Oral Answers to Questions

Paul Flynn Excerpts

Wednesday 30th April 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hurd]

Those are not of course the only traditions that the left has abandoned over the years; it is very hard to see what is left. I am very proud that Government Members are leading the work to encourage more mutualisation, particularly in relation to encouraging people to spin out the services they currently offer inside the public sector, and to offer them and improve them as public sector mutuals.

[Paul Flynn (Newport West) (Lab)]

2. What his policy is on the outsourcing of civil service jobs.

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

In common with the previous Government, which the hon. Gentleman supported from time to time, the current Government do not have a dogmatic view on outsourcing, either in favour of it or against it.

[Paul Flynn]

For the past 10 years, shared services has been one of the major job successes in providing more than 1,000 decent jobs in my constituency, at great value to the taxpayer. Why is the Minister trying to wreck a winning team?

[Mr Maude]

We are actually seeking to build on what is good. It is now 10 years since Sir Peter Gershon, under the previous Government, proposed a fast move towards genuinely shared services. That did not happen for eight years. Since 2012, we have made significant progress in genuinely creating a handful of shared service centres for Government. They are building on the shared service centre in Swansea and others. If we create genuinely successful, highly efficient organisations there, they have every opportunity of winning other business and therefore of creating new jobs and new prosperity in those areas.