Oral Answers to Questions

Lord Maude of Horsham Excerpts

Wednesday 21st March 2012 Commons Chamber

[Barbara Keeley (Worsley and Eccles South) (Lab)]

2. What recent discussions he has had with permanent secretaries on Government outsourcing of policy advice.

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

The head of the civil service has set up a number of themed groups to explore various aspects of civil service reform. One is exploring whether outsourcing policy making could deliver more creative and innovative results, while ensuring accountability and value for money, and I met permanent secretaries recently to discuss that and other issues.

[Barbara Keeley]

The Cabinet Office spent almost £120,000 in one day in August last year on consultancy, and McKinsey & Company is reported to have earned almost £14 million from Government health policy since the election. Outsourcing policy advice is costly and can lead to conflicts of interest, so will Conservative Ministers stick to their pledge in their manifesto to reduce the amount of consultancy?

[Mr Maude]

Not only will we, but we have. We have more than halved—I stress, more than halved—the cost of consultancy to the taxpayer. Under the previous Government, such money was spent incontinently, and the result was bad value for money and the serious undermining of the self-esteem of professional civil servants, who like being asked to do difficult things and are very good at doing them.

[Andrew Bridgen (North West Leicestershire) (Con)]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that every Government need the best possible policy advice available, and that sometimes it comes from within the civil service, and sometimes from without?

[Mr Maude]

As the new Cabinet Secretary said the other day, the civil service has in the past had a monopoly on policy advice, and he and others feel that it is something worth questioning. I am sorry that it is only the Opposition who seem to have closed minds on the issue.

[Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South) (Lab)]

3. What recent discussions he has had on the types of Government funding models available to the voluntary and community sector.

--- Later in debate ---

[David Morris (Morecambe and Lunesdale) (Con)]

9. What recent progress he has made on opening up public sector procurement to small and medium-sized enterprises.

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

rose—[Interruption.]

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I want to hear Minister Maude.

[Mr Maude]

I am grateful, Mr Speaker.

A year ago, the Prime Minister and I launched a package of radical measures to increase opportunities for small and medium-sized enterprises to supply to Government. One year on, central Government’s direct spend with SMEs is on track to more than double to nearly 14% since we took office.

[Simon Hughes]

Those are very encouraging figures. In order to encourage small and medium-sized firms and show Government transparency, will the evidence behind the facts and figures be put in the public domain as soon as possible?

[Mr Maude]

I am delighted to tell my right hon. Friend that we make this information much more public and transparent than it has ever been before. The Contracts Finder website contains much more information about tenders, contracts and successful bids than has ever been the case, but we have more distance to go, and we will do so.

[David Morris]

I congratulate my right hon. Friend on the work that he has done to help SMEs to access Government contracts, but will he now consider writing protection for small sub-contractors into every major Government contract?

[Mr Maude]

I am delighted to say that nine of the biggest suppliers to Government have already agreed that they will advertise on Contracts Finder their contracts for sub-contract as well, and that will increase accessibility. In addition, we are taking steps to ensure that payments get made quickly not only to prime contractors but to sub-contractors further down the supply chain. [Interruption.]

[Mr Speaker]

Order. There are far too many very noisy private conversations taking place in the Chamber. That is unfair to the questioner and deeply unfair to Ministers, who may well be greatly wounded by the experience.

[Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)]

11. The Government say that they are committed to ensuring that 25% of all Government contracts will be awarded to SMEs, but official figures and the experience of SMEs in my constituency show that the situation is getting worse. When are the Government going to get their act together on this?

[Mr Maude]

I fear that the hon. Lady wrote her question before hearing my answer. We cannot make a commitment; it would be illegal to do that. We have an aspiration to move to 25%. The Government formed by the party of which the hon. Lady is a member did not even bother to measure how much of this was happening. In the past year, we have more than doubled the amount of spend that goes directly to SMEs, but there is further to go and we will go that distance.

[Michael Dugher (Barnsley East) (Lab)]

Last week, Mark Taylor, the co-chair of the “new suppliers to Government” panel which is advising the Minister on SMEs, resigned, saying that Government contracts to SMEs were “drying up”, that things were “going backwards”, and that SMEs were

“finding it more difficult to do business with Government”,

and accusing the Government of “recounting” their figures. Given that the Minister has admitted that the Government are nowhere near their promised 25% target, will he explain why the proportion of procurement spend going to SMEs is falling at the Department of Energy and Climate Change, the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, the Department of Health, the Department for Education, the Department for Transport, Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the Department for International Development, and the Treasury?

