Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lord Bellingham and Lord Maude of Horsham

Wednesday 11th February 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Maude]

The Central Office of Information had nothing to do with any of this. That is a completely different, and now defunct, organisation. I am ensuring that officials in my Department are going through all the files thoroughly to make sure that they are organised, that they know what is in them, and that any files that are at all relevant are submitted immediately to all of the inquiries that are under way. There is no excuse whatsoever for these files not being surfaced.

[Mr Henry Bellingham (North West Norfolk) (Con)]

T5. Will the Minister join me in praising the vibrant charity and social enterprise sector in west Norfolk for all its superb work, especially the two charities chosen by this year’s mayor, Barry Ayres, namely the Prince’s Trust of King’s Lynn and the west Norfolk Kandoo club?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lord Bellingham and Lord Maude of Horsham

Wednesday 19th November 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Maude]

I invite the hon. Lady to dream on, on that front. Her party is ill-equipped to criticise us. The last Labour Government’s definition of an online service was enabling people to download a form from the web, print it off, fill it in by hand and send it off by post. They regarded that as an online transaction—they were not quite in the modern world. We are glad that she is catching up, but she still has a long way to go.

[Mr Henry Bellingham (North West Norfolk) (Con)]

2. When he next plans to meet the Charity Commission to discuss the operation of legislation relating to charities.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lord Bellingham and Lord Maude of Horsham

Wednesday 29th January 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Maude]

It will be clear to the hon. Lady that the Cabinet Office deals with some of the most complex and difficult freedom of information requests, a lot of them involving previous Government papers, for which a long consultation process has to be entered into before any decision can be made. The situation will be better in some quarters than others, but in general our record is good.

[Mr Henry Bellingham (North West Norfolk) (Con)]

T8. Given that a fifth of Government procurement spend now goes to SMEs, will the Minister redouble his efforts so that these engines of growth further boost our long-term economic plan?

[Mr Maude]

We have made massive progress. Under the previous Government there was no attempt even to measure how much business was going to SMEs, but we are now measuring that and improving it. We have cut out a lot of the bureaucratic nonsense that often prevented small businesses from even being able to bid for business, let alone win it. The result of that, as my hon. Friend says, is that nearly one fifth of Government business goes to SMEs one way or another. It is our ambition for that to rise to 25%, and I am optimistic we can achieve that.