Oral Answers to Questions
Lord Maude of Horsham Excerpts(13 years, 8 months ago)
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Graham Jones (Hyndburn) (Lab)
1. What recent progress the big society ministerial group has made in its work.
The Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General (Mr Francis Maude)
The Government have an ambitious agenda for the big society. We want to decentralise power and put it in the hands of local communities. We want to open up public services to small and medium-sized enterprises, voluntary organisations and mutuals, and support the growth of civil society organisations.
The ministerial group, which is co-chaired by the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government and myself, is helping to drive forward this agenda and has already contributed to progressing our vanguard areas, the renewed compact, the right to provide for mutuals, and our giving Green Paper.
Graham Jones
Hyndburn citizens advice bureau has seen a 50% cut in its funding and four job losses, and I think that it is a similar tale at Rossendale citizens advice bureau. I am waiting for its job losses, but it is expecting a 50% cut. The Minister should be mindful that his Government might leave the legacy of a little society. What warm words would he have for Rossendale and Hyndburn citizens advice bureaux?
Mr Maude
We urgently hope that local authorities, as they deal with the financial consequences of the budget deficit that the Labour Government left behind—when the Government were spending £4 for every £3 in revenue, having to borrow £1 out of every £4—will ensure that a disproportionate burden of those reductions does not fall on the voluntary sector. That is a matter he should take up with the local council.
Mr Oliver Heald (North East Hertfordshire) (Con)
Have Ministers considered how to avoid duplication in the work of existing volunteer bureaux, often supported by local councils, and the new community organisers who are being recruited by the Government?
Mr Maude
I would expect community organisers to work closely with those organisations and to ensure that there is no duplication of effort. These community organisers, many of whom already exist and do great work in communities, will not carry any kind of bureaucracy or organisational structure with them. Their job is to put people together, give support to organisations and make connections where they are not already being made.
Mr Liam Byrne (Birmingham, Hodge Hill) (Lab)
This morning, figures showed that youth unemployment has rocketed up, and this afternoon we expect the Government to confirm that they will cancel the education maintenance allowance. Without work and without study, surely we need our youth charities more than ever before, yet the National Council for Voluntary Youth Services says that three quarters are now cutting projects. Just what have the Government got against young people, and why is there such a narrow place for young people in the Government’s vision of the big society?
Mr Sam Gyimah (East Surrey) (Con)
2. What steps he is taking to prevent fraudulent charity collections.
The Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General (Mr Francis Maude)
Stealing from charities is a repulsive crime, but a growing problem, with suspected links to organised crime. It is estimated that up to £50 million a year is lost to bogus collections, which deprive charities of vital income and damage public trust and confidence in them. We are determined to take robust action against people who carry out such crimes.
Last week the Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office, my hon. Friend the Member for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner (Mr Hurd), who has responsibility for civil society, and apologises for not being able to be here today, chaired a very positive meeting with charities, their collection partners, and the licensing and enforcement agencies to consider ways to tackle the issue. We want to review the licensing legislation and put much greater emphasis on the co-ordination of enforcement action to combat these criminals.
Mr Gyimah
I thank the Minister for his answer. What assurances can he give the House that in our efforts to clamp down on fraudulent collectors we do not create an overly burdensome system that makes it harder for volunteers, on whom many of the charities in my constituency and across the country rely, to give up their time?
Mr Maude
My hon. Friend raises an important point. The Charities Act 2006 is due to be reviewed, in the ordinary course of events, later this year, which we will do. It seems to us that the current laws are outdated; they date from many years ago, from a different world. They are not particularly effective at preventing fraudulent collections, yet they can already be very burdensome on legitimate charities. We want to reverse that to make the law easier for legitimate charities but more effective in controlling fraudulent collections.
Mr Nigel Dodds (Belfast North) (DUP)
In taking that important matter forward, what consultation does the Minister propose to have with the devolved Administrations so that best practice might be adopted in tackling that serious issue?
Mr Maude
I am confident that the Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office, my hon. Friend the Member for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner, who has responsibility for civil society and is taking the initiative forward, will want to collaborate closely with the devolved Administrations in just the way that the right hon. Gentleman suggests.
Cathy Jamieson (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) (Lab/Co-op)
3. What proportion of the budget of the national citizen service he expects to be spent in the 50% least disadvantaged areas of the country.
The Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General (Mr Francis Maude)
Analysis by Cabinet Office officials shows that NCS pilots are taking place in more than 190 locations across England and that places are evenly distributed among the most and the least deprived areas of England. Just under half of the places are in the 50% least deprived areas and just over half are located in the 50% most deprived areas. The key criterion for selecting pilot providers was the quality of proposals, including their plans to attract a wide cross-section of 16-year-olds and to support disadvantaged young people to take part. The bidders themselves nominated areas where they wanted to deliver the 2011 pilots as part of the competitive commissioning that was completed in November.
Cathy Jamieson
I am sure that the Minister will be aware of the research published by the university of Strathclyde, since it was the Conservative party that commissioned it, which highlights the danger that the proposed NCS would in fact benefit more middle-class and well-off young people, rather than those in disadvantaged areas. What account is he taking of that research and how is he changing the programmes to deal with it?
Mr Maude
The essence of that programme is that it is designed to bring together young people from a genuine mix of backgrounds. It is not designed particularly to help disadvantaged young people. It will benefit all young people and help to create a much more cohesive society by bringing together people from all backgrounds at an important and formative stage in their lives, during the rites of passage to adulthood. The social mix is an absolutely crucial ingredient of the programme.
Jon Trickett (Hemsworth) (Lab)
Is it not true that the national citizen service requires that the voluntary sector has adequate capacity to deliver additional volunteering, which is contrary to the unequivocal statement made at the last Cabinet Office questions by the Minister of State, Cabinet Office, the right hon. Member for West Dorset (Mr Letwin), that the sector would expand? Will the Minister now admit that that statement was untrue. The latest figures for the voluntary sector show a decline of 13,000 jobs in a single quarter. Does he agree that the House was misled and that the statement—
Jon Trickett
Thank you, Mr Speaker. The House was inadvertently misled, even though the facts show what actually happened. Finally, would the Minister say that the job losses are a clear disaster for his big society aspirations?
Mr Maude
The hon. Gentleman asked in particular about the capacity of the voluntary sector in relation to the national citizen service. I can tell him that the number of interested providers massively outweighed the number of places that we were able to fund. There is huge interest in the voluntary sector in taking part in the programme. The point that my right hon. Friend the Minister was making was that our approach to public service reform will open up areas of public service delivery to the voluntary and charitable sector and to social enterprise in a way that has not been done before, for all the talk from the previous Government, and the opportunities going forward will be considerable. My right hon. Friend made the point, as we all have, that there will be a tough time immediately, and we have some steps in place to try to help over that period, but the opportunities down the track are considerable.
Damian Collins (Folkestone and Hythe) (Con)
4. What progress his Department’s behavioural insight team has made in its work.
Gordon Banks (Ochil and South Perthshire) (Lab)
7. What assessment he has made of the effect on public expenditure of his proposals for non-departmental public bodies.
The Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General (Mr Francis Maude)
The proposals for reform that I set out in the House last October are the most major change to the public bodies landscape that any Government have made in a generation. They will make a significant contribution to reducing the baseline of Government spending as part of the coalition Government’s deficit reduction plan.
Mr Bradshaw
While “The King’s Speech” is rightly being feted all around the world, the right hon. Gentleman’s Government are abolishing the organisations here in Britain that helped to make that film happen, as part of what even the Conservative-dominated Public Administration Committee has described as a “botched” bonfire of the quangos. Given that he cannot even say how much, if anything, this is going to cost, is it not typical of what the Government are doing in so many areas—ill considered, ill thought through, rushed and damaging?
Mr Maude
Just to be clear, the purpose of these reforms is to increase accountability. The Government will not simply create incontinently new independent bodies in order to avoid Ministers having to make and defend uncomfortable decisions. Ministers should be prepared to make those decisions and defend them themselves—that is what democratic accountability is about, and that is the primary aim. However, we will save money. The changes to the public body landscape planned and announced by the previous Government, of whom the right hon. Gentleman was such a distinguished ornament, were much more minor than the changes that we are undertaking. That Government claimed that those changes would save £500 million a year; our changes are much more radical and will save a great deal more.[Official Report, 2 February 2011, Vol. 522, c. 10MC.]
