so he really needs to revisit his script.
David Morris (Morecambe and Lunesdale) (Con)
I am a newly elected Member of Parliament and I have been listening to what has been going on today. I must say that listening to all the banter from those on both Benches has been shameful for the whole of democracy; people out there are watching this and we should not be bickering. Instead, in the spirit of what was said by my hon. Friends the Members for Dover (Charlie Elphicke) and for Croydon Central (Gavin Barwell), may I implore the Minister to set up a commission to iron out party funding once and for all, independently, so we do not have to do this time and time again?
Mr Maude
The shelves of the libraries groan with unimplemented reports on the reform of party funding. We take the view that this should be done by consensus between the parties, if at all possible. That is the spirit in which we undertook these discussions previously—four or five years ago—and that is the spirit in which we shall approach the matter this time.
Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)
When he was the Leader of the Opposition, this Prime Minister said:
“We can’t go on like this. I believe it’s time we shone the light of transparency on lobbying in our country and forced our politics to come clean about who is buying power and influence.”
I agree with that absolutely. The Minister has been suggesting that this can be resolved just by publishing a list of who gave what and how much they gave, but this is about buying access to buy influence. That is the key difference here and it is why only an independent inquiry into what has gone on will satisfy the public. No matter what the Minister says at the Dispatch Box, it is an independent inquiry that is needed.
Jackie Doyle-Price (Thurrock) (Con)
It ought to be a matter of regret for every Member of this House that the reputation of party politicians has never been lower. Does my right hon. Friend agree that true defenders of democracy would come to the table, debate this and sort it out maturely, instead of playing party politics with this issue?
Roberta Blackman-Woods (City of Durham) (Lab)
Given the Minister’s comments on transparency, is he aware that my office has been trying to get details from the Department for Communities and Local Government about who Ministers have been meeting in the run-up to the national planning policy framework? We have been told consistently that that information is not available and has not been since June 2011. In the light of what has happened in the past few days, will the Minister undertake to ensure that all details of DCLG’s ministerial meetings are made available before the NPPF is published tomorrow?
Stephen Williams (Bristol West) (LD)
Along with other members of the Select Committee on Political and Constitutional Reform, I met Christopher Kelly after he published his independent report on party funding. He made it quite clear to us that it was a package of measures from which no political party should cherry-pick. Should not the onus be on the Government and other party leaders to implement the Kelly report, which does have a £10,000 donation limit, which would be compensated for with modest state funding of 50p per elector?
Mr Maude
I refer my hon. Friend to what our mutual right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister said in response to the Kelly report: at this time of great financial stringency, we do not think it would be acceptable for the Government to put forward an increase in state funding to make up for a deficiency caused by such a low cap. We think that a cap above that level could be sustainable without additional state funding and would give great comfort that the system was incapable of being abused.
Mark Durkan (Foyle) (SDLP)
Can the Minister indicate whether the controlled foreign companies rules which are the subject of Budget resolution 36 tonight were discussed with any donors at any time?
James Morris (Halesowen and Rowley Regis) (Con)
I do not detect an appetite among the public for increased public funding of political parties. Does not that make it more imperative that we should have cross-party agreement on the future funding of political parties?
Dr Alan Whitehead (Southampton, Test) (Lab)
When the Committee on Standards in Public Life was finalising its report on party funding last November, the Prime Minister leaned on the Conservative member of that Committee to withdraw his support for the report on the grounds that there should be no cap on donations, but now we hear that the Prime Minister proposes a £50,000 cap on donations. Can the Minister conjecture whether any recent events might have influenced the Prime Minister in deciding to change his mind?
Mr Maude
The hon. Gentleman should know that we have proposed a £50,000 limit on donations going back quite some way to before the Hayden Phillips talks began. We have consistently thought that was the right level because that could be implemented without the sort of increase in state funding that would be unlikely to be welcome to our constituents at this time.
