Vince Cable
Main Page: Vince Cable (Liberal Democrat - Twickenham)Department Debates - View all Vince Cable's debates with the Department for Transport
(5 years, 12 months ago)
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Sir Vince Cable (Twickenham) (LD)
I strongly endorse the comments of the Chair of the Select Committee, the hon. Member for Nottingham South (Lilian Greenwood), on the potentially enormous impact of these retrograde and unnecessary changes, which will affect hundreds of thousands of people with mobility difficulties.
I should start by declaring an interest. Eighteen months ago, I took on the role of chair of the HCT Group, which I think is the UK’s largest social enterprise. It runs a large number of buses, but also a large number of community transport operations. It is not affected by the changes, because its drivers are already fully compliant with the new standards, but it has deep knowledge of the industry and totally shares the assessment of the Community Transport Association that the changes will do truly enormous damage.
I mention HCT at the outset because it is a social enterprise, and I get a strong sense that the Department simply does not understand the concept of a social enterprise. It seems to believe that a commercial service has to be provided by a commercial operator, but very efficient commercial services are provided by social enterprises that operate efficiently, but make a different use of their profit. The profit is used for a social purpose, not the reward of shareholders, and that distinction appears to be completely ignored in the Department’s evaluation.
I will make two specific points. The first relates to the social impact assessment. Frankly, the Department has done a shoddy piece of work. As the Chair of the Select Committee points out, some fundamental costs are completely ignored. The transport management cost in the industry is underestimated by a factor of three. Most seriously of all, there is a well-developed methodology that people in the industry understand for calculating social impacts. Those are not fully taken into account. The figure of £400 million that the Chair of the Select Committee mentioned is well attested by the people who use the standard methodology.
My second point is on the legal issues. It appears that in every other sector of the economy—local or national—there is now an understanding that the Public Services (Social Value) Act 2012 can be applied on top of procurement rules, but an exception has been made in this case. What has happened here—it has happened many times in the past over procurement issues—is that officials and lawyers are over-interpreting European Union laws. I encountered that in Government as a Secretary of State, dealing with the Department for Transport over the procurement of railways. Fortunately, the then Secretary of State for Transport—now the Chancellor—listened, changed it, and we had a much more pragmatic approach. We are asking today for a much more practical, pragmatic response, which recognises the real social need in the sector.