Gordon Banks
I will tell the Minister what the real effects of his proposals are going to be, according to the Public Accounts Committee. There will be no savings. In my constituency, between his actions on Consumer Focus and the Scottish National party’s actions on Waterwatch Scotland, we have a shambles of job losses, reduced protection and no gains. Is the Minister going to be a man, step up to the plate and do the right thing, or continually try to defy gravity?
Mr Maude
It would be quite interesting to know which of our plans for reforming quangos the hon. Gentleman disagrees with. His own party had in its manifesto a commitment to cut the number of quangos. It had such plans when it was in government, but sadly, as with so much else, it did not give effect to them. We will save money, but much more importantly, we will increase accountability, which is what this is really all about.
Charlie Elphicke (Dover) (Con)
Public expenditure by quangos includes expenditure on lobbying, which is an abuse of public money. Will Ministers ban quango lobbying?
Mr Maude
The code for public bodies already purports to make it impossible for quangos to employ lobbyists from outside in order to lobby the Government. However, that code has not been effective, and considerable amounts of taxpayers’ money have been spent by public bodies, frequently in order to lobby the Government for them to spend more taxpayers’ money. We will make absolutely certain that the code is watertight and that that becomes impossible.
Mr Mark Williams (Ceredigion) (LD)
One of the list of quangos to be dealt with in the Public Bodies Bill is S4C. There is genuine anxiety in Wales about the future of S4C. Although there is a debate to be had about funding, can the Minister at least assure the House of S4C’s continued existence?
Mr Maude
There is no question mark at all over the continued existence of S4C, which plays a valuable part in the life of the Principality. I will convey my hon. Friend’s concerns to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Wales. However, S4C appears in the Public Bodies Bill in the schedule to do with funding arrangements, and that has nothing to do with its continued existence. [Interruption.]
Mr Speaker
Order. There are far too many private conversations taking place in the Chamber, and far too much noise.
The Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General (Mr Francis Maude)
One of the main aims of the national citizen service is to create a more cohesive society by mixing participants from different social backgrounds. To ensure that that happens, organisations bidding to deliver national citizen service pilots this summer were scrutinised on their plans for supporting the broadest possible range of young people to participate. A number of the organisations that were successful in bidding to run the pilots have a strong track record in working with young people from disadvantaged backgrounds and we will closely monitor the success of the pilots in working with those young people.
Bridget Phillipson
I am grateful to the Minister for that answer. Given that education maintenance allowance is being scrapped and that the Connexions service in my constituency faces huge cuts, how can disadvantaged young people in Houghton and Sunderland South be confident that they will benefit from the national citizen service?
Mr Maude
The hon. Lady will be glad to know that a number of NCS pilots are taking place in and around her constituency. The Prince’s Trust is running a pilot in collaboration with local partners, including Sunderland football club, and Catch22 is running pilots in Sunderland and Washington. I hope that she will engage directly with those organisations to ensure that the widest possible range of participants is attracted to those pilots.
Lindsay Roy (Glenrothes) (Lab)
12. What assessment he has made of the effects on the big society initiative of the outcomes of the comprehensive spending review; and if he will make a statement.
Civil Service Compensation Scheme
Lord Maude of Horsham Excerpts(13 years, 9 months ago)
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The Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General (Mr Francis Maude)
I am laying before Parliament today the Civil Service Compensation Scheme (Amendment No.2) Scheme 2010 and the associated revisions to the Principal Civil Service Pension Scheme.
The new scheme will replace the old scheme which the previous Government tried to reform in February 2010. I first announced that the coalition Government intended to reform the civil service compensation scheme on 6 July 2010, following which the Superannuation Bill was introduced to Parliament on 15 July to ensure that reform of the scheme could not be vetoed by any one of the unions. Extensive discussions then took place between officials and Ministers and the civil service trade unions. Proposals were put to the Council of Civil Service Unions on 24 September. In the event, the council did not accept those proposals, but five of the unions—Prospect, the FDA, the Prison Officers’ Association (POA), the GMB and Unite—approached the Government directly and asked to continue discussions on those terms. There followed an intensive period of meetings between the five unions and officials, which on 5 October resulted in an agreement being reached between the negotiators on terms that might form the basis of a new compensation scheme. The five unions wrote to confirm that these terms had accurately recorded an agreement, that all their negotiating teams were able to recommend positively to their executives, as being the best that might be achieved in negotiation.
Subsequently, the POA’s executive committee voted to distance itself from that agreement and to request further discussion. The sixth union, the Public and Commercial Services (PCS) Union, had decided not to take part in the talks at the point when the five other unions had agreed to negotiate separately with the Government.
The Superannuation Act 2010, which received Royal Assent on 16 December, amended the Superannuation Act 1972 so as to remove the requirement for agreement of the civil service unions to any changes that could reduce the benefits of the compensation scheme. However, during the passage through Parliament of the Superannuation Bill, the Government agreed a number of changes to it, including a further amendment to the Superannuation Act 1972 so as to introduce a clear requirement that future consultation on any changes that would reduce the value of the civil service compensation scheme must be undertaken
“with a view to reaching agreement”
and that a report is made to Parliament setting out the details of the consultation that has been carried out with the unions.
During the Superannuation Bill’s passage through Parliament, the Government remained committed to trying to reach an agreement with the Council of Civil Service Unions and offered every opportunity to those unions that wished to engage constructively in negotiations. Five of them did so, and their proposals formed the basis of the discussions and subsequent agreement on which the new proposed scheme is based.
On 9 November, the Council of Civil Service Unions wrote with suggestions for areas that could be considered in further talks, and I responded on 15 November. The suggestions made in the council’s letter would have had the effect of reducing the level of compensation paid to many lower-paid civil servants, and I therefore did not wish those suggestions to form the basis of further discussions. Having a new scheme that provides genuinely better protection for the lowest-paid civil service workers, many of whom are members of the PCS, has been an important aim of the Government throughout the discussions on reform.
I explained to the Council of Civil Service Unions that, in the absence of detailed proposals from the PCS, work would have to proceed on drafting the rules for a new scheme. On 6 December 2010 officials sent the draft rules for the new compensation scheme to the Council of Civil Service Unions to seek its views. Those rules form the basis of the new compensation scheme, which is being laid before Parliament today.
The Superannuation Act 2010 provides a fall-back position by introducing statutory caps on compensation which would be applied if, for any reason, the Government cannot implement the new proposals. The Government are now in a position to be able to repeal the caps set out in the Act through the Superannuation Act 2010 (Repeal of Limits on Compensation) Order 2010, which comes into force today. The repeal means that the statutory caps of a maximum of 15 months’ pay for voluntary departures and 12 months’ pay for compulsory departures, will not apply to the new civil service compensation scheme that is starting on 22 December 2010. The key points of the new civil service compensation scheme are as follows:
Voluntary Redundancy
Below normal pension age (either aged 60 or 65)—one month’s pay per year of service up to 21 months, with a taper of between a maximum of 21 months’ and six months’ compensation for those approaching pension age;
At or above normal pension age—one month’s pay per year of service up to a maximum of six months;
Staff who have reached minimum pension age (either aged 50 or 55) can choose to opt for early retirement on their current pension entitlement. Staff will be asked to surrender some (or all) of their severance payment to meet the cost of receiving this pension early.
Period of notice
All staff will be entitled to at least three months’ notice.
Compulsory Redundancy
One month’s pay per year of service up to 12 months. All staff who may face compulsory redundancy will first have had the opportunity to exit under voluntary terms.
Low and high pay thresholds
All staff earning less than £23,000, on a full time equivalent basis, will be treated as if they earn £23,000 for the purpose of calculating their redundancy payments.
There will also be an upper pay threshold of £149,820. Staff earning more will have their salary capped at this figure for the purpose of calculating their redundancy payments.
Superannuation Bill
Lord Maude of Horsham Excerpts(13 years, 9 months ago)
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The Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General (Mr Francis Maude)
I beg to move, That this House agrees with Lords amendment 1.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
With this we may take Lords amendments 2, 3 and 7.
Mr Maude
When I opened the debate on Second Reading in September, I set out—at some length, I regret to say—the history and background of compensation in the civil service since 1859. I do not propose to do the same this afternoon. However, it is timely to bring the story up to date as regards what has happened since the Bill left this House on 13 October to go to the other place.
