Oral Answers to Questions

Jon Trickett Excerpts

Wednesday 7th September 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Maude]

The chair of the Efficiency and Reform Group is me, so I will be delighted to meet my hon. Friend, who, when he was leader of Barnet council, showed how much can be done. We do, absolutely, have a huge amount to learn from what is being done best in local government, particularly the sort of savings that can be made by much better use of office accommodation. It is such a pity that when the current Leader of the Opposition was Minister for the Cabinet Office he did not do this stuff himself. The country would be in less of a mess and the public finances would be in better shape if he had done his job properly.

[Jon Trickett (Hemsworth) (Lab)]

Of course everybody welcomes cuts to wasteful expenditure. However, will the Minister explain why the Cabinet Office website indicates that in January a contractor charged the taxpayer £5,867.66 for flying flags? Will he explain why the Government paid a single taxi fare of £324.14, which would almost get me from here to Yorkshire and back again? Finally, will he explain why the taxpayer paid £181 for a single individual’s eye test? What a waste of money.

[Mr Maude]

I shall be absolutely delighted to provide the hon. Gentleman with full and detailed replies. I just point out to him, however, that if we had not opened up public spending to public scrutiny, he would not have a prayer of even asking the question.

Public Bodies Bill [Lords]

Jon Trickett Excerpts

Tuesday 12th July 2011 Commons Chamber

[Paul Goggins (Wythenshawe and Sale East) (Lab)]

I have particular concerns about two bodies that were taken out of the Bill by the House of Lords but that the Government intend, as the Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General has suggested this afternoon, to put back into the Bill in Committee. I remain hopeful that Ministers are still listening and are prepared to change their minds.

The Youth Justice Board has brought leadership and coherence to a system that was deeply fragmented. The creation of youth offending teams has been very impressive, as has the reduction in the number of young people going into custody: a 30% reduction over the lifetime of the board. I would expect the Government to be interested in that if for no other reason than because it represents a saving, in relation to the places that have now been decommissioned, of £38 million a year. If the Youth Justice Board is abolished, that might lead to a saving of a few hundred thousand pounds, but if the Government lose their grip on the youth offending system, and particularly of youth custody, because the board is not in place to grip it, that could produce incredibly high costs in future.

I am also deeply worried about the Government’s intention to dilute the office of the chief coroner. I hope that the House will forgive me for setting out the history so that Members and Ministers can appreciate the depth of betrayal that many individuals, families and organisations are feeling. In 2003, I was given ministerial responsibility for death certification and coroners’ services. One of the first things I did in that role was to receive the report of the independent review of coroner services led by Tom Luce. He found that the system was outdated, inconsistent and unsympathetic to families, and he proposed fundamental reform. A little time later, the then Home Secretary and I received the third report of the Shipman inquiry, which was the product of painstaking work by Dame Janet Smith into the failure of the death certification system to identify and stop the murderous activities of Harold Shipman. Dame Janet concluded that coroners and the coroner service must be independent of Government and that it was simply unacceptable for the coroner service to be administered from within a Government Department. That conclusion is hugely relevant given what the Government now propose.

[Jon Trickett (Hemsworth) (Lab)]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that quite frequently the Government may be judged as culpable in contributing to a death and that it is therefore bizarre that a member of the Cabinet—the Lord Chancellor—should have some responsibility for the coronial service?

[Paul Goggins]

My hon. Friend makes a very important point. In December, when this matter was debated in the other place, Lord Lester made the important point that unless there is a properly independent system of investigation of deaths, the Government cannot be confident about satisfying their article 2 obligations on the investigation of deaths. That is particularly relevant in relation to deaths in prison and police custody.

In March 2004, I set out proposals for reform in which the bereaved and their families were to be placed at the heart of the system. Ministers should be reminded of the importance of putting those people at the heart of the system. Under the proposals, a chief coroner was to be appointed with complete judicial independence to lead a streamlined and modernised service, to ensure training and high standards and to carry responsibility for undertaking appeals and presiding over more complex inquests. Eventually, the Coroners and Justice Act 2009 enacted those proposals. I pay tribute to Bridget Prentice—a good friend and very able Minister—who with characteristic energy and determination turned the countless words of the public inquiries, reviews and consultations into legislation, which was passed with the support of all parties in the House, including those that now turn their backs on it.

The need for a chief coroner is even greater now, with inquests becoming ever more complex and high profile. Only recently, we have had the Tomlinson and 7/7 inquests—cases in point. Another change since 2003, which my right hon. Friend the Member for Coventry North East (Mr Ainsworth) referred to in his very powerful speech, has been the experience of bereaved families of the servicemen and women killed in Iraq and Afghanistan. Their experience screams out for a system that is sympathetic, that understands the circumstances they face and that has their confidence.

The Government’s arguments about costs do not hold water and cannot be justified. Ministers should not simply accept the figures in the impact assessment but should challenge them. There is not one Member of this House who does not believe that the set-up and running costs of the office of the chief coroner could not be reduced. It is the business of Ministers to get those costs down, not to hide behind what was in the impact assessment. Of course, they are not counting the costs of failing to implement the reforms that were agreed in the last Parliament, such as the £500,000 or more that is spent every year on judicial reviews—not to mention the costs that will be incurred by transferring some of the functions of the office of the chief coroner to the Lord Chief Justice. Those matters will still need to be overseen by judges, and judges do not come for nothing—they cost money. Those costs still are not being counted.

--- Later in debate ---

[John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)]

I want briefly to make two simple but related points. Elected Governments—even unelected coalitions—have the right to determine the administrative arrangements they consider best suited to implementing their policies. However, there is such a thing as good governance. As the Public Administration Committee’s original report set out, good governance involves undertaking a proper review of structures, consulting the organisations and individuals involved, clarifying objectives and then having good, clear drafting of the legislation.

The hon. Member for Harwich and North Essex (Mr Jenkin) is not in his place, but I think that he hid his light behind a bushel, because last December’s PAC report was one of the most hard-hitting reports that I have ever seen in this House. It referred to the review process as “poorly managed”, and said that “no meaningful consultation” had been undertaken, that the criteria and tests set for the reform were “not clearly defined” and that the Bill was “badly drafted”, so it is no wonder it received a mauling in the House of Lords. In addition, the Committee said—I have never seen this sentence in a Select Committee report before—that the Government had

“failed to recognise the realities of the modern world.”

