John Bercow
Main Page: John Bercow (Speaker - Buckingham)Department Debates - View all John Bercow's debates with the Cabinet Office
(13 years, 6 months ago)
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Mr Maude
All regions and nations across the United Kingdom should be able to benefit from that aspiration. We are going to expose much more widely the tender documents that are available so that small businesses will find it much easier to take part in these sometimes quite intimidating processes that have excluded many of them in the past. [Interruption.]
Mr Speaker
Order. I understand that the House is eagerly anticipating later business, but when there is a constant hubbub it is very discourteous and most unfair both on the person wanting to ask the question and on the Minister deputed to answer it.
Charlie Elphicke (Dover) (Con)
3. What recent progress has been made on his Department’s review of non-departmental public bodies.
Mr Hurd
I can certainly give my hon. Friend that assurance, and those children will be more than encouraged. Involving people from all kinds of backgrounds is a central aim of the programme and a key part of its value. As part of the commissioning process, organisations bidding to deliver a pilot next summer have been asked to set out their specific plans to support the broadest range of young people to participate. [Interruption.]
Mr Speaker
Order. There are still far too many private conversations taking place in the Chamber. I want to hear, and I hope the House wants to hear, Steve Rotheram.
Steve Rotheram (Liverpool, Walton) (Lab)
As a former employee of a quango, I am following the Minister’s much-vaunted “bonfire of the quangos”, as he called it. Now that the comprehensive spending review is upon us, can he tell the House what the total savings will be?
Mr Speaker
Order. Unfortunately, that question suffers from the disadvantage that it bears absolutely no relation to the question on the Order Paper. We must have another go, so I call Stella Creasy.
Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)
The tender document for the national citizen service pilot sets out the Government’s refusal to meet the total costs of the programme. Just how much of the bill does the Minister expect the voluntary sector and young people themselves to meet?
The Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General (Mr Francis Maude)
Commissioning is currently too prescriptive; tender documents can be immensely lengthy, specifying every detail of every step in every process. That stifles innovation, excludes new entrants to the market and adds wholly unnecessary cost. We intend that commissioning should be outcome-based, leaving much more scope for innovative providers from the social enterprise, voluntary, charitable and small business sectors to bid. Whenever possible, commissioning should be based on a payment-by-results model.
On procurement, I refer my hon. Friend to my reply to Question 2. [Interruption.]
Mr Speaker
Order. Once again, I understand the excitement and anticipation, but the House must come to order. Such conduct makes a bad impression on the electorate, whose support we so recently sought.
Stephen Metcalfe
I thank my right hon. Friend the Minister for his answer. Following his earlier comments, I seek assurance that small and medium-sized enterprises in my constituency can access Government contracts. Can he give me any examples of practical help now or in future that would make that easier to achieve?
The Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General (Mr Francis Maude)
Procurement of basic commodities was carried out without any effort to leverage the scale and buying power of the whole Government—[Interruption.]
Mr Speaker
Order. I understand the excitement, but I hope that that practice, which was discontinued some time ago, will be discontinued in future. The Minister must be heard.
Mr Maude
That led to one part of the Government buying basic office supplies at seven and a half times the cost that other parts incurred. Allowing wasteful spending of that type to remain unreformed would mean that front-line services and the jobs of dedicated public servants would be more at risk. We are mandating that all Departments and public bodies should in future buy through supplier contracts negotiated on behalf of the whole of central Government. That will cut the costs of Government overheads by some—[Interruption]
Mr Speaker
Order—[Interruption.] Order. In so far as we could hear the Minister, I think we have got the drift of it.
Mark Pawsey
I thank the Minister for his reply in as much as I heard it. It is sound commercial practice to maximise buying power by adding together the purchases of all bodies within an organisation and to use that to drive down prices from suppliers, yet Sir Philip Green found waste arising from huge variation in the prices paid by different Departments. What steps will the Minister take to co-ordinate Government procurement in future?
Mr Speaker
Order. I want time for Back Benchers, especially those on the Order Paper. Let us make some progress.
Edward Miliband
Look, the Prime Minister knows as well as I do that there are risks in the global economy, including to the United Kingdom. The Chief Secretary revealed yesterday that half a million jobs will be lost as the result of the Chancellor’s announcements today. What people who are in fear of losing their jobs will want to know is what the consequences of the spending review will be for them. They will think that this spending review will be a failure if it leads to rising unemployment next year. Will the Prime Minister say that he agrees with them that the spending review will be a failure if unemployment were to rise next year—yes or no?
The Prime Minister
We all remember some catch phrases: “No more boom and bust”—remember that one?—and “Prudence with a purpose”, which left us with the biggest budget deficit in the G20. We remember that, and who was the economic adviser at the Treasury at the time? He is sitting right there—[Interruption.]
The Prime Minister
Let me give the right hon. Gentleman one simple piece of advice that I learned sitting in his seat for five years: if you have not got a plan, you cannot attack a plan. He has not got a plan, so he has got nothing to say—[Interruption.]
The Prime Minister
I am glad that my hon. Friend has been travelling and seeing the world. [Interruption.]
The Prime Minister
I am glad that my hon. Friend is travelling the world and learning so much. We learned a few weeks ago that even Cuba is making reductions in public spending, so I think this puts the modern Labour party somewhere between China and Cuba—but I am not quite sure where.
Mr Speaker
Order. Before the Chancellor comes to the Dispatch Box to make his statement, let me say to the hon. Member for Linlithgow and East Falkirk (Michael Connarty) that points of order come after statements.