I reiterate that from the day I first announced that the Government intended to reform the civil service compensation scheme on 6 July, extensive discussions have taken place between my officials—and myself on a number of occasions—and the civil service trade unions. Proposals were put to the Council of Civil Service Unions on 24 September. In the event, the council did not accept those proposals, but five of the unions—Prospect, the First Division Association, the Prison Officers Association, the GMB and Unite—approached the Government directly and asked to continue discussions on those terms. There followed an intensive period of meetings between the five unions and officials, which on 5 October resulted in an agreement between the negotiators on terms that might form the basis of a new compensation scheme. Later that day, the five unions wrote to confirm that they had accurately recorded an agreement that all their negotiating teams were able to recommend positively to their executives as being the best that might be achieved in negotiation.
Soon after 5 October, agreement was reached between the Government and the trade union negotiating teams. The POA’s executive committee voted to distance itself from that agreement and to request further discussion. The sixth union, the Public and Commercial Services Union, withdrew from the talks at the point when the five other unions had agreed to negotiate separately with the Government. While the Bill was in the other place, the Government agreed a number of changes to it, and this House now has the opportunity to consider those. The group of amendments that we are dealing with responds to a commitment that I made when we discussed this on Report—that is, to reinforce the requirement for meaningful consultation on any changes to civil service consultation schemes.
The new clause includes a clear requirement that future consultation on any changes that would reduce the value of the civil service compensation scheme must be undertaken
“with a view to reaching agreement”,
and it requires a report to be made to Parliament setting out the details of the consultation that had been carried out with the unions. My noble Friend Lord Wallace of Saltaire accepted an Opposition amendment in the other place to delete wording that would have limited the content of that report to such information as the Minister considered appropriate. Lord Wallace also agreed that we would table written ministerial statements in both Houses when the imminent new scheme is laid before Parliament to draw attention to it and to the steps that have been taken to consult the unions. Furthermore, we agreed to limit to three years—this is the subject of the next group of amendments—the power to revive the caps in the Bill by order, and to drop our proposals that would have allowed that time limit to have been extended by a further six months at a time.
During the Bill’s passage through the other place, the Government remained committed to trying to reach an agreement with the Council of Civil Service Unions. I made a number of personal approaches, both orally and in writing, to the PCS general secretary and to the POA inviting the CCSU to put forward alternative proposals for a reformed civil service compensation scheme and seeking to engage further. I reiterated the Government’s continuing aim of reaching an agreement with all the unions. I have offered every opportunity to those unions that wish to engage constructively in negotiations. As I said, five of them did so, and their proposals formed the basis of the agreement on which the new proposed scheme is based. If the Bill goes through its processes and achieves Royal Assent, I would intend to lay that scheme before Parliament before Christmas.
On 9 November, the Council of Civil Service Unions wrote to me with suggestions for areas that could be considered in further talks, and I responded on 15 November. I have to say that the suggestions made in the council’s letter would have had the effect of reducing the level of compensation paid to many lower-paid civil servants, and so it could not form the basis of further discussions. Having a new scheme that provides genuinely better protection for the lowest-paid civil service workers, many of whom are members of the PCS, has been crucial in all the discussions we have had. As I have made clear throughout the process, including when I made the announcement of our intention to reform and on Second Reading, that is crucial to the aims of the coalition Government.
I explained to the Council of Civil Service Unions that, in the absence of detailed proposals from the PCS, work would have to proceed on drafting the rules for a new scheme. Last week, my officials sent the draft rules for the new compensation scheme to the Council of Civil Service Unions to seek its views. Those rules will form the basis of the new compensation scheme, which as I said I intend to lay before Parliament as soon as possible, assuming that the Bill completes its passage and achieves Royal Assent.
The Lords amendments are intended to reassure the House, the unions and all stakeholders that the Government will consult fully with the unions should there be future proposals to change the compensation scheme that would reduce the benefits for civil servants. They merely put into statute what has always been our intention. Arguably, that requirement is already contained in the Superannuation Act 1972, but the amendments will put it beyond peradventure or doubt.
The amendments reflect the lengthy consultation process that I have just described. They are Government amendments that were made in the other place to respond to commitments that I made on Report and Third Reading. I am grateful for the constructive involvement of the unions and those on the Opposition Front Bench throughout the process of refining the amendments to achieve the maximum consensus.
Lords amendment 1, which is the lead amendment, inserts a new clause after clause 1. As I said, it makes it clear that consultation should be undertaken
“with a view to reaching agreement”,
and it requires that a report of that consultation be laid before Parliament. The new provisions will apply when there is a change to the compensation scheme that will result in reduced benefits. The report would have to include details of
“the consultation that took place”,
the steps that were taken
“with a view to reaching agreement”
with the unions or other persons consulted, and
“whether such agreement has been reached.”
I repeat that the Government are committed to consultation with the unions. Like the previous Administration, we will always seek to reach agreement with all unions on changes to the compensation scheme. We know from experience that that may not always be possible, and in such cases, the report will explain why.
The effect of Lords amendments 2 and 3 is that the consultation provisions will come into force two months after Royal Assent. That is the standard interval before the commencement of new legislation. However, because of the need for certainty, the other provisions of the Bill will come into force immediately on Royal Assent. As a consequence, the requirement to publish and lay before Parliament a report on the consultation will apply to future changes to the compensation scheme, and not to those currently being developed for implementation when the Bill is enacted.
A requirement for a report on the current consultation would be nugatory, because no one can claim that there has been anything other than long and extensive consultation, carried out not just by myself and my officials, but by my predecessor in this process, the right hon. Member for Dulwich and West Norwood (Tessa Jowell), and the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Mr Byrne), who is now on the Opposition Front Bench. This process goes back a long time; there have been three years of drawn out extensive consultation and negotiation. Parliament is well aware, and nobody can have any doubt, that the process has been extensive and thorough; it has been described by the right hon. Gentleman, the right hon. Lady and myself. Equally, it would be wrong to risk a further delay, while a report was prepared and laid before Parliament, before the proposed scheme could be introduced. I have agreed, as Lord Wallace said in the other place, to table written ministerial statements to set out what consultation there has been.
I hope the House will recognise that the Government are seeking to provide the additional reassurance that was sought by the Opposition, and that the changes to the Bill meet my earlier commitments.
John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)
Lords amendment 1 requires the Government to consult with the aim of seeking agreement, and provides for a report to Parliament in due course. Lords amendments 2 and 3 will bring the Bill into force two months after Royal Assent and I find it extraordinary that the Government see that as some form of concession, because the bulk of the staff who will be made redundant in the coming period will be made redundant under a scheme that is still to be imposed. The Government intend that that scheme will be introduced within the two months after Royal Assent, so there will be no report to Parliament, no commitment to consultation and no commitment to take steps to reach agreement, as is embedded in Lords amendment 1. The terms of the scheme, as they stand in the original proposals in the Bill, will be imposed. So although Lords amendment 1 proposes a system whereby there is at least some commitment to parliamentary scrutiny of the willingness and commitment of the Government to negotiate and seek an agreed settlement, Lords amendments 2 and 3 take away that commitment, because we know that the scheme will be amended within the two months to which Lords amendment 1 does not apply.
I cannot think of a better mechanism to incite industrial action. It could be construed as an act of contorted bad faith. Although there have been commitments in ministerial written statements, there has been no commitment to adhere to Lords amendment 1, because it would not otherwise be virtually vetoed by Lords amendments 2 and 3. In my view, that will not only result in industrial relations deteriorating but enhance the potential for legal challenges. It certainly will not enhance the legal protections for which the Government were hoping as a result of the amendments.
The amendments do not address the problematic core of the Bill, which is the imposition of caps and limits on the compensation scheme without the agreement of the unions representing the members affected. I have heard a lot about the four out of the six unions agreeing or recommending the scheme that is being imposed. I remind the House, however, that of the two main unions that represent the vast bulk—more than 75%—of the members affected, one, PCS, or the Public and Commercial Services Union, has not agreed the scheme and is recommending that its members reject it in the ballot; the executive of the other, the POA, has recommended that its members reject the scheme in the ballot, too.
I find it an absolute irony that in any future negotiations, which will, I suppose, probably be relatively minor because the Government will impose the bulk of the change in the next couple of months, the House will have some form of scrutiny of the negotiations as a result of Lords amendment 1, but it will not be able to exercise it in those two months. The reason for that is that if there was a full exposure of what went on in the negotiations, it would provoke even more anger among PCS and POA members.