One element of that was the need for thorough consultation, a point that I want to discuss in relation to the staff.

Whatever the structures of government, whatever they determine those structures should be and whatever reforms to those structures they want to undertake, any Government will need an essential ingredient: well trained, professionally competent and motivated staff. However, in this Bill the staff are barely mentioned or considered, if at all. I chair the PCS trade union group, which involves Members of all parties in this House. The PCS has 30,000 members in non-departmental bodies, many thousands of whom are affected by this Bill. Many of those staff are facing compulsory redundancy, forced relocation, a deleterious impact on their terms and conditions and their pensions, an almost certain increase in their work loads and the end of job security—all in a situation of absolute uncertainty. The most common thing that I have heard from members of staff whom I have met in those bodies is that they are completely in the dark about their futures. There is a complete lack of clarity about what role their organisations and they as individual professionals will be playing, and they are worried about the future of the services that they deliver.

[Jon Trickett]

Will my hon. Friend confirm that redundancies are taking place now, before the Government have even taken these legal powers, which is damaging the capacity of those bodies to perform what continue to be their statutory duties?

[John McDonnell]

I can confirm that. Redundancies are taking place, and there is near chaos in some organisations, not only because of jobs being lost and redundancies being forced on people, but in the organisation of the services that they deliver. A number of staff are worried about the impact that the proposals will have on the users of their services. I refer in particular to those who manage the independent living fund and the 300 workers involved with the Youth Justice Board, whose jobs are likely to go. Morale is understandably at rock bottom in those services, so the important thing is consultation. However, I see that consultation with staff unions is not even listed in the Bill.

Also, there is an agreement stemming from the last Government—an agreement that I thought this Government had signed up to—on TUPE. The Cabinet Office statement of protocols adopted by the last Government and inherited by this Government, which I thought this Government had also signed up to, states that where TUPE does not apply—for example, in the transfer of staff into the public sector, which includes most of the bodies in this Bill—an explicit reference should be added to the Bill. That is the agreement that was signed up to, but all that this Bill contains is a reference in clause 24 to transferring people on conditions similar to TUPE. The legal advice provided to the union is blindingly obvious: conditions that are similar to TUPE are not TUPE. Therefore, a whole range of conditions of service and protections that staff now enjoy will be put at risk. I believe that this is an act of bad faith on the part of the Government. The least that they could do now is add TUPE to the Bill. It was included by the last Government in the Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Act 2009, and by this Government in the Localism Bill. In that way, staff gained some security for their futures.

Let me conclude. There is a view in many of those bodies that there is near chaos when it comes to what the future will hold for the staff and what the implications for delivering the service will be.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jon Trickett (Hemsworth) (Lab)]

This has been an interesting debate, but at certain times Members walking into the Chamber might have wondered whether they had accidentally walked into a discussion on Welsh affairs, because so much of the debate focused on S4C—a mystery to me, as an MP representing a Yorkshire constituency, until I was allocated to this Bill. I can assure the House that by the time we reach Committee stage, I will be as expert as everybody else. However, the real reason for the contributions from so many Welsh Members might be a certain boundary review that will be taking place in Wales in due course, but perhaps that is idle speculation.

The sub-debate about S4C was ably led by my hon. Friend the Member for Clwyd South (Susan Elan Jones). Other contributions were made by the hon. Members for Ceredigion (Mr Williams), for Montgomeryshire (Glyn Davies), for Vale of Glamorgan (Alun Cairns), for Carmarthen East and Dinefwr (Jonathan Edwards) and for Aberconwy (Guto Bebb). They all made interesting speeches, although it seemed to me that some of the points made by Government Members were hardly supportive of the Government’s position on S4C. The Opposition can assure the House that this matter will be explored in great detail in Committee.

Many other matters were raised, often with great authority, including the Government proposal to transform the chief coroner post. Very significant contributions were made on that matter by my right hon. Friend the Member for Coventry North East (Mr Ainsworth), my hon. Friend the Member for Hartlepool (Mr Wright), my right hon. Friend the Member for Wythenshawe and Sale East (Paul Goggins) and my hon. Friend the Member for North Durham (Mr Jones). There is a significant problem with the Government’s proposals, which suggest that the coronial service, in part at least, should be made responsible to the Lord Chancellor, who, as we know, is a member of the Government. From time to time, a death that has been examined by a coroner may have been caused, in part at least, by the Government’s actions—we can all think of examples where a Government failure contributed to the death of a fallen hero in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and so on. If the coroner has to report to the Lord Chancellor, would that not immediately raise questions about the independence of the coronial service in investigating the deaths? Deaths at war are as tragic as any other, and they obviously involve people who were fighting for our country. Those people are entitled to an independent coronial service, and I do not believe that the Government’s proposals give us that independence.

Powerful points were also made strongly on behalf of rural communities by my hon. Friends the Members for Luton South (Gavin Shuker) and for Birmingham, Erdington (Jack Dromey). They discussed not only the beauty of our rural countryside, but the need for fairness. The Government are proposing to abolish the Agricultural Wages Board for England and Wales, and that retrograde step, again, needs to be debated very carefully in Committee. My right hon. Friend the Member for Wythenshawe and Sale East also spoke about youth justice, on the basis of his great experience, and the House listened carefully to the point he made.

What was striking about the debate was the fact that few Government Members were wholly in favour of the Bill and that they did not make the case for the Bill in the terms used by the Minister for the Cabinet Office. He made a case on the basis of democratic accountability—I shall address that in a moment—but his right hon. and hon. Friends largely chose to make an argument on financial grounds. They said that we should simply be taking an axe and making financial cuts to the service, irrespective of whether the service being provided is good or bad. For example, the hon. Member for City of Chester (Stephen Mosley) referred to the financial imperative to cut services. We accept that there is a degree of financial imperative, particularly in relation to waste, where that is identified. However, I do not believe that the argument made by the hon. Member for Esher and Walton (Mr Raab) that we should abolish any quango where even a small amount of waste has been established necessarily provides the correct answer. Notably, the Minister for the Cabinet Office did not make that case.

