Public Bodies Bill [Lords]
Simon Kirby Excerpts(13 years, 3 months ago)
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Tessa Jowell (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab)
I beg to move,
That this House, while agreeing that there needs to be a constant reassessment of the role, effectiveness and relevance of public bodies, declines to give a second reading to the Public Bodies Bill because it fails to provide a full and comprehensive plan for the reform of public bodies; regrets that Ministers have failed to properly cost reforms and identify savings, have failed to understand the important functions performed by some of the bodies affected by the Bill and therefore to provide for credible successor arrangements, have failed to consult properly on proposed reforms with the public and the bodies themselves, and have failed to undertake a proper impact assessment of each affected body; and considers that the overall effect of these failings has been that the House has been presented with legislative proposals which undermine the credibility of the proper processes of government.
It gives me great pleasure to move the reasoned amendment in my name and those of my right hon. and hon. Friends. I have listened closely to what the Minister has said. He was courteous and kind about the treatment of the Bill in another place, but to describe the scrutiny process in the terms he did was an understatement. In fact, the Bill, which in its original form gave him licence to meddle on an unprecedented scale in the affairs of bodies discharging functions on behalf of the public, was not just overhauled, but was mauled by the scrutiny of another place. Lord Woolf said that it was
“a matter of grave concern to the judiciary.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 9 November 2010; Vol. 722, c. 75.]
The Lords Constitution Committee said that it struck
“at the very heart of our constitutional system”,
and Baroness Royall was not alone in saying that
“this is a bad Bill. It is badly thought out, badly structured, badly executed, bad for the constitution, bad for public bodies and bad for government.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 9 November 2010; Vol. 722, c. 68.]
I listened closely to what the Minister said were his intentions for the scrutiny of the Bill in the House, and I would like to put him on notice: we will fight with every available argument to ensure proper protection for the Youth Justice Board, which has led to such a dramatic fall in youth crime, and we will fight to honour and see implemented the commitment to the office of the chief coroner. The Minister can deploy a parliamentary majority to vote down the decisions taken in another place, but, as has been indicated already by my right hon. and hon. Friends, as well as other right hon. and hon. Members, he will not be able to defeat the argument in the country over the chief coroner—an argument supported eloquently by the Royal British Legion. I therefore hope that, with humility, he will take heed of the debate and judge it on its merits.
The original Bill, as published by the Tory-led coalition, planned to sell off our forests. I would like to pay the warmest tribute to the campaign so excellently and eloquently led by my hon. Friend the Member for Wakefield (Mary Creagh), which rightly saw a climbdown by the Government and brought together 600,000 people in a campaign against the sale of our national heritage. The original Bill also left 150 organisations in the organisational limbo of what was then schedule 7 of the Bill—sounds innocuous enough, does it not? But Channel 4 was listed, as were the Independent Police Complaints Commission, the Charity Commission, the Criminal Cases Review Commission and the independent Judicial Appointments Commission. All were placed in a schedule that would have left them open to being axed at the stroke of a Minister’s pen.
The process of these reforms has been deeply flawed, and the Government still lack detailed plans for many of the bodies that they are seeking to change, merge or abolish. They have produced a Bill before a plan, rather than a plan before a Bill. Having said that—by way of introduction—of course we support the reform of public bodies and public services. Indeed, before the election, the previous Labour Government had put in place a programme to reform public bodies. That programme must be constant and continuing.
Nevertheless, these organisations carry out an enormous range of important public functions and play an important part in the life of the people of this country, providing support for our universities, our sports culture and the arts, standing up for vulnerable people, holding Governments to account, upholding minimum standards and helping to improve our public services. As the Institute for Government, of which I am a fellow—an unremunerated position—wrote,
“public bodies are now fundamental to the function of Government.”
The needs of the country constantly change and our public bodies must change too, which is why every Government need constantly to reassess their role, effectiveness and relevance. We did that and the Government are doing the same. That is not the issue. When we came to power in 1997, there were almost 1,130 public bodies, and by the time of our 2009 review, we had cut their number to about 750—a reduction of almost one third.
Simon Kirby (Brighton, Kemptown) (Con)
The right hon. Lady claims that her Government reduced the number of quangos, but actually spending went up in real terms by about 50%. How does she explain that?
Tessa Jowell
We ought to take into account the reduction of bodies at the Department of Health, link to that the significant reduction in the number of bodies announced by the Haskins review of Natural England and consider the systematic reduction in the number of other bodies, as well as the fact that some were merged and others increased their functions. However, in March 2010, we announced plans to go further and faster and to reduce the overall number of bodies by a further 123.
Oral Answers to Questions
Simon Kirby Excerpts(13 years, 3 months ago)
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Mr Harper
Not at all. I know the opinions of Vernon Bogdanor very well, because he was my tutor. He and I disagreed while we were at university, and we continue to do so on many matters now. The Bill is very much in the interests of Parliament, and of having a stable situation in which the Prime Minister, for the first time, has given up the power to call an election to suit his political party. That is a huge constitutional improvement.