This has been the worst example of industrial relations practice that we have seen in years. First, there was the use of a “blunt instrument”—I use the Government’s own words—of the threat of a Bill’s being brought forward to impose such severe caps that many would have lost more than two thirds of the redundancy payments that they had acquired as accrued rights over the years. There was then an extremely crude attempt to divide and rule the unions. I believe that the POA is seeking some form of legal redress against the Minister for the Cabinet Office for some of his statements. Those practices have now resulted in the virtual chaotic breakdown of the formal negotiating structures that have held good under past Governments throughout the decades.
If Lords amendment 1 comes into force, at least there will be some reflection of the negotiations that took place—and it might be more accurate. As the Minister has dwelt on the process of the negotiations, perhaps I might put on the record an alternative historical account of what occurred. Yes, the civil service unions—all six of them—sought to negotiate some form of agreed settlement throughout the summer. They did that in the light of the threat of the imposition of a Bill that would cut significantly their members’ redundancy payments.
In September, the Treasury intervened to insist on a cash cap on the new scheme, so there was no room to manoeuvre to improve the scheme beyond that cap. I believe that that significantly undermined the potential for a settlement. On 28 September, the Minister declared that he was pursuing agreement with five of the unions, excluding the PCS, and on 4 October a formal offer was submitted. On 11 October, PCS and the POA held a constructive meeting with the Minister, focusing on the cap on redundancy proposals and making proposals to redistribute from high earners to the vast majority of civil servants, enhancing the protection for the majority.
Mr Maude
The hon. Gentleman refers to a report of that meeting, but I can give him another account, because I was there—it was my meeting. No concrete proposals were made at that stage, and certainly not proposals that could in any way remotely or realistically redistribute benefits away from higher earners, whose payments are anyway capped under the scheme that we have agreed, towards the lower paid and particularly the lowest paid, who are much better protected now than they were under the previous Labour Government’s scheme of last February.
John McDonnell
My understanding is that on 11 October, PCS and POA tried to explore with the Minister opportunities to make the scheme fairer and more just for their members, and to set out certain parameters in which negotiations could take place. The PCS executive was scheduled to meet on 26 October to consider the next steps in its negotiations with the Government, but on 25 October it received a letter from the Minister, who told them that negotiations had been concluded and that he would implement the proposals that he set out on 4 October. I do not consider that an appropriate way to seek agreement.
As a result, PCS wrote to the Minister on 26 October to say that it was willing to submit proposals. He welcomed that offer and confirmed he would reopen talks if proposals came from the Council of Civil Service Unions, which is exactly what the PCS did—it submitted the parameters and proposals via the CCSU in a constructive approach to reach agreement. The Cabinet Office made no attempt to go into any detail on those proposals or to cost them, and on 9 November, the CCSU submitted terms to open the detail of talks with the Minister, who must have been aware of the background to that letter and of the detail of the PCS proposals. However, on 15 November, he said that the window for talks was closed. Although PCS sent a further letter on 16 November, it was informed that there would be no future talks.
That is a different historical account of those negotiations. The unions, which represented the vast majority of their members, were open to continuing talks to reach an agreed settlement. If amendment 1 had been in place before those talks, the House might have had a more objective historical account of the negotiations than the Minister or I have given—at least we would have had the opportunity of receiving a full report. However, the Minister’s amendments have denied us the opportunity of a report on those negotiations and allow a report only of future negotiations. That is extremely disappointing. It is another act that will undermine civil servants’ confidence that they are being treated fairly by the Government at this critical time in their lives—we are told that 360,000 of them will lose their jobs because of the comprehensive spending review and subsequently.
In addition to souring the industrial relations climate, the Government have opened up a vista of legal challenges—under article 11 of the European convention on human rights and article 1, protocol 1—which has occurred before. Amendment 1 is the Government’s attempt to find legal cover for their infringement of those articles, particularly article 11, but it does not go far enough. In fact, amendments 2 and 3 take away that cover completely in respect of the current negotiations. The Government’s proposals are legally precarious to say the least. I am sure that there will be a legal challenge from PCS. I believe that it will be successful.
In the previous Government’s negotiations, PCS threatened legal challenge, and it was advised by civil servants—they met us a week before the general election was declared—that the Government were confident of winning in court. The same civil servants advise this Government of the same thing. They were wrong before the election, and I believe that they are wrong now. In fact, PCS is yet to lose a case against the Government. We have the prospect of tens or perhaps hundreds of thousands of civil servants being made redundant. If the Government’s proposals are overturned, the civil servants who are made redundant under the imposed scheme could seek legal redress and compensation, which could run into many millions of pounds.
Mr Maude
I am grateful to the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Mr Byrne), who spoke from the Opposition Front Bench, and to my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley (John Hemming) for their support for the amendments and for where the Government have got to. I would like to say one or two words in response to the points that have been raised.
The first point to make is that the coalition Government are deeply committed to supporting the civil service and supporting its independence. We profoundly believe in the ethos of public service and political impartiality that motivates the civil service and with which it is imbued. We wish to support that, and, just as with the previous Government’s attempt to reform the compensation scheme, nothing in what we are attempting to do should be interpreted as anything other than a desire to treat people fairly and achieve the right balance between the interests of the taxpayer and the interests of hard-working, dedicated civil servants who, as the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) said, have in many cases spent their lives in public service. We honour and respect that, and we want them to be treated fairly. I want to put that firmly on the record.
We were happy to accept the point that consultation must be serious, which is why we accepted an amendment that said that consultation has to take place with a view to reaching agreement. It is not enough for the Government to go through the motions. I do not think that anyone who has taken part in the consultations and negotiations that have brought us to this point would say that they were about going through the motions—I think the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill would bear that out. Rather, they were about serious work aimed at getting agreement, and it is a matter of great regret that such agreement has not been reached. The suggestion that the ability for collective bargaining has in some sense been reduced and that this is a breach of the European convention on human rights simply does not stack up. The changes that we are making actually strengthen the commitment to consultation, making it more necessary that, in making any future changes, the Government should consult seriously, with a view to reaching an agreement. The commitment on collective bargaining is enhanced, not diminished.
Mr Nigel Dodds (Belfast North) (DUP)
I have listened to the debate with great interest, particularly on the consultation with the POA, PCS and the other unions, but what is the position, both in the current negotiations and in any future consultations relating to the provisions that we are debating, on those who are not in unions? We found from our experience of negotiating with civil servants in Northern Ireland that many were not in unions, which raised a whole lot of other issues. How does that play into the consultation provisions that the right hon. Gentleman is introducing and the current negotiations?
Mr Maude
The right hon. Gentleman raises a good point, which is that it is by no means true that all civil servants belong to a trade union. The figures show that something in the region of 60% of civil servants belong to a trade union, but many are unrepresented. I am not sure that the Superannuation Act 1972 or what we are proposing in the Bill makes requisite any particular form of consultation with those who are unrepresented. However, he raises a good point that those who engage in future consultations should be alive to.
The hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington referred to his concern that, because the consultation requirement will not be commenced for two months, there will somehow be no obligation to consult. There has been extensive consultation. He raised concerns about the proposals that he claims were made by PCS and the POA, but the outline suggestions that eventually emerged from PCS, if implemented within the cost envelope, which I have always said exists and which would have existed under whichever Government were in power, would have had the effect of reducing the compensation available to those over pensionable age—that is, those over 50 and approaching retirement—and reducing the benefits available to the lowest paid. I say again that our primary concern has been to ensure that there is proper additional protection for those who are lower paid.
John McDonnell
I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman would not want inadvertently to mislead the House. Just for the record, that is contested by the unions themselves, because it was open to the discussions that the union was hoping to pursue with him, but which he declined.
Mr Maude
The concern raised by the unions at the time was that there was insufficient compensation in the scheme that we were developing with the other unions for those who were above the £23,000 salary underpin. We could have increased the compensation payments for them only by taking away from others. The only ways in which that could have been achieved—these suggestions were canvassed—would have been by lowering the £23,000 underpin so that all those earning less than that would have been penalised, or by taking away the significant protection that rightly continues to exist for those over 50. I recognise that someone who started work as a civil servant as a teenager straight after leaving school, and who has worked as nothing else until leaving the civil service in their 50s, might not find themselves in a fantastic place in the labour market. It is therefore right that there should be proper protection for people in those circumstances. That is why protecting those approaching retirement and the lowest paid people in the civil service was an absolute priority for us. I believe that the scheme that we have put in place meets those commitments and priorities.