The hon. Member for South West Norfolk (Elizabeth Truss) gave an extraordinary motive for cutting quangos, basing her argument on inequality of pay. Those of us on the left, who have long argued for greater equality, welcome her as a recruit, but her case was that we should abolish quangos on the basis of the size of the chief executive’s salary, and that is a bizarre argument. The hon. Member for Watford (Richard Harrington) was the star of the show. He began his speech by saying that he had no experience whatsoever of any quango, ever. He felt that that gave him the basis for making a speech to say that quangos should immediately be reformed, abolished and so on.

The Government rested their case on the need for greater democratic accountability, and we agree that the quango state should be tackled on those grounds. However, they would be well advised to listen carefully to the case made by the hon. Member for Harwich and North Essex (Mr Jenkin), who chairs the Public Administration Committee. He pointed out that in a modern society accountability takes many forms. I have just discussed the coronial service and it may be that rather than the coroners being made accountable to the Lord Chancellor, as the Government would have it, they should be accountable to the relatives of the dead. In that sense, I agree entirely with the point made by the Public Administration Committee.

Considering that it dealt with such important bodies, the process the Government entered into was incredibly rushed. There was little or no consultation in advance with the interested parties, with the bodies themselves or even with Parliament. The reform of these bodies through proper legislative processes is clearly one thing that the Government are entitled to do, but instead, as we heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell), they are already proceeding effectively to abolish or at least to weaken through underhand administrative methods those very organisations that the Bill is intended to reform, even before it has gone through Parliament. The Equality and Human Rights Commission, for example, has already had its budget cut by 68%, yet it still exists in law. The staff numbers have been cut by 66%. Only one in three staff remain in the EHRC yet it still has statutory duties imposed on it by Parliament until this Bill becomes law. That is no way for a Government to proceed. It completely ignores the need for parliamentary assent and is once again reflective of a Government who are unwilling to listen or consult.

What we have here is a Government who are simply not listening, so much so that that they are not allowing witnesses to appear before the Public Bill Committee as part of the Bill’s scrutiny. We were told that this would be a listening Government. Why then will they not allow witnesses to appear before the Public Bill Committee when the Bill goes upstairs? The Government do not want to hear the voices of the Royal British Legion, who will defend the rights of fallen heroes to a proper inquest. They do not want to hear the voices of low paid workers in the agricultural industry who will be affected by the changes to the Agricultural Wages Board. They will not allow the voices of witnesses from the disabled community, mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh North and Leith (Mark Lazarowicz), to be heard on the EHRC or the Disabled Persons Transport Advisory Committee, which is to be abolished. We will therefore oppose what we regard as a gross misuse of Government authority in seeking to prevent witnesses appearing before the Committee. I therefore urge the House to reject the programme motion, which does that.

On top of all those things, the Bill fundamentally alters ministerial powers to control quangos. It will concentrate far more authority in the hands of the relevant Ministers, who could merge bodies, transfer bodies or even abolish them without proper reference to Parliament and without listening to witness statements. The costings on which the Bill relies are also riddled with incompetence. The Minister for the Cabinet Office has made outlandish claims in The Sun newspaper that are totally unfounded. We have tabled freedom of information requests and parliamentary questions that show that rather than the £30 billion he claimed, the actual savings will be a fraction of that: £2.6 billion at most. When we considered individual Departments, we found the Government’s claim was often twice as high as the savings that they will make. Our research, for example, demonstrated that although the Government claimed that they would save £18 million from the Department for Work and Pensions, they will save less than £500,000.

Finally, the proposals will have a human cost both to the millions of people who receive services from the quangos and to thousands of employees, to whom my hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington referred. Let me ask the Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office, a straightforward question, which I would like him to answer in his reply. What will happen to those whose jobs may be transferred into the private sector, the voluntary sector and elsewhere in the public service? What will happen to their rights? Does he envisage that their rights under TUPE will be properly protected, as they ought to be?

Hon. Members’ contributions today have revealed that the Government have not considered staff, have not listened to the users of services, have not produced proper costings and certainly have not listened to the millions of vulnerable people who will be affected by the Government’s actions if this Bill is passed. The Government do not realise that when they are taking decisions, they need to see the big picture—on which we can agree: that quangos should be reduced—but equally the detail. Government is about making decisions but it is also about listening and the Government simply do not have the humility to listen, the patience to debate or the ability to implement the detail properly. We will be voting for the reasoned amendment and fighting the Bill line by line in Committee, and we reserve the right to vote against the Bill on Third Reading unless there are substantial improvements to it.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jon Trickett Excerpts

Wednesday 15th June 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Maude]

Only three of the unions have done that. The majority of unions are continuing to engage in good faith with the discussions that are still taking place. It is our determination that at the end of the reforms proposed by Lord Hutton, Labour’s Work and Pensions Secretary, public sector pensions will continue to be among the best available, but we will ask people to work longer because they are living longer and to pay a bit more, to achieve a better balance between what they pay and what other taxpayers pay.

[Jon Trickett (Hemsworth) (Lab)]

How can the Minister possibly justify the announcement on the No. 10 transparency website that since November the Government have spent more than £5 million on tarting up offices in Whitehall, including £680,000 on No. 10 Downing street? How can he justify that when he is laying off nurses, policemen, servicemen and so on? Will he now publish a line-by-line account of how the money was spent?

Cabinet Office

Jon Trickett Excerpts

Thursday 5th May 2011 Ministerial Corrections

Public Bodies

[Jon Trickett]

To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office pursuant to the answer of 21 March 2011, Official Report, column 838W, if he will publish the departmental estimates that were collated to arrive at the stated estimates of savings.

[Official Report, 1 April 2011, Vol. 526, c. 540-41W.]

Letter of correction from Mr Francis Maude:

An error has been identified in the written answer given to the hon. Member for Hemsworth (Jon Trickett) on 1 April 2011. The HO and total figures were incorrect.