Dr Thérèse Coffey (Suffolk Coastal) (Con)
I welcome the statement from my right hon. Friend and his commitment to progress on having transparency in greater detail on these matters. Does he agree that it would be in the spirit of transparency if the Leader of the Opposition stuck to the commitment he made last October to publish the list of attendees at a private dinner organised by Mr Rudd, a City lobbyist?
Paul Flynn (Newport West) (Lab)
Is the Minister aware of the failure of one of his Secretaries of State to register a meal he had with the lobbyist Bell Pottinger this year on the basis that on the day in question he was digesting with his private stomach and not his ministerial stomach? Is not the distinction a false one? Nobody would give £250,000 for a social, private chat with the Prime Minister, but they would pay it if they were seeking access and influence.
Mr Speaker
Order. Questions about registration are not matters for the Minister as responsibility for those lies elsewhere, but I wanted to hear the hon. Gentleman out. I do not think it is a matter for the Minister.
Mr Speaker
The Minister does not think it is either; we are in happy accord.
Jason McCartney (Colne Valley) (Con)
I have to make a declaration of interest as a former trade union representative in Yorkshire. The Unite union has just announced that tanker drivers have voted to go on strike. Does my right hon. Friend agree that Members in this House should be able to condemn such actions without fear of losing a donation?
Mr Ronnie Campbell (Blyth Valley) (Lab)
Can the Minister give us details of any private health companies that were trying to influence the Health and Social Care Bill that met in Downing street for lunch, in particular Alpha Healthcare, which gave £500,000 to the Liberal party?
Chris Ruane (Vale of Clwyd) (Lab)
I know that I have used the phrase before, but does the Minister agree with me that the shenanigans over the weekend can be described only as a right old Eton mess?
Ian Lavery (Wansbeck) (Lab)
Can the Minister advise the pensioners in my constituency on how best to secure premier access to the Prime Minister to discuss the implications of last week’s Budget? Does somebody make an offer—his place or mine, depending on the price?
Naomi Long (Belfast East) (Alliance)
The Minister has repeatedly stated that this Government are more transparent than previous Governments. Is what he proposes—a Conservative investigating this Conservative party act—sufficiently transparent to satisfy public concern, and should not that be the test that is applied?
Mr David Anderson (Blaydon) (Lab)
I promise not to fiddle with my device, Mr Speaker.
Peter Cruddas was reported yesterday giving, as an example of how to influence policy, discussion of the Tobin tax with the Prime Minister the day before he met Angela Merkel. Is that true? Did that conversation take place and, if it did, what role was Peter Cruddas playing—treasurer of the party or private business man?
Chris Williamson (Derby North) (Lab)
Does not this whole sorry episode reveal something very rotten right at the core of the Conservative party? Does the Minister agree with me that it stretches credulity to breaking point to argue that Peter Cruddas, a senior—the most senior—fundraiser for the Conservative party, did not understand the law relating to donations to political parties?
Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op)
Pensioners in Swansea on £135 a week now face an £11 second bedroom tax, so that if they did want to be able to afford a £250,000 lobby lunch, they would have to invest all their money for 40 years. Is this not just the same old Tory story of feeding the rich and robbing the poor?
Mr Maude
It is certainly the same tired old question. I have to make the point that we could avoid all this and move forward if the Labour party gritted its teeth and realised that the days of a serious grown-up party being totally dependent on donations from a trade union movement that elects its leader and dictates its policy should be gone.
Emma Reynolds (Wolverhampton North East) (Lab)
Will the Minister recognise that attack is not the best form of defence, and that the House and the country deserve a full explanation of the serious allegations that were made this weekend? Now that we have made him aware that the allegations are about buying influence on policies, can he not see that we need an independent investigation into what happened?
Mr Maude
I have nothing to add to what I have said many times before. The hon. Lady talks about buying influence and buying policy. It was not the Conservative party that sat in Warwick and formed the Warwick agreement with the trade union movement; it was her party, year after year. It was not the Justice Secretary who said that he could not decide his policy until he had phoned up the trade union to receive instructions; it is the shadow Justice Secretary who was found out doing that. The hon. Lady should think about taking the beam out of her own party’s eye before she starts looking for motes in others’.