Mr Michael McCann (East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow) (Lab)
Two pieces of information have come out on this. First, we received a Cabinet Office circular from the right hon. Gentleman which sets out in detail how the negotiations went. It specifically makes the point that PCS made a proposal that would have reduced the amount of money being made available to lower paid staff in order to pay for enhanced benefits for those at the higher end of the scale. However, the trade unions have said that that is not the case. In order to give us more information about the negotiation process, can the Minister provide the figures to demonstrate how much would have needed to go to those at the top to cover those enhancements, and how much would have been taken away from those at the bottom?
Mr Maude
It is really hard to do that, because, as I pointed out in the letter that I sent to all Members, there were only outline suggestions made by PCS. Back in September, five of the unions—the five not including PCS—wrote to me with some proposals that they had signed up to, and that PCS had declined to sign up to. At their request, we entered into discussions with the five unions, and the ensuing proposals formed the basis of the new scheme that we have developed. They are not totally reflected in the scheme, but they formed the basis for it. I constantly and consistently urged PCS to join that process and to make concrete proposals, but it had declined to sign the letter that the other five unions had signed, despite being asked to do so by the five unions.
That protracted process involved meetings with Mark Serwotka of PCS and Steve Gillan of the POA, at which I urged them to make concrete proposals that would enable us to work towards a full agreement. All that emerged, however, after protracted delays, were outline suggestions. When asked how any additional protection for higher-paid people—not highly paid people, but those above the £23,000 underpin—was to be paid for, the only suggestions were either to lower the underpin, which would have meant that all lower-paid workers would have been penalised, or to reduce the protection available to those over 50. We were not willing to do that because providing protection was a priority for us.
John McDonnell
Following on from an earlier point, the Minister will know better than most of us that these negotiations are complex. He has said that it was difficult at times to calculate the overall consequences. That is why the Public and Commercial Services Union—through the Council of Civil Service Unions as the Minister requested—put forward outline proposals for detailed negotiations with staff. However, the Minister for the Cabinet Office then closed the window for those negotiations, just as they were becoming productive. There are complexities and if the Minister objected to issues like that, those points could have been taken up in the next round of negotiations.
Mr Maude
I have to take issue with the hon. Gentleman’s phrase about the process just beginning to become productive, because it was not. The outline suggestions were vague and the only way of paying for them would have been by taking money away from lower-paid workers or people approaching retirement. We explored whether there was any other source from which those funds could be redistributed, but it turned out that there were no alternatives.
John McDonnell
If that is the right hon. Gentleman’s only concern and his only objection to the position of PCS, supported by the POA, why can he not simply reopen negotiations now to resolve the matter?
Mr Maude
The hon. Gentleman talks as if this were a trifling consideration, but it is not. This process has been going on for three years. If the Bill goes through the remainder of its stages and on to the statute book, the new scheme that I hope to lay before Parliament before we rise for the Christmas recess, superseding the current scheme, will have been the product of many months—indeed, years—of protracted discussions. I know that he disagrees, but I have to say that despite repeated requests, the PCS has been tardy, to say the least, in coming forward with proposals and has, at best, made outline suggestions but never concrete proposals that could have formed the basis of an agreement. The other five unions did, and I am grateful to them for their engagement, which enabled us to forge a new scheme—as I said, we hope to lay it before Parliament next week—that will provide a fair balance between the interests of taxpayers and the interests of civil servants and protect those approaching retirement and the lowest paid.
John McDonnell
I am grateful to the Minister for giving way. Let me quote to him his statement to the House on 30 October, when he gave a commitment that he would “strain every sinew” to achieve a negotiated settlement. What I am suggesting is that, if he has identified an issue as an impediment to a negotiated settlement, he should now adhere to his commitment to strain every sinew and meet the unions again. It is no use repeating over and over again the fact that five out of six unions have agreed a settlement. They have not. The two unions that represent the vast majority of members have rejected the Minister’s proposals. Surely it behoves him now to go the extra mile and strain that extra sinew to seek a negotiated settlement before he provokes industrial action or legal challenge.
Mr Maude
Those are not concerns that have just arisen; they have been there throughout. I have been forthright in ventilating them with the leadership of the PCS and POA, and they know that. We have been clear about the envelope within which it would be possible to make changes because increasing protection for one group can be done only at the expense of other groups. There is no way around that. That is the basis on which we have formulated the new scheme, which I hope to lay before Parliament before the Christmas recess. That is the basis of my case.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
All the Lords amendments to the Bill engage the financial privilege of the House. If they are agreed to, the appropriate record will be made in the Journal of the House.
Lords amendment 1 agreed to, with Commons financial privileges waived.
Lords amendments 2 and 3 agreed to, with Commons financial privileges waived.
Clause 3
Final provisions
Mr Deputy Speaker
With this we may take Lords amendments 5 and 6 and amendment (a) thereto.
Mr Maude
The amendments respond to concerns raised by Opposition Members on Second Reading in the other place about the potential for the caps in what is now clause 2 to be revived after being put into abeyance, which is what I propose to do next week before the House rises and before the new scheme is laid. The Government also proposed the amendments to respond to the comments about the unusual use of a sunrise provision in clause 3(4)(c) that were made in the third report of the House of Lords Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee, published on 28 October. My noble Friend Lord Wallace of Saltaire provided a full response to the Committee in his letter of 1 December. We are grateful to the Committee for its report.
The Committee also commented on the other provisions in clause 3 which would enable, by order, the caps included in clause 2 to be repealed and also to be extended by six months at a time. That would override the so-called sunset provision in clause 3(3), which would otherwise mean that the caps on civil service compensation provided in clause 2 would expire automatically after 12 months. The Committee said that “these arrangements are complex”, but added that the two delegated powers
“do not appear to the Committee to be inappropriate”.
However, the Committee was not so persuaded of the need for the power in clause 3 to revive the caps in clause 2, that being an unlimited power that would have been available to any future Government in circumstances that we cannot predict today. The amendments respond to that point. The Government accept that there should not be an unlimited power to revive clause 2. Lords amendment 6 therefore provides for subsection 3(4)(c) itself to expire three years after Royal Assent, which is in effect a sunset of the sunrise provision. I can see why some people might say that that was a bit complex, but I think that, when fully parsed, it makes perfectly good sense.
The sunset of the power to revive clause 2 would mean that it would be there, as the Government intend, as a fallback to revive the caps in clause 2, just in case they were needed because of future problems in implementing the new civil service compensation scheme. However, the introduction of the three-year time limit should provide a reassurance that the power to revive clause 2 would not be available indefinitely to future Governments.
The caps are there as a potential fall-back so that we can be certain—as both the last Government and we have wanted to be—that we can reform the civil service compensation scheme. We have an absolute obligation, in the public interest, to address the unfair and unaffordable nature of the current scheme, and we need to ensure that if a legal challenge is mounted to our revised scheme—and it has been suggested that that may well happen—there is a fall-back option, albeit one that we have absolutely no desire to use. We do not expect or intend to use the powers to impose the caps in clause 2; what we want is to see in operation as quickly as possible is the reformed civil service compensation scheme. We are determined that, if all else fails, there will be a fall-back position so that we are not left high and dry—as the last Government were—because of a legal challenge to the details of the new scheme.
Before the new scheme is laid before Parliament, I intend an order to be made under clause 3(4)(a) to repeal the caps in clause 2 in relation to any new scheme. We intend the order to include a saving provision so that the caps could be applied if, and only if, the old unreformed scheme had to be reintroduced. The saving provision would allow that to happen automatically, without the need to use the revival power by order under clause 3(4)(c). I should make it clear that this saving provision would apply only if there were an attempt to revert to the old scheme. An order under clause 3(4)(c) would be required, subject to the affirmative procedure, if it were ever proposed to revive the caps in clause 2 and to impose them over the new civil service compensation scheme that will be put in place following the completion of this Bill’s passage.
Finally, unless further extended by order under clause 3(4)(b), clause 2 in its entirety—including the saving provision—will expire 12 months after Royal Assent. From that point on, any revival of the caps would have to use the order-making power in clause 3(4)(c), which, because of these Lords amendments, will be available only within three years of Royal Assent. I very much hope that by then the new civil service compensation scheme will be in place and be operating satisfactorily for all concerned—civil servants, departmental employers and the civil service trade unions—and that the taxpayers’ interests and the proper interests of civil servants will be being met. Amendments 4 and 5 are consequential on amendment 6.
John McDonnell
The House needs to be aware of what this measure actually means, and I make it clear that I will press my amendment to a Division.