The full answer given was as follows:

[Mr Maude]

[holding answer 31 March 2011]: On 16 March 2011, I announced that we estimate cumulative administrative savings of £2.6 billion will flow from public bodies over the spending review period.

The departmental estimates that were collated to arrive at that figure are:

Oral Answers to Questions

Jon Trickett Excerpts

Wednesday 27th April 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Letwin]

I am grateful for that guidance, Mr Speaker.

My hon. Friend is right to point out that the big society is an idea with a very wide application. The big society bank is a fund that will have a very wide application, because we believe it is extremely important that it should be able to foster all sorts of voluntary and community enterprise which, in one way or another, enormously support the alleviation of poverty—the subject of the article to which he refers.

[Jon Trickett (Hemsworth) (Lab)]

The idea of such a bank to help to develop the centre of civil society is a good one, but effective government requires a mix of big ideas and getting the details right. In this connection, has the Minister seen today’s report by the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts, which suggests that if the big society bank lends purely on commercial terms, it will be

“failing to support those that it is set up to support”?

What can he say to ensure that the lofty rhetoric of the big society bank does not founder on the rock of inadequate administrative detail?

[Mr Letwin]

The hon. Gentleman is of course right to say that the big society bank could not operate as it is intended to operate if it were lending, or investing, on purely commercial terms. It will have what is often described as a double bottom line: it will seek to achieve the highest possible social returns alongside reasonable financial returns. Indeed, part of the point of the big society bank is to show that there is no conflict between achieving high social returns and achieving modest but reasonable financial returns.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jon Trickett Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hurd]

This year’s pilots involve areas represented by 400 MPs, so there are plenty of opportunities to get involved. I am delighted to say that Catch 22 and the Prince’s Trust are leading the pilots in East Sussex this year, and I very much hope that my hon. Friend will get involved because this provides a fantastic opportunity for young people in her area to participate in a very positive experience.

[Jon Trickett (Hemsworth) (Lab)]

Anything that taps the idealism of young people in the wider society is clearly to be welcomed; it is a good thing. These pilots, however, seem to be an inadequate response to the needs of 965,000 young people who are now out of work. The scheme itself was criticised, as the Minister will know, by the university of Strathclyde, so will he at least indicate the date by which the scheme will be made universal for all young people, as the Prime Minister promised before the election?

[Mr Hurd]

I am sorry that the hon. Gentleman appears to have such a downer on the scheme, which provides a hugely positive opportunity for young people in this country. We are testing it thoroughly on behalf of the taxpayer—there are 11,000 places this year and 30,000 next year—with a view to rolling it out, as he suggested, to make it more widely available and so compelling for all 16-year-olds that they will want to get involved in the future.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jon Trickett Excerpts

Wednesday 19th January 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Maude]

The essence of that programme is that it is designed to bring together young people from a genuine mix of backgrounds. It is not designed particularly to help disadvantaged young people. It will benefit all young people and help to create a much more cohesive society by bringing together people from all backgrounds at an important and formative stage in their lives, during the rites of passage to adulthood. The social mix is an absolutely crucial ingredient of the programme.

[Jon Trickett (Hemsworth) (Lab)]

Is it not true that the national citizen service requires that the voluntary sector has adequate capacity to deliver additional volunteering, which is contrary to the unequivocal statement made at the last Cabinet Office questions by the Minister of State, Cabinet Office, the right hon. Member for West Dorset (Mr Letwin), that the sector would expand? Will the Minister now admit that that statement was untrue. The latest figures for the voluntary sector show a decline of 13,000 jobs in a single quarter. Does he agree that the House was misled and that the statement—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman meant to say “inadvertently misled”.

[Jon Trickett]

Thank you, Mr Speaker. The House was inadvertently misled, even though the facts show what actually happened. Finally, would the Minister say that the job losses are a clear disaster for his big society aspirations?

[Mr Maude]

The hon. Gentleman asked in particular about the capacity of the voluntary sector in relation to the national citizen service. I can tell him that the number of interested providers massively outweighed the number of places that we were able to fund. There is huge interest in the voluntary sector in taking part in the programme. The point that my right hon. Friend the Minister was making was that our approach to public service reform will open up areas of public service delivery to the voluntary and charitable sector and to social enterprise in a way that has not been done before, for all the talk from the previous Government, and the opportunities going forward will be considerable. My right hon. Friend made the point, as we all have, that there will be a tough time immediately, and we have some steps in place to try to help over that period, but the opportunities down the track are considerable.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jon Trickett Excerpts

Wednesday 24th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Maude]

We have already encouraged them to come forward with ideas. As part of the spending challenge that we launched in the summer, we invited public sector workers to come up with ideas to save money while protecting front-line services, and 65,000 of them did so, indicating a huge amount of pent-up frustration. We are now encouraging as many of them as possible who are interested not only in having ideas but in putting them into effect to form worker co-operatives to spin out of the public sector while continuing to deliver services.

[Jon Trickett (Hemsworth) (Lab)]

Given that there are strict procurement rules designed to demonstrate probity and value for money, and to avoid political interference, does the Minister think that it was wise for the Department for Education to hand out a £500,000 contract to the New Schools Network, an organisation led by a former associate of the Secretary of State? Was that contract fully compliant with all the relevant tendering regulations?

[Mr Maude]

I certainly do not know the details of that procurement, but I am confident that it would have followed all the rules to the letter.

Public Services (Social Enterprise and Social Value) Bill

Jon Trickett Excerpts

Friday 19th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Hazel Blears]

I would never try to make such a point. In our country, we live in a vibrant and much admired democracy, with different political views, and people of all parties support civic organisations and community groups. I would never claim to have a monopoly on the good things in society. However, I genuinely believe that the best way to achieve our aim is through a partnership, with state action supporting local people and freeing them to make that difference. That seems to be a fundamental difference between me and some Conservative Members. However, I do not believe that that applies to the hon. Member for Warwick and Leamington.

[Jon Trickett (Hemsworth) (Lab)]

My right hon. Friend is making a strong case and she does not need my help. Does not the Bill suggest that the state, through its procurement policies and through strategy, should intervene precisely to build what Conservative Members call the big society? Is not it curious that Conservative Members, who seem to support the Bill, are trying to form a philosophical divide between my right hon. Friend and them?