[Mr Maude]

I say to the hon. Gentleman that if Mr Mark Taylor had come to any meetings of the SME panel over the past six months, he would have been more up to speed with the considerable progress that is being made. The previous Government, for whom the hon. Gentleman was an adviser, cared so little about this matter that they did not even measure what was being done. We have, I repeat, more than doubled the amount that is spent with SMEs over the past year. That amount will continue to grow.

[Jake Berry (Rossendale and Darwen) (Con)]

T1. If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.

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

My responsibilities as Minister for the Cabinet Office are public sector efficiency and reform, civil service issues, the industrial relations strategy in the public sector, Government transparency, civil contingencies, civil society and cyber-security.

[Jake Berry]

National citizen service is going to become a rite of passage for many of our constituents. Will my right hon. Friend tell me how young people in Rossendale and Darwen can find out about getting involved this summer?

[Mr Maude]

Three providers are delivering more than 600 places across Lancashire this year. Those providers are Catch22, The Challenge Network and Fylde Coast YMCA. I strongly encourage young people and their parents in Rossendale and Darwen to find out more about the NCS through its Facebook page or the Cabinet Office’s NCS website.

[Jim McGovern (Dundee West) (Lab)]

T2. What progress has been made by the commission into the West Lothian question? Many Opposition Members, and I am sure many Government Members, do not want to see a two-tier system of hon. Members in Westminster. What progress has the Minister made on this matter? Will he assure Members that we will be allowed to make a contribution to the commission?

[Mr Maude]

I am completely confident that the members of the West Lothian commission will read the hon. Gentleman’s remarks with great interest.

[Iain Stewart (Milton Keynes South) (Con)]

T4. Will my right hon. Friend tell the House when the plans to refurbish No. 70 Whitehall were approved?

[Mr Maude]

Those plans were approved in 2008, when the current Leader of the Opposition was Minister for the Cabinet Office. It is therefore surprising that the shadow Minister for the Cabinet Office chose recently to mount an unprovoked attack on the decision made by his party leader.

[Barbara Keeley (Worsley and Eccles South) (Lab)]

T3. Part of my constituency had a bad experience with the Big Lottery Fund, which awarded it £1 million, but then sat on the money for the best part of two years. Will the Minister give better policy direction to that body so that it does not award funding and then sit on it for two years?

[Mr Maude]

I hear what the hon. Lady says and I will look into it. I am surprised to hear that that was the case.

[Stuart Andrew (Pudsey) (Con)]

T5. Yesterday, Britain showed itself at its best. The Olympics offer us a chance to repeat such a show to the world. Does my right hon. Friend agree that it is disgraceful that strike action has been threatened during such a wonderful opportunity?

[Mr Maude]

It was distressing that the leader of the Unite trade union made that intemperate threat. I hope that the Leader of the Opposition will take an early opportunity to condemn these bully-boy paymasters, who are threatening, when the eyes of the world are on Britain, to bring the country to a standstill.

[Chris Evans (Islwyn) (Lab/Co-op)]

T6. Concerns have been raised about the role of Circle health care in the Government’s pathfinder programme. Will the Minister clarify its role in the programme?

[Mr Maude]

I will look at what the hon. Gentleman says and provide him with what will no doubt be a comprehensive answer.[Interruption.]

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

[John Pugh (Southport) (LD)]

T7. Had we reached Question 10, I would have asked what recent assessment has been made of Government policy on open source software and open standards.

[Mr Maude]

We are strongly in favour of using open source software wherever possible. We have established that that can cut the cost of providing digital services massively, while producing better results. On a recent visit to silicon valley, I and a number of colleagues found businesses that were capable of cutting those costs on a massive scale.

[Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

A study by the Association of Chief Executives of Voluntary Organisations has found that applications by charities for emergency help were highest in the north-east, because the 20 poorest areas suffered 40 times as much reduction in their funding as the 20 richest. A year ago the Minister of State, Cabinet Office, the right hon. Member for West Dorset (Mr Letwin), said that the voluntary sector would

“find that there is access to a large amount of revenue”.—[Official Report, 20 October 2010; Vol. 516, c. 936.]

Has he disappeared because he no longer believes that?

[Mr Maude]

I deeply regret that it has been necessary for the Government to cut spending in the way that they have. The reason is very simple—the Government of which the hon. Lady was a member left this country with the biggest budget deficit in the developed world.

[Charlie Elphicke (Dover) (Con)]

T8. In the past decade, small business has increased employment by 1 million and big business cut it by 1 million. Does that not show that procurement for small businesses is about not just fairness but more jobs and money?

[Mr Maude]

My hon. Friend is completely right. That is why we have an aspiration to increase the direct spend to 25% of what the Government spend. We have already more than doubled that, and we intend to go further.

The Prime Minister was asked—