Mr Byrne
I want to speak briefly about Lords amendments 4, 5 and 6, as well as amendment (a), tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell). During proceedings on the Bill, my right hon. Friend the Member for Dulwich and West Norwood (Tessa Jowell) has consistently raised concerns about the arbitrary caps that the Government introduced at the start of this process, which now form the body of clause 2. I confess that we are still not clear about why the caps are still in the Bill given that clause 1, which was newly introduced on Report, effectively gives the Government the power to impose any settlement after the consultations that we discussed earlier have been completed. We heard, in the Minister’s helpful update to the House, that there is a degree of agreement with at least some of the trade unions, which the Government have declared will supersede the terms in the Bill. Why then do they not seek to introduce a sharp instrument containing the specific terms they have agreed with the trade unions, rather than the blunt instrument containing general powers that is the Bill before us?
We are pleased that the Minister has given a clear commitment, in a letter to right hon. and hon. Members, that it is his ambition to
“repeal the caps in clause 3 insofar as they could impact on the new civil service compensation scheme”.
His letter also says that if the caps were ever revived he
“would table an order…so as to increase the caps to such a level that would…reflect what would otherwise apply under the new scheme.”
Most of us will welcome that good progress.
In earlier debates, we raised concerns that the Bill would allow the revival of caps at any time in the future even after a negotiated settlement was in place. We fear that the relevant measure, which the Government call a sunrise clause, would put an undesirable amount of power in their hands during negotiations, as they could simply threaten to revive statutory powers whenever they ran into any dispute on any matter, not just issues of redundancy. Given that it would allow the Government to resurrect the terms of a long-dead provision, it is not so much a sunrise clause as a zombie clause, which would live on for ever. Whatever we call it, the measure is entirely without precedent in a Bill of this nature. Indeed, the only recorded precedent of such a measure is in the Prevention of Terrorism Act 2005.
We are pleased that there will be a limit of three years on the caps if they are revived, and that the Government cannot extend that period. Given what the Minister has said this afternoon, however, I do not see how he can argue that the correct balance of time and the correct limit to any revived power should be three years. The whole House will welcome what the Minister said this afternoon about his ambition that the revival of the caps should never be triggered. If that is true—and I am prepared to accept that it is—I do not see why he cannot accept the very sensible amendment tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington. Although we are happy to accept amendments from the Lords, we shall support amendment (a).
Mr Maude
The right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Mr Byrne) asked why we needed to keep the caps at all. The answer is simple. The caps will be established in primary legislation, but the new civil service compensation scheme, which I hope to lay before Parliament next week, before the House rises, does not have the full force of primary legislation, despite the changes to the Superannuation Act 1972 made by clause 1.
I shall be frank. We want to avoid being in the position that followed the High Court judgment in May this year, which resulted in the previous Government’s February scheme being quashed. The effect of the scheme being quashed is that the existing scheme remains unreformed and in force. Indeed, the old scheme—unaffordable, unsustainable and unreconstructed—is in force today. Of course, in preparing the new scheme we were at some pains to ensure that it would be legally robust, and we shall vigorously defend any legal challenge to it. However, as was apparent from the litigation against the previous Administration’s scheme, there can never be guarantees in litigation. Even litigation that is destined ultimately to fail can be disruptive, because of the uncertainty it causes until the case is concluded.
John McDonnell
Could we clarify what the Minister has just said? Is the provision he supports simply a device to be used to prevent UK courts from quashing the Government’s proposals?
Mr Maude
I shall be clear: both sides of the House have accepted that the current scheme is unsustainable and needs to be reformed. With the possible exception of the hon. Gentleman, everyone—and certainly Opposition Front Benchers—has accepted that it is unacceptable for it to be possible for a union, or two unions, to veto reform of the scheme. It must be possible for the Government and Parliament to effect reform of the civil service compensation scheme. If there is a successful legal challenge to a new civil service compensation scheme—unlikely though that may seem—we cannot have the position where the old scheme trundles on in its unsustainable, unaffordable and unfair form. That is why there must be a fall-back position for a limited period. We have listened to the arguments and we have accepted that it will be a limited period, so that caps on the use of the old scheme will be in existence, should the new scheme be quashed as the previous Government’s scheme was, by order of the High Court.
What is the right period for the power to revive the caps? Is it one year, three years, five years or 10 years? There is no precise science, because no one knows how long the period is beyond which we could be sure that a successful legal challenge would not be raised. It is our judgment that three years is the right period. That is the view that we have taken. That is why we urged the Lords to agree, and I urge the House to accept that view today. We would thus be agreeing with the Lords in their amendments, and disagreeing with the amendment proposed by the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington.
Lords amendment 4 agreed to, with Commons financial privileges waived.
Lords amendment 5 agreed to, with Commons financial privileges waived.
Amendment (a) proposed to Lords amendment 6.—(John McDonnell.)
Question put, That the amendment be made.
Oral Answers to Questions
Lord Maude of Horsham Excerpts(13 years, 10 months ago)
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Stephen Phillips
One of the problems with the delivery of public services in the past was the previous Government’s focus on delivery through either private contractors or existing local and central Government bodies. Many public sector workers were thus prevented from suggesting innovative ideas for the more efficient and cost-effective delivery of services. How will they now be encouraged to come forward with their ideas?
Mr Maude
We have already encouraged them to come forward with ideas. As part of the spending challenge that we launched in the summer, we invited public sector workers to come up with ideas to save money while protecting front-line services, and 65,000 of them did so, indicating a huge amount of pent-up frustration. We are now encouraging as many of them as possible who are interested not only in having ideas but in putting them into effect to form worker co-operatives to spin out of the public sector while continuing to deliver services.
Jon Trickett (Hemsworth) (Lab)
Given that there are strict procurement rules designed to demonstrate probity and value for money, and to avoid political interference, does the Minister think that it was wise for the Department for Education to hand out a £500,000 contract to the New Schools Network, an organisation led by a former associate of the Secretary of State? Was that contract fully compliant with all the relevant tendering regulations?
James Morris (Halesowen and Rowley Regis) (Con)
2. What progress he has made on the establishment of public sector mutuals.
Alun Cairns (Vale of Glamorgan) (Con)
9. What progress he has made on establishing public sector mutuals.
The Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General (Mr Francis Maude)
I announced last week that every Department will put in place “rights to provide” for public sector workers to take over the running of their services. The first wave of 12 pathfinder projects was launched in August this year. Leading organisations in the sector, including Local Partnerships, the Employee Ownership Association and Co-operatives UK, have come together to launch an information and support service for public sector workers interested in mutualisation. I hope that Members on both sides of the House will encourage and support these worker co-operatives.
James Morris
Many public sector organisations and employees in my constituency are interested in this idea. Will my right hon. Friend clarify whether he sees these policies applying more to local community organisations, or whether he envisages organisations on the scale of, say, NHS trusts being able to take on mutual status?
Mr Maude
I do not think that we should be prescriptive about how large or small, or how local or broad, these co-operatives could be. The pathfinders range enormously in size: I think that the smallest has only three potential employees or members, while the largest has 1,100, and it is possible to imagine them being even larger. I hope that groups of public sector workers from right across the sector will consider whether this could be a good route forward for them to take, and we will make it as easy as possible for them to take it.
Alun Cairns
What action is the Minister taking to protect the interests of innovative public sector workers who come up with exciting ideas for public sector mutuals, but whose senior management do not support them because it might not be in their personal interest to do so?
Mr Maude
It is possible that such a situation could come about, which is why we have encouraged the organisations that I mentioned to set up the information and support service for groups of public sector workers. We will also establish a challenge group, into which this service can feed thoughts and suggestions. If there are concerns that middle and senior managers are obstructing the right of public sector workers to form these co-operatives, I hope that people will feed them directly to us, through the challenge group, so that we can take the appropriate steps.
Cathy Jamieson (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) (Lab/Co-op)
Does the Minister accept that there is a fundamental difference between a worker co-operative and an organisation that is fully mutual? Can he assure me that there will be a democratic process within public sector mutuals and that there will be a membership element to it?
Mr Maude
We do not have a dogmatic view about exactly what form these should take. I hope there will be considerable innovation. Some will want to form joint ventures with outside providers; in other entities, the Government or whatever other state agency is the commissioning body might want to retain a stake in the organisation. There will be strong democratic worker involvement in many of them, but the key element is a degree of ownership by the employees themselves.