[Hazel Blears]

I am beginning to feel quite protective of the Bill, but I do not want to create any further divisions between the hon. Member for Warwick and Leamington and his hon. Friends.

I want to give a couple of examples from my constituency of groups that have been social enterprises for a considerable period, because considering what happens in real life, on the ground, will benefit the debate. Unlimited Potential has been going for about seven or eight years. It has a turnover of £1.5 million and employs 30 staff, 90% of whom live within a couple of miles of the business. It provides health trainers and expert patients and is commissioned by the primary care trust. This year, for the first time, it became totally independent for its funding and no longer relies on grant funding. It is an extremely successful social enterprise.

My second example is B4Box, a construction company and social enterprise. It is led by an inspirational woman, Aileen McDonnell, which is rare in construction, and it has been going for a number of years. She does building contracts to refurbish the properties of registered social landlords as well as construction projects. She takes on young men and those in their late 20s or early 30s with histories of drug abuse, alcohol problems and homelessness, and gets them through to national vocational level 2 and sometimes to level 3, and transforms their lives. At the same time, she ensures that properties are refurbished and that they are fit for people to move into. I cannot think of a better example of using practical work and skills on the ground and changing the lives of young people. I had the pleasure of presenting the NVQ certificates to some of those young men—the staff also included a young woman plumber, who was the best plumber I have ever met. Their stories are inspirational. Aileen McDonnell’s latest project is the building of a centre for homeless people. During the procurement process, five of the homeless people who lived in the previous centre were employed and got their NVQs. She discovered the best painter and decorator in the homeless person’s centre that anyone can imagine.

The creative commissioning in which my local authority and Salix Homes have been willing to engage costs slightly more than other commissioning, but they have considered more than the bottom line and what comes at the cheapest price. They recognise that training people and transforming their lives is valuable. Aileen McDonnell has proposed an amendment to the legal framework of Joint Contracts Tribunal contracts so that both performance, quality and price, and training and the transformation of people’s lives, are considered during the procurement process. A similar legal framework in other areas would be extremely useful.

My third example is a social enterprise in the health service. The hon. Member for Warwick and Leamington will know that the previous Labour Government introduced the right to request for organisations in our public services that wished to become social enterprises. The Angel Healthy Living centre in Salford is in the process of becoming a fully fledged social enterprise within the health service as part of round 2 of the right to request. It provides a range of well-being services in the community and works with a range of charities and voluntary organisations. It too has an inspirational leader, Scott Darraugh, who runs the centre. It has been going for 12 years, so it has been a long journey.

People involved in social enterprises have succeeded almost despite the system and they have faced many hurdles. The benefit of the Bill is that it seeks to re-engineer the system so that it positively encourages people to come forward. If the hon. Member for Warwick and Leamington succeeds in lifting that huge burden and cutting through the fantastic amount of frustration that people feel because the system stands in the way, he will have achieved a great thing.

I will sound a few notes of caution on the Bill. First, there must be no sense that social enterprise can be a transition to privatisation. If the Bill was a stopping point on a fast track to converting public services to private services, that would damage the sector enormously. The whole sector would be concerned about that.

Secondly, the Bill’s definition of social enterprise is insufficient. The Bill also contains no asset lock for assets brought from the public services into social enterprises. The hon. Gentleman must consider that; otherwise—I do not believe that this is his intention—public services could move to social enterprises and to the private sector in a very short time, which will negate the social value of which he spoke.

I would much prefer a co-operative, mutual model that has democratic governance built into its legal framework. The Labour manifesto mentions extending

“the right of public-sector workers to request that they deliver…services through a social enterprise”,

but it also talks about

“greater community involvement in their governance.”

The hon. Gentleman must think seriously about ensuring greater community involvement. It is not just about the social enterprise itself, but about introducing a democratic element to give some form of accountability. If fragmented social enterprises deliver public sector projects, we will not have the accountability, standards and quality that the public will demand. Public money is spent on public services, and the public want quality, standards and accountability.

My other note of caution is about social enterprise staff. Again, this is not what the hon. Gentleman intends, but the Bill must not be used as a means of providing public services on the cheap at the expense of the terms and conditions and wages of public sector workers, and of their ability to do their jobs. It is important to have a grown-up, mature discussion to allay the concerns in some parts of the trade union movement. Unlimited Potential recently signed a union recognition agreement with Unison. That conversation needs to happen, because we need reassurance that moving to a social enterprise model is not simply about doing things on the cheap and driving down wages. He talked about doing more for less, but that is a different concept.

My other big concern is funding, which the hon. Gentleman talked about. The £100 million transition fund recognises some of the challenges that charities and social enterprises face in this difficult economic climate, but it is a drop in the ocean. The New Economics Foundation and the New Philanthropy Capital think-tank have estimated the gap in funding for charities, social enterprises and voluntary groups that will result from local government cuts at between £3.2 billion and £5 billion. That is a massive black hole in funding. The £100 million transition fund is welcome, but it is nowhere near enough to sustain those organisations in the years to come. He may well change the system and the other good things in his Bill, but he might find that many social enterprises have fallen by the wayside, because their funding has been cut and local government can no longer provide funding. The Government need to do much more in that respect. The big society bank may next year have £60 million roughly, but there is a desperate need to ensure that funding is in place so that those organisations have a sustainable future.

Finally, the hon. Gentleman should consider the integration of services. If we are to be more efficient and provide more personalised services, joining up services, whether in health, education, housing or regeneration, is essential. If social enterprises simply spin off from each other and if there is a plethora of different providers that are not joined up, we will lose the benefits of a holistic service. If that happens, we would be unable to bring provision together, for example, for an ex-offender who needs a home, drug treatment, a job and an opportunity. As we take this Bill forward, and build on the work of the Total Place schemes in communities and local government—and community budgeting—the idea of providing integrated services is very powerful. We all know that in our communities it is often a small minority of the most troubled individuals and families who cost public services the most. If we are able to integrate services better, we will achieve efficiencies and better outcomes. The best example is the family intervention projects, which we introduced to deal with antisocial behaviour. Before, those families were costing the taxpayer about £250,000 each through a series of public sector interventions, which did not change their behaviour. When we integrated services, and provided a personalised approach, it probably cost £50,000, but in 80% of the families behaviour improved dramatically. There is good, solid evidence that integration works, and I urge the hon. Gentleman to take that into account during the Bill’s progress.