Ian Mearns (Gateshead) (Lab)
Given this weekend’s revelations and the way in which they have been received in the country, does the Minister really think it is credible that the people out there will think it acceptable for the Conservative party to investigate itself?
Mr Maude
The investigation will be conducted by a very distinguished senior lawyer who will—[Interruption.] I have to say again in response to the synthetic indignation from the Opposition Front Bench, particularly from the hon. Member for Barnsley East (Michael Dugher), who was the spokesman for the previous Prime Minister who presided over some of the worst scandals this country has ever seen, that we are not taking any lessons from him. He was in the Labour party in No. 10 when the leader of the Labour party appointed a former general secretary of the Labour party to conduct a so-called independent investigation into its donor scandal.
Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)
I believe that the Minister will ultimately come to rue the tone in which he is conducting the statement. At no point will a member of the public listening to the Minister this afternoon have the remotest confidence that he is taking these allegations as seriously as he should. Can he point out one thing from the statement today that will give members of the public watching this the slightest shred of confidence in him to sort this out?
Cathy Jamieson (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) (Lab/Co-op)
The Minister has talked a lot today about transparency and at one point, in answer to a previous question, he seemed to dismiss any suggestion of cash for access as fantasy. Does he agree that perhaps there is just a scintilla of doubt when the leaders group is invited to pay £50,000 for the privilege of having post-PMQ lunches with the Prime Minister? For the avoidance of any doubt, can he say today that none of those lunches involved the use of taxpayer-funded offices or other facilities by Government?
Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)
The Minister talked about unparalleled openness. Will he therefore commit to publish full details of all Conservative party donors who have made representations on the 50p tax rate—yes or no?
Mr Maude
All contacts with donors along the lines that were set out by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister this morning are going to be published. I did talk about unparalleled transparency, and it is. We would love to hear the same degree or even a scintilla of the same transparency from the two Labour leaders who were Prime Minister for those 13 years, and indeed from the current Labour leader.
Helen Jones (Warrington North) (Lab)
Despite what the Minister said earlier, it is clear from the discussions that went on that Mr Cruddas did link lobbying and the reduction of the 50p tax rate, so this goes beyond access to the Prime Minister and includes access to the Chancellor. Will the Minister therefore publish a list of all those Tory donors who met the Chancellor and discussed taxation rates? Does not this explain exactly why we need an independent investigation and not one set up by the Conservative party?
Ian Lucas (Wrexham) (Lab)
Did the Prime Minister, in relation to this year’s Budget, discuss with Conservative party donors in his No. 10 Downing street flat, policy?
Mr Maude
It is hard to know what the hon. Gentleman is on about. We have disclosed what conversations and meetings there were in Downing street. That has never been done before. People know who the donors are. We have disclosed for the first time what conversations there have been. Honestly, if we could have a flicker of this amount of openness and transparency from his party, we would be better off.
Principal Civil Service Pensions Scheme
Lord Maude of Horsham Excerpts(12 years, 1 month ago)
Written StatementsRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General (Mr Francis Maude)
At the spending review 2010 the Government announced increases to member contribution rates in public service pension schemes saving £2.8 billion a year by 2014-15, to be phased in from April 2012. The contributions are to be increased progressively with protection for the low paid, to minimise the potential for members to opt out of the scheme.
Last year the Cabinet Office consulted on a structure of tiered contribution rates that meet the requirements. The consultation opened on 28 July 2011 and closed on 20 October 2011, and over 3,400 responses were received. These regulations bring the increased contribution rates into force, which will apply to service from 1 April 2012 and continue throughout the financial year. The Government remain committed to securing in full the spending review savings in 2013-14 and 2014-15 from further increases to member contributions in public service pension schemes, and will consult formally on implementation in due course.
Copies of the amendment scheme have been laid before the House.