Lindsay Roy (Glenrothes) (Lab)
May I probe the Minister further on what specific advice and support the Government are offering to organisations that wish to become mutuals or co-operatives?
Mr Maude
A range of advice is available. The 12 pathfinder projects are supported by organisations that are able to provide support—for example, Co-operatives UK and the John Lewis Partnership, which have enormous experience in this area. The advice and support service that these organisations are putting together will be able directly to channel support and advice from organisations such as the Employee Ownership Association. That should help organisations to find the right advice for the particular circumstances of a particular group of workers.
Mr David Ruffley (Bury St Edmunds) (Con)
3. What steps he is taking to increase the participation of voluntary and charitable bodies in bidding processes for Government contracts.
Mr David Amess (Southend West) (Con)
6. What estimate he has made of the change in his Department’s spending on consultancy between 2009-10 and 2010-11.
The Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General (Mr Francis Maude)
The Government have cut the previous Government’s profligate spending on consultancy. In the first six months of this financial year, consulting spend by the Cabinet Office fell by 42% compared with the trajectory for the previous year. In the first six months of this year, consulting spend right across central Government fell by £350 million—or more than 50%, so it has more than halved—compared with the same period last year.
Mr Maude
I can only assume that the proper processes were followed, because this happened under the previous Government, when the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Mr Byrne) was Minister for the Cabinet Office. Any suggestions of a conflict of interest arising from the position of the Deputy Prime Minister’s wife are wholly misplaced, because the contract was placed before he was anywhere near government.
Mr Denis MacShane (Rotherham) (Lab)
I welcome the Minister’s statement on a reduction in consultancy fees, but hundreds of millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money is still being spent with these firms. Why does he not simply say no and get civil servants to do their jobs?
Mr Maude
I am grateful for the right hon. Gentleman’s robust support for this Government’s change in direction from that taken by the Government of whom he was a member. We believe that the incontinent use of consultants is demeaning for civil servants, who would, in many cases, like to be doing this work and are very capable of doing it. [Interruption.]
Mr Speaker
Order. Far too many private conversations are taking place in the Chamber. This is very discourteous and it should end.
Jeremy Lefroy (Stafford) (Con)
10. What recent progress he has made on his proposals for reform of the civil service compensation scheme.
The Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General (Mr Francis Maude)
The Superannuation Bill, which will impose caps on compensation payments and permit the reform of the civil service compensation scheme, is proceeding through the other place. I remain confident of being able to introduce a new scheme before the House rises.
Claire Perry
I thank the Minister for that reply. More than 30% of the work force in my constituency are employed by the public sector, given the heavy proportion of Army personnel and Ministry of Defence civil servants. Many of the MOD civil servants are members of the Public and Commercial Services union. Has it come to the table and joined the negotiations, or does it still stand alone?
Mr Maude
Sadly, despite repeated invitations, the PCS has not come forward with concrete proposals. The other five unions engaged constructively and their proposals formed the basis for the new scheme that we have developed. I am sorry that the PCS, which represents so many civil servants, particularly lower-paid civil servants, has not chosen to take part in a constructive spirit.
Jeremy Lefroy
In my right hon. Friend’s proposals for reforming the scheme, what account is he taking of the protection of the lowest paid staff in the civil service?
Mr Maude
That has been our principal concern in fashioning a new scheme. Civil servants’ average pay is lower than that in the private sector and the wider public sector, and it is right that they should be at the forefront of our concerns. The scheme that we have developed, in negotiation and consultation with five of the six unions, gives particular protection for them by deeming that the salary on which their compensation calculation is based is £23,000, so anyone paid less than that will have their compensation calculated on that basis.
Dr Julian Huppert (Cambridge) (LD)
8. How his Department plans to measure and promote well-being.
Directgov (Review)
Lord Maude of Horsham Excerpts(13 years, 10 months ago)
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The Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General (Mr Francis Maude)
I invited Martha Lane Fox, the Government’s digital champion, to undertake a strategic review of Directgov which was completed on 14 October 2010. This supported the work that the Efficiency and Reform Board had undertaken on channel shift and the opportunity for digital channels to support delivery of the spending review. The Chief Secretary to the Treasury and I wrote to Departments in September outlining our commitment to improving services and driving efficiencies by making digital the default channel for Government information and transactional services.
Martha Lane Fox submitted her report “Directgov 2010 and beyond: revolution not evolution” to me in October. The report places Directgov in the context of how Government should use the internet both to communicate and interact better with citizens and to deliver significant efficiency savings from making digital the default delivery channel for Government information and services.
I have written to Martha Lane Fox today thanking her for her report and saying that I am minded to accept her proposals in full, but that I will need to consult colleagues before making any final decisions about how to take them forward. I have placed Martha Lane Fox’s report and my response in the Library. Both documents are also available on the Cabinet Office website (www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk)
I expect quick and broad agreement on some of Martha Lane Fox’s proposals where we can make rapid progress and that in some areas—such as moving to a single domain for Government—I will have to work with Departments to test different approaches and work through the details and timescales. It is important to set a clear direction of travel and that is what I have done in my reply as the initial Government response to Martha Lane Fox’s proposals.
Departmental Expenditure Limits
Lord Maude of Horsham Excerpts(13 years, 10 months ago)
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The Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General (Mr Francis Maude)
Subject to parliamentary approval of the winter supplementary estimate 2010-11, the Cabinet Office total departmental expenditure limit (DEL) will be increased by £229,588,000 from £329,499,000 to £559,087,000.
The impact on resources and capital is set out in the following table:
Government Spending Data (Publication)
Lord Maude of Horsham Excerpts(13 years, 10 months ago)
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The Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General (Mr Francis Maude)
Today we have released all Government spend processed since the Government took office. This set of data is the key to so much that this Government wants to achieve—driving value for money by forcing accountability for every penny spent, encouraging competition and innovation in providing services and driving economic growth.
Starting from now, and updated every month, each Government Department will publish on www.Data.gov.uk every item of spending over £25,000. Some Departments are going even further by publishing everything over £500. Each item will be listed in detail, with the date of transaction, the value, the name of the contractor and the description of the good or service purchased.
It is our defining purpose to bring about a power shift in this country—to transfer control to individuals and neighbourhoods. Control over public services so people decide the things that really matter to them—the school they send their child to or the hospital they get treated in. And because information is power, transparency is a crucial part of this power shift. After all, it is information that lets people take on the political class, question them, demand answers and get those answers. It is information that lets people choose between different public services, increasing competition and raising standards.
Employee-led Mutual Organisations
Lord Maude of Horsham Excerpts(13 years, 10 months ago)
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The Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General (Mr Francis Maude)
Today, I am setting-out the steps the Government are taking to support workers to establish employee-led mutual organisations.
Every Government Department will put in place a “Right to Provide”—a right for public sector workers to take over the running of services.
These rights will not be uniform across Departments because each Department’s requirements will be different. The rights will be as far reaching as possible, but we accept there will be areas where it will not be possible to mutualise, for example, because of security or operational stability concerns. It will be for Departments to set these areas out.
Cabinet Office will work with Departments to explore where public procurement processes allow for staff forming a mutual to be awarded a contract to continue providing services. Mutuals will have to negotiate contracts with the applicable Department or local commissioning body, which show how they will provide services while minimising administration and overheads.
In developing and implementing these new rights it is important that central Government lead by example. I will announce today that the Government will develop a right for civil servants directly employed by Departments to form mutuals. In the wider public sector workforce, it will be necessary for Government to work with local public sector bodies and employers.
The Government will not seek to dictate what is best for employees and for the users of services; rather the precise model of mutualisation should follow the service being provided; this could for example include joint ventures.
I am establishing a “challenge group” in Government to advise me and other ministerial colleagues about how we can best enable the success of this policy. This group will convene key policymakers and experts to drive the changes to policy and process necessary across Whitehall.
From spring 2011, the Government will invest over £10 million to fund a programme of support for some of the most promising and innovative mutuals so that they reach the point of investment readiness. This will build on the work of leading organisations in the sector to develop a network within which public sector employees, investors and public service commissioners can develop viable businesses.
The new suite of Rights to Provide are part of the Government’s broader commitment to ensure that a much wider range of organisations can deliver excellent and efficient public services. The Government will publish a White Paper on reform early next year, setting out where we can go further to shift power away from central Government to citizens, communities and independent providers.