I have laid out my cautions and reservations, but I finally wish to reiterate my support, and my party’s support, for this Bill. It is refreshing to find a degree of agreement across the House. That does not mean that we will not test each other rigorously and in detail as the Bill makes progress, but I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on the Bill and on the generous and inclusive way in which he introduced it today.

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[Jon Trickett (Hemsworth) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to hear such an interesting and, at times, erudite debate. The Conservative party used to appear to be a fairly homogeneous and monolithic block, so listening to Conservative Members revealing the various trends within the party has been a fascinating and instructive experience.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Warwick and Leamington (Chris White) on introducing the Bill and allowing this debate to take place. Let me say at the outset that Labour Members want to see the further development of social enterprises, and we are happy for the Bill to receive a Second Reading and then go into Committee.

There have been, I think, nine contributions to the debate other than that of the hon. Member for Warwick and Leamington, and a range of different experiences have been brought to it. The hon. Gentleman indicated very strongly a communitarian tendency running through the history of the Conservative party. He certainly nailed his colours to the mast in terms of his own views about society and how it should be organised. However, he slightly stretched the credulity of the House when he tried to embrace Baroness Thatcher within that, since it was she who famously said that there is no such thing as society; there are individuals and their families.

[Steve Baker]

rose—

[Jon Trickett]

I am not going to take interventions straight away, but I may in due course.

It has frequently been said that the Conservatives, historically, knew the price of everything and the value of nothing. It is therefore interesting to hear so many Conservative Members talking about judging tenders not merely on price but on what has been described in the Bill as social value, whereby one should not necessarily go for the lowest tender. That is at variance with my own experience as a leader of local government in the years when Baroness Thatcher was Prime Minister and simply wanted the lowest possible tenders. Nicholas Ridley said that local authorities should meet once a year in a tent to let contracts and then go away again.

[Mr Chope]

indicated assent.

[Jon Trickett]

I see that at least one hon. Gentleman remembers that as well as I do, and with approval by the look of it.

Several Members made strong references to local experiences in their constituencies. That reminds us of how important it is that Members of Parliament have a constituency base. Whatever form of electoral system we use, it is important to retain the constituency link. The hon. Members for West Worcestershire (Harriett Baldwin), for Congleton (Fiona Bruce), for Castle Point (Rebecca Harris), for East Surrey (Mr Gyimah) and others referred to local experiences, as well as to experiences that they had prior to coming to the House.

There was some tension, though, between the various tendencies that were expressed, which was most striking in the hon. Member for Ipswich (Ben Gummer), who gave the impression that he was a libertarian, but he actually said—he may be horrified when he reads it in Hansard—that he quite liked compulsion in relation to local authorities. The power of the state compelling local authorities was an extraordinary vision for him to evince. On the other hand, the hon. Member for Wycombe (Steve Baker) gave us a disquisition on liberty, saying that every action of the state is an infringement of liberty and is coercive. That was an interesting philosophical diversion.

[Ben Gummer]

To clarify my point, my concern was that many procurement officials are compelled in only one direction, which is to follow a national strategy, and the purpose of the Bill is to compel them to look at a whole series of different things. As I am sure the hon. Gentleman will have experienced when buying something from, say, John Lewis, one does not just look at price but at a whole series of things, such as whether one would like it in one’s flat or whether it is the right colour. All we are doing is saying, “Look at a wide range of things, not just a national strategy as laid down by Whitehall.”

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[Jon Trickett]

We on this side of the Chamber feel perfectly comfortable in our own skin in advocating precisely such an approach to the role of Government. I am not sure whether some of the hon. Gentleman’s colleagues share the same comfort.

We want social enterprise to develop further, so the Bill deserves a Second Reading. As Members will see as I proceed with my speech, it will consolidate in statutory form initiatives that we introduced when we were in government. Equally, as I have just remarked, it points out the intellectual fissures at the core of the coalition’s confused approach to public policy. The Government say they are in favour of a big society, but they do not always will the means. There is a contradiction between their professed communitarianism and their neo-liberal objective of cutting the costs of caring services.

There is also a contradiction between the Conservatives’ approach to the market and free competition, with price as the key indicator on which tenders should be judged, and the social commitments in the Bill. Another contradiction is between their alleged commitment to localism and some Conservative Members’ central ideological imperative of giving the market free rein.

[Steve Baker]

If the hon. Gentleman uses the word “ideological” to accuse me of having thought about how society works and what the law ought to be, of course I plead guilty.

[Jon Trickett]

I, too, have a very strong ideological vision, and in no way should the hon. Gentleman apologise for having an ideology. It is the contents of his ideology that give me some concern.

The contradictions and intellectual fissures that have been exemplified this morning go right to the heart of the Bill. That explains the rumour—I wonder whether the Minister could confirm it—of a fundamental disagreement over the Bill between the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government and the Minister for the Cabinet Office.

Throughout the debate we have heard many examples of the positive impact that social enterprises can have on our neighbourhoods, communities, towns and villages. I recently visited Cream Catering in my constituency, which is doing innovative work. It is a social enterprise that employs people who have been out of the labour market for many years, and it provides high-quality catering in a variety of institutional contexts. It is an exciting enterprise, and it was created through the intervention of the then Government, who identified a procurement problem and an instrument that might deal with it. I am sure that is the kind of thing that the hon. Member for Warwick and Leamington would like to see if the Bill became law.

In fact, there are 55,000 social enterprises across the country. It is said that they add £8 billion a year to our gross domestic product, but their true value cannot be measured purely in numbers. They enable the hardest to reach and often most socially excluded people to return to economic activity. They contribute to improving the environment, both physical and social, and they enhance prosperity and deliver social justice in equal measure.