Simon Kirby (Brighton, Kemptown) (Con)
3. What steps he is taking to increase the completeness and accuracy of the electoral register.
The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Mr Mark Harper)
My hon. Friend will know that last Thursday the Government published their White Paper and draft legislation on individual electoral registration, to improve both the accuracy of the electoral register and its completeness.
Simon Kirby
Does the Minister agree with me and the many people in Brighton Kemptown who believe that accuracy and completeness are very important if fraud and malpractice are to be avoided?
Mr Harper
I very much agree with my hon. Friend. We made it very clear in our proposals that we are interested in reducing the vulnerability of our electoral register to fraud and in ensuring its accuracy. We are also interested in ensuring that it is as easy as possible for anyone who is eligible to vote to get on the register. To that end, we are taking part in some data-matching pilots to improve that situation.
Oral Answers to Questions
Simon Kirby Excerpts(13 years, 5 months ago)
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The Prime Minister
What we are trying to do is clean up the mess of Labour’s NHS IT programme, which cost billions of pounds and is still struggling. We are desperately trying to get it under control and make sure we can save money to put into health care.
Simon Kirby (Brighton, Kemptown) (Con)
Q3. Will the Prime Minister join me in sending a message of support to Tony Blair’s former speechwriter, Peter Hyman, who is seeking to set up one of the coalition’s excellent new free schools in east London? [Interruption.]
The Prime Minister
It is funny that Labour Members do not want to listen to Tony Blair’s speechwriter, as they listened with such rapt attention for so many years to what he said. I welcome the free schools policy, and I very much welcome what Peter Hyman is doing in trying to establish a free school. I think this is an excellent policy. Yesterday we had a new policy from Labour when the shadow Education Secretary said that just because he is opposed to the free schools policy, that does not mean he is opposed to every free school. We are back to the days of John Prescott, being told that we cannot have new good schools because everyone might want to go to them. We are back to old Labour.
Oral Answers to Questions
Simon Kirby Excerpts(13 years, 11 months ago)
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The Deputy Prime Minister
As the right hon. Gentleman well knows, the Government inherited a situation in which a 2005 court ruling had shown our current arrangements to be illegal and to fall foul of court rulings. The previous Government looked at the options for moving into line with the court rulings and there have been a succession of court rulings since then, most recently last week. We will provide our final response on how to make sure that our practices are in line with those rulings in the very near future.
Simon Kirby (Brighton, Kemptown) (Con)
T3. What progress have the Government made on ensuring that the banks meet their obligation to pay their fair share of taxes?
The Deputy Prime Minister
A year ago, the previous Government announced that they would require—[Interruption.] It is worth listening to this as a contrast between inaction and action. They announced that they would require the banks to sign up to the code of practice on taxation. Last month, only four of the top 15 banks had signed up, which was in our view completely unacceptable. We want the banks to play not just by the letter of tax law but by its spirit. That is why the Chancellor instructed Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs in October to work with the banking sector to ensure that the remaining banks implemented the code by the end of this month, and I can today confirm that all the top 15 banks have now signed the code. That is an extra 11 banks in one month versus the four that signed previously. [Interruption.]
Oral Answers to Questions
Simon Kirby Excerpts(14 years, 4 months ago)
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Simon Kirby (Brighton, Kemptown) (Con)
1 What mechanism he plans to use to review the effectiveness of non-departmental public bodies.
Chris Skidmore (Kingswood) (Con)
4. What mechanisms he plans to use to review the effectiveness of non-departmental public bodies.
The Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General (Mr Francis Maude)
We are committed to cutting the number of public bodies to increase accountability and cut costs. In future, each public body will have to meet one of three tests—does it perform a technical function, does it need to be politically impartial or does it act independently to establish facts? The Prime Minister has written to Cabinet colleagues asking them to apply those tests rigorously to the public bodies within their area of responsibility. I will be meeting colleagues in the coming weeks to take the review forward, and I expect to publish the outcome in the autumn with a view to introducing a public bodies Bill later this year.
Simon Kirby
I thank my right hon. Friend for his answer, and I welcome him to the Dispatch Box. Given the Government’s clear policy on localism, will he ensure that the regional development agency quango, SEEDA—the South East England Development Agency—is rapidly dismantled and that its powers and decisions are handed back to the local authorities to which those powers have always properly belonged?
Mr Maude
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his kind remarks. It is very good to see him here. He is a close neighbour in Sussex and he makes a very good point. The Government will engage in discussions with local partners, including local authorities and local business organisations, to work out with them in respect of each RDA the best way forward. I suspect that he and I have the same sort of concerns about the way in which SEEDA has operated.