London Regional Committee Report (Government Response)
Lord Maude of Horsham Excerpts(13 years, 11 months ago)
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The Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General (Mr Francis Maude)
The report by the House of Commons London Regional Committee on their only inquiry into London’s population and the 2011 census was published on 31 March 2010 (HC 349). This Government did not re-establish the Regional Committees. They recognise the importance of providing a response to Parliament on the issues raised by the Committee. The majority of the recommendations in the report were for the Office for National Statistics (ONS). Two of the Committee’s recommendations were for Government and this written ministerial statement provides the Government’s response. The other recommendations were for ONS and I have placed today a copy of its response in the Library of the House.
This Government have serious concerns about the 2011 census introduced by the previous Parliament. Having given the issue serious consideration, and the costs already incurred, the 2011 census is the only way that unique information can be provided to meet essential UK and EU requirements in the given timeframe at no extra cost than that budgeted. It is important that the 2011 census goes ahead and this Government will continue to promote the importance of the public engaging with the 2011 census.
Given the highly mobile nature of the population, the UK Statistics Authority recognises the increasing difficulties and costs in carrying out a census. The authority has therefore instructed ONS to urgently work on developing alternatives, with the intention that the 2011 census is the last of its kind.
Recommendation 21 of the Committee’s report was dealt with by the previous Government, with my predecessor writing to the Chair of the Committee shortly before the report was published.
Recommendation 14 of the report was on the need for the census address register being developed by the ONS for the 2011 census to be maintained after the census. The previous Government failed to deliver a definitive address register, despite the demands for such a register and the associated costs of inefficiency in maintaining a number of similar registers. This Government are working with the parties concerned and will look to deliver a definitive register. Considerable progress has already been achieved. The work ONS has done will form part of the solution.
Oral Answers to Questions
Lord Maude of Horsham Excerpts(13 years, 11 months ago)
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Julian Smith (Skipton and Ripon) (Con)
8. What steps he has taken to increase the efficiency of his Department’s mechanisms for Government procurement.
The Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General (Mr Francis Maude)
Procurements of major projects by the British Government have typically taken 77 weeks. They have frequently involved the extensive use of external consultants. That process is costly and wasteful, excluding small businesses, social enterprises, and voluntary and charitable organisations. That results in procurements that are too often uncompetitive, delayed, expensive and ineffective. We are taking steps to streamline the process. In the meantime, we are renegotiating contracts with the bigger suppliers to the Government on a single-customer basis, thus leveraging the Government’s buying power. That will deliver some £800 million-worth of savings in this financial year alone.
Stuart Andrew
Sir Philip Green’s report showed just how little time the previous Government afforded to the basic principles of cost-effective commissioning and procurement. Does the Minister feel that that attitude is embodied in the ill-considered note left by the ex-Chief Secretary to the Treasury as he left his old job?
Mr Maude
If the last Government, including the right hon. Gentleman, had bothered to spend the time that we are spending getting into the unglamorous parts of Government spending to find out just how much money can be saved, he might not have felt it necessary to leave a note in quite the stark terms that he did, true though it was. The fact is that there is a huge amount of wasteful spending. Sir Philip Green has done a sterling service in picking up some stones and providing the evidence for that, and we will be acting on his recommendations to see how we can take costs out of the overheads of Government. That is the best way to protect front-line services and to protect the jobs of dedicated public servants, which the right hon. Gentleman claims to care about.
Julian Smith
Does my right hon. Friend agree that small business has been locked out of the procurement process for far too long? Will he start to give small businesses, particularly those in Yorkshire, a fairer crack of the whip?
Mr Maude
A big benefit arising from the changes that we are proposing to make to the way in which services are procured is that they will open the door to smaller businesses. Over-prescriptive procurements make it very expensive for small businesses to take the risk of committing to tendering, and they tend to be excluded on a self-selecting basis. We want to change that. It is our aspiration that 25% of contracts should be let with small and medium-sized enterprises. That is the direction in which we hope to go, and I am sure that my hon. Friend’s constituents in Yorkshire will take full advantage of it.
Gordon Banks (Ochil and South Perthshire) (Lab)
Will the Minister be able to publish information in future to show that his aspiration to help small business is not just an aspiration but a reality?
Mr Maude
One of the stark conclusions of Sir Philip Green’s review was that the quality of Government data is lamentably poor. It is not easy to know exactly what the position is. The right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Mr Byrne) referred to the lack of centrally held data about contracts with the voluntary and charitable sector; that merely begins to illustrate the problem.
Mr Nigel Dodds (Belfast North) (DUP)
The Minister talks about small and medium-sized enterprises gaining more from Government contracts, but can he indicate what he is doing to ensure that there is a good spread of that throughout all regions of the United Kingdom?
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.
Chris Skidmore (Kingswood) (Con)
13. What recent progress has been made on his Department’s review of non-departmental public bodies.
The Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General (Mr Francis Maude)
Last week I announced the first results of the Government’s review of quangos. This is a work in progress; the principal aim is to increase accountability. We believe that where the state carries out a function it should be accountable to a Minister or to a local council unless one of three rigorous tests is met. To pass, the function must be purely technical, tasked with measuring facts or figures, or plainly required to be politically impartial. We reviewed 901 bodies and intend that nearly 200 will cease to be NDPBs, and we will merge a further 118 and substantially reform a further 171.
Charlie Elphicke
Does the Minister agree that the review should include the misuse of public funds by quangos and public sector balance sheet organisations in paying lobbyists to brief against the Government or elected Members in the execution of their mandates?
Mr Maude
Guidelines already limit the use of external consultants for those purposes, and we intend to tighten them further, because the public find it quite offensive that a quango should be spending taxpayers’ money on hiring external consultants to lobby the Government to encourage them to spend more taxpayers’ money.
Chris Skidmore
Will the Minister tell the House how many quangos were created by the previous Government and, of those, how many will remain as a result of the changes that he is introducing?
Albert Owen (Ynys Môn) (Lab)
Last week the Minister announced that many quangos would be done away with and their responsibilities transferred to third sector organisations. Will he assure the House and myself that those organisations, such as citizens advice bureaux, will be properly resourced so that they can provide people with specialised advice? Will he dispel the myth that this is being done on the cheap?
Mr Maude
The aim of the quango review is not particularly to save costs or money—although it will—but principally to increase accountability. When functions are transferred, such as consumer advocacy functions to CABs, there will be a transfer of resources. The hon. Gentleman will have to wait a little longer to hear the extent of those resources.
Mr David Lammy (Tottenham) (Lab)
Why does the Minister intend to disembowel the Equality and Human Rights Commission? Does he not believe that its responsibility to promote equality on behalf of women and ethnic minorities is important? Why is he reducing it to a purely regulatory body?
Mr Maude
Many people felt that that body was not spending taxpayers’ money well. Its function is important and we concluded that it justified the EHRC continuing to exist as an independent body, but given that we are facing a situation in which, as the former Chief Secretary helpfully pointed out, there is no money left, significant savings have to be made. The EHRC will have to play its part in that.
Mary Macleod (Brentford and Isleworth) (Con)
4. What recent progress has been made on establishing the national citizen service.
Stephen Metcalfe (South Basildon and East Thurrock) (Con)
6. What recent progress has been made in delivering his Department’s policies on Government commissioning and procurement.
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?
Mr Maude
We certainly hope that that will be the case. It is our aspiration that 25% of Government contracts should end up in the small and medium-sized sector. We are committed to publishing online, in an easily accessible form, all Government tender documents. That will make it much easier for small businesses, which can otherwise be put off the process, to take part.
Jon Trickett (Hemsworth) (Lab)
In terms of commissioning and procurement, the public sector procures £13 billion-worth of services from the charitable sector. On Monday, a think-tank suggested that the Government’s statement today will wipe out about £5 billion of that procurement—the whole of the increase that was achieved in the past 10 years. What are the Minister’s intentions for funding the voluntary sector? How does he reconcile cuts in that sector with the Prime Minister’s aspiration for the big society?
Mr Maude
We are very aware of concerns in the sector. The Chancellor is very aware of them, and will have something to say about the matter a little later. However, there must be reductions in public spending for the simple reason that the former Chief Secretary set out with such uncharacteristic lucidity in his valedictory note.
Mark Pawsey (Rugby) (Con)
10. What steps his Department is taking to share best practice in procurement among Departments.
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?
Dr Alan Whitehead (Southampton, Test) (Lab)
Will the Minister ensure that best practice in sustainable and green procurement is part of his briefing in ensuring best practice in Departments, and does he consider that the abolition of the Sustainable Development Commission will help or hinder him in that process?