The values encompassed in the work of social enterprises are vital ingredients in the creation of a good society. If we are to succeed in the future, both as a sustainable economy and as a society with strong bonds of mutuality and reciprocity, we need to accept that markets needs morals. Labour has no problem in accepting that, and in government it led us to invest in social enterprises. We invested unprecedented resources in encouraging social enterprises, which contributed to the significant expansion of the sector and brought us to the position that we are in today. That provides a background to the Bill.

Many of the Bill’s intentions will build on the progress that we made in the past 10 years, and, to be fair, the progress that was made under previous Administrations as well. Back in 2002, we launched the first Government strategy for social enterprise. In 2006, we produced a social enterprise action plan, and in 2009 we held a social enterprise summit. We also created new instruments called community interest companies, of which there are 4,000 across the country. Labour gave £125 million to the Futurebuilders fund, which the hon. Member for West Worcestershire (Harriett Baldwin) mentioned, to build third sector capacity. We also ensured that thousands of public sector procurement officers were trained in how best to engage with the third sector. We can therefore conclude that initiatives and plans—even those that are put into statutory form—are only one side of the equation.

The other side of the equation is that there must be appropriate investment. It is therefore a concern that the Government’s spending cuts might put at risk the activity of social enterprises. How can it help to scrap the future jobs fund, which was partly designed to help social enterprises create up to 15,000 jobs? Mention has been made of the New Philanthropy Capital think-tank, which has said that the cuts look like removing between £3 billion and £5 billion a year from social enterprises and the third sector generally.

Clause 1 would result in a national social enterprise strategy that allowed Departments to promote engagement in social enterprise across England. That proposal is almost identical in some ways to the social enterprise action plan that Labour introduced four years ago. It is difficult to see how this national strategy, which would be created in law, differs from the action plan that we introduced without the need for a statutory framework. A case must be made to explain why a new Bill is required given that Labour was able to do things without new statutory powers. Why do the Conservatives, and the coalition more generally, find it necessary to create a new piece of legislation, which the hon. Member for East Surrey no doubt thinks is coercive.

[Mr Gyimah]

The hon. Gentleman is describing every pet project that Labour came up with in its 13 years in power as some sort of social enterprise, but that is not what the Bill is about. We are trying to enable non-profit organisations to deliver public services that the state would otherwise deliver. That is not the same as expanding the state, which is what the hon. Gentleman’s policies would lead to.

[Jon Trickett]

I am sorry I gave way to the hon. Gentleman, because he clearly has not listened to much of what I have said. Without such legislation, the previous Government helped to create the environment in which 55,000 social enterprises came into existence. A case has to be made to explain why all the Government Members present are prepared to introduce new legislation, more red tape and more intervention in the market, when Labour showed that we could build the so-called big society—the good society—with no such statist intervention. [Interruption.] I see that at least one Government Member—the hon. Member for Wycombe—feels really quite embarrassed that these proposals come from the Government Benches. It is absolutely unnecessary to bring this legislation into being.

[Ben Gummer]

Let me just clarify something. In the example that I gave, I had hoped to show that outsourcing to third sector organisations does not necessarily help small local organisations. Our point is that the outsourcing perpetuated by the previous Government actually started to kill local charities. The Bill promotes the human capital of small non-profit organisations that specialise in working in local areas.

[Jon Trickett]

Of course it does, and I take the point, but the truth is that the Conservative party—the so-called champion of liberty against the state—is now taking the state’s powers through legislation to do something that is happening in any case. How does it help to have legislation when the key point is to ensure that public procurement officers in local and central Government are sensitive to the needs of local companies, whether social enterprises or not?

[Mr Chope]

Surely the logic of what the hon. Gentleman has just said is that he should vote against the Bill, thereby ensuring that the statute book is not littered with more unnecessary legislation.

[Jon Trickett]

I have said that the Bill raises interesting questions and deserves a Second Reading, enabling some of those matters to be debated further in Committee, which will perhaps further expose the differences on the coalition Benches.

What discussion of clause 2 has the hon. Member for Warwick and Leamington held with the Local Government Association about amending the requirements for local authorities’ sustainable community strategies? A briefing by the Conservative-led and dominated LGA states that there is

“no need for a piece of legislation which will create a top-down imposition on councils to promote such enterprises.”

There speaks the genuine voice of localism, of the Conservative party locally. Why do the Government believe that it is necessary to impose legislation on local authorities that do not want it? Local authorities are happy to proceed with such matters on their own.

The LGA continues:

“The thrust of this Bill is also fundamentally at odds with the Government’s expressed desire to remove centrally-imposed burdens and top-down targets for local government.”

It feels as if the world has turned slightly upside down. Labour in government proceeded happily with enabling the sector to develop without the necessity for new legislation. My right hon. Friend the Member for Salford and Eccles (Hazel Blears) has returned to the Chamber, and I more than congratulate her on her work. How can the Bill become a reality if local government, dominated by the Tories, so strongly opposes it?

[The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Mr Nick Hurd)]

The hon. Gentleman is making several assumptions about the Government’s position that may be proved wrong. I think he has lost sight of the fact that we are discussing a private Member’s Bill.

[Jon Trickett]

Will the Parliamentary Secretary deny that the Cabinet Office helped to draft the Bill? He will not. I understand that that is precisely what happened. I understand that the Bill showed its face in the House only 36 hours ago. Why? I was told that it was delayed until the last possible minute because the Cabinet Office was drafting it. Perhaps the Parliamentary Secretary will confirm that. If it is a private Member’s Bill, why was the Cabinet Office drafting it?

There have been tensions locally with not only local authorities but others about plans for how some social enterprises run services. Members on both sides have made the point that we want high-quality, properly resourced social enterprises, not those that are the victims of a cuts mentality. Labour Members do not want the option of social enterprise driven through on the back of a cut in the quality of service or a reduction in the quality of conditions at work for the people who are employed in the enterprise.

We have no objections to the Bill’s aims, but we are concerned about the manner of its introduction. More consultation before it came before the House would have been better—I have already said that it arrived here only 36 hours ago. We are all proud of the social enterprises in our constituencies throughout the nation. How can it be that they have had no opportunity to examine the Bill before Second Reading? How can it be that the small business and local government sectors are expressing different views about it? Perhaps it is because it was introduced so late. Does the hon. Member for Warwick and Leamington genuinely believe that he provided sufficient time for the House to consult?

We have also heard a lot about how the Bill fits into the Government’s idea of a big society, but until we know what the big society is, how can we assess the applicability of the measures? I am not the only one who does not fully understand what the big society is; many in the voluntary sector do not know what it is either. Famously, the Under-Secretary of State for Education, the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton), also has no idea what the big society is. He said recently:

“The trouble is that most people don’t know what the Big Society really means”.

In what sounded slightly like a whinge, he added:

“least of all the unfortunate ministers who have to articulate it.”

[Ben Gummer]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his indulgence. On the question of definitions, the Leader of Her Majesty’s Opposition has spoken of the “good society”, so will the hon. Gentleman explain what the good society is and the difference between it and the big society?

[Jon Trickett]

It is for the Minister and the Government to go first and describe their conception of the big society. We want a strong society—[Hon. Members: “Ah!”] We want strong bonds of mutuality and reciprocity to operate at every level of society, in every neighbourhood. The Bill might contribute to the development of that, but that does not mean that we should not ask difficult questions of its promoter and sponsors. That is precisely what I am doing.

How does the hon. Member for Warwick and Leamington reconcile clause 3 with the Government’s motives? When the Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General was asked on the “Today” programme earlier in the week about his intentions in respect of mutuals, co-operatives and public service reform, he made it clear that companies tendering for outsourced services would have to make proposals that were

“significantly cheaper than the current provision”.

There we have it: the irreconcilable contradiction between communitarian aspirations and the neo-liberal drive to reduce the cost and extent of government. There lies the Government’s true motives.

Perhaps the Government will not support the Bill, but even if they do, they are more interested in lower cost services than in maximising social value. Having listened to his speech, I do not believe that the hon. Member for Warwick and Leamington wants that. Social enterprises should not be viewed as a cheaper option. They have a real contribution to make and can have a positive impact, as we have heard from Members on both sides of the House, but they should not be about enabling the Government suddenly to abdicate their responsibility to fund public services properly.

Social enterprises should—hopefully—ensure higher levels of democratic accountability.

[Steve Baker]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Jon Trickett]

I am about to wind up, although some might say that I have wound the hon. Gentleman up enough.

Central and local government and social entrepreneurs must work together to unleash the potential of social enterprises and the capacity of all of us to do good in our communities. Perhaps the House can agree on that. That should not be forgotten in the coalition’s eagerness to cut spending and sell off large swathes of the public services. The Opposition support the aims of the Bill and believe that it should receive a Second Reading. None the less, as I have indicated, if and when the Bill reaches Committee, we will probe the details and the broad principles underlying the proposals.

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[Chris White]

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope). He suggested that I might rest on my laurels, but I do not intend to do so if we reach the next stage of the process.

I thank all those hon. Members who have attended this debate on a Friday, who have contributed so well to it and who have made interventions—some helpful, some very helpful and some less so. I especially thank the right hon. Member for Salford and Eccles (Hazel Blears) and my hon. Friends the Members for West Worcestershire (Harriett Baldwin), for Bedford (Richard Fuller), for Wycombe (Steve Baker), for Ipswich (Ben Gummer), for Castle Point (Rebecca Harris), for Congleton (Fiona Bruce), for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg), for Christchurch (Mr Chope) and for East Surrey (Mr Gyimah).

We can all agree on some things. There are nuances of ideology, but I am sure that we agree that we all enter politics for the same reason—to help our constituents and the communities that we serve and in which we live. Even if the Bill falls at this stage, this debate has given us the opportunity to discuss some of these very real issues about how we procure and commission services. At the very least, our commissioners will be provoked into thinking about a different way to do things and the need to include our social enterprises, small businesses and charities—we have all given examples of their work. We all agree that these are difficult financial times, and we need to look at new models and new directions to make our communities more successful and bind our neighbourhoods together. That is a very important task for this House.

It has been pointed out—and I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch—that I would be foolish not to agree with some of the suggestions made by my hon. Friend the Minister. I take his suggestions on board, but it is important for this Bill to reach the next stage, because we need to have those discussions in Committee. We can all put our ideas on the table and help to move forward. I thank everyone for their time today and I hope that their contributions to the next phase will be equally helpful, supportive and useful.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read a Second time; to stand committed to a Public Bill Committee (Standing Order No. 63).

[Jon Trickett (Hemsworth) (Lab)]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. Pursuant to the point of order made earlier today by my hon. Friend the Member for Ogmore (Huw Irranca-Davies), who, the House will recall, requested that a Minister be brought to the Dispatch Box immediately to explain the outrageous comments by the Prime Minister’s enterprise adviser, I understand that the adviser has been forced to resign or may even have been sacked. Can you ensure that a Minister appears at the Dispatch Box this afternoon to explain what has happened to the shambles of the Government’s enterprise policy, given what has happened today?

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)]

As the hon. Gentleman knows, I have no power to compel a Minister to come to the Dispatch Box; nor have I received any notice of a statement. His point has been placed on the record. I am sure that those on the Treasury Bench have heard his comments. There is nothing further that I can do on that point.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jon Trickett Excerpts

Wednesday 20th October 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Maude]

We certainly hope that that will be the case. It is our aspiration that 25% of Government contracts should end up in the small and medium-sized sector. We are committed to publishing online, in an easily accessible form, all Government tender documents. That will make it much easier for small businesses, which can otherwise be put off the process, to take part.

[Jon Trickett (Hemsworth) (Lab)]

In terms of commissioning and procurement, the public sector procures £13 billion-worth of services from the charitable sector. On Monday, a think-tank suggested that the Government’s statement today will wipe out about £5 billion of that procurement—the whole of the increase that was achieved in the past 10 years. What are the Minister’s intentions for funding the voluntary sector? How does he reconcile cuts in that sector with the Prime Minister’s aspiration for the big society?

[Mr Maude]

We are very aware of concerns in the sector. The Chancellor is very aware of them, and will have something to say about the matter a little later. However, there must be reductions in public spending for the simple reason that the former Chief Secretary set out with such uncharacteristic lucidity in his valedictory note.