Leaving the European Union
Lord Maude of Horsham Excerpts(5 years, 7 months ago)
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Lord Maude of Horsham (Con)
My Lords, does my noble friend agree that those who seek to exclude a no-deal result without also excluding a second referendum are simply illustrating that what they want is not to exclude a no-deal Brexit but not to have Brexit at all? Although I regret that the Prime Minister’s deal was rejected by the other place, particularly by such a catastrophic margin, can she throw any light on how some serious common ground will be found across that huge divide while the Prime Minister remains completely wedded to the red lines which have shackled and constrained this negotiation from the outset? Can my noble friend help the House with how this Prime Minister can possibly make this work?
Baroness Evans of Bowes Park
What I can say to my noble friend is that the Government and all Members involved in these meetings are approaching them in a constructive spirit without preconditions, and everyone who has been met has taken the same approach. As the Statement made clear, following discussions with senior parliamentarians, the Prime Minister will be considering how we might meet our obligations to the people of Northern Ireland in a way that can command the greatest possible support. She will then take those conclusions back to the EU.
Exiting the EU
Lord Maude of Horsham Excerpts(6 years, 1 month ago)
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Lord Taylor of Holbeach (Con)
My Lords, we will hear from my noble friend Lord Maude.
Lord Maude of Horsham
My Lords, will my noble friend be minded respectfully to suggest that this plan will mean that for trade in goods, for some years at any rate, this will mean that Britain will remain effectively in the single market—of course, the single market in services, especially financial services, is very far from complete—but that these arrangements will not be set in perpetuity? This is a moveable feast. It was not the case that Britain was in the EU in perpetuity. Those who comment on this should be careful not to assume that everything has to be done all at once. The one thing that is absolutely clear that would be catastrophic for this country, given the decision made last June, would be for us to falter and not deliver on the Brexit that people voted for.
Palace of Westminster: Restoration and Renewal
Lord Maude of Horsham Excerpts(6 years, 6 months ago)
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Lord Maude of Horsham (Con)
My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Butler, and I agree with so much of what he said.
I find, slightly to my surprise, that I am younger than the average age in your Lordships’ House, yet I suspect that I have been coming in and out of this building for longer than most of your Lordships. I came in for the first time for my christening in the crypt chapel longer ago than I care to think about. My father and I, since he first became a Member of the other place in 1950, have between us with a couple of gaps been Members of one or other of these Houses ever since. I still get a shiver down my spine when I come into this place: there is something about it that speaks of history and values that are incredibly important to us.
My father used to reflect that he made his maiden speech in the other place in here and his maiden speech in your Lordships’ House in here as well. This was not uncommon for politicians of his vintage, because the House of Commons was sitting in here for several years after the war. That leads some, such as my noble friend Lord Naseby, to favour some kind of phasing arrangement because it has been done before.
I was initially attracted to the idea of phasing, but that attraction was not sustained for very long. One persuasive argument was a conversation with Chris Bryant—a number of your Lordships have referred to his role, and rightly so: he has been very effective on the issue. It seems to me clear beyond peradventure of a doubt that the right thing for Parliament to do at this stage is to adopt the Motion so ably moved by my noble friend the Leader of the House and get on with it. Under what is proposed, the earliest time that anything will happen that we will notice in this place is 2025. I do not think we can be accused of precipitous haste. When I was in government, I became an advocate of what came to be known as the JFDI school of government: just do it. I suggest to your Lordships that this is a JFDI moment.
A couple of specific points about what is proposed. There will, rightly, be a lot of talk about how important it is that the renewal programme retains the character of this building. Of course, for the public parts of the building—the Principal Floor and the Committee Floor—that is essential. But there are a number of aspects of the character of this building that we should not want to retain. The upper and nether regions of this building are an impenetrable warren of inaccessible and hopelessly inefficient space. To the extent that it is working space at all, it is hopelessly inefficient.
Quite apart from the odd excrescences that have appeared—Portakabins being built on flat roofs wherever they are available—we should take the opportunity to sweep away some of the rabbit warren of odd staircases and tiny rooms that have a certain amount of charm but no efficiency whatsoever, and create some proper, much more open, modern and flexible working spaces. Ideally, that would enable more Members of both Houses to be located for their office work within the building, rather than being far-flung. That seems a benefit.
There is talk in the excellent report by the Joint Committee about the need to accommodate technology. A word of warning on this. In my experience, major public projects take so long from initiation, design and planning through to execution that we have a lamentable tendency to build in obsolescence. We very belatedly build something that might have been cutting edge 20 years before, when it was thought of, but is way out of date. We know that technology moves at lightning speed. Even now, the kind of technology that we would want to put into a new building depends much less on physical infrastructure and cabling than on wireless connectivity. Some noble Lords have talked about future-proofing. I urge those charged with these grave responsibilities to ensure that we do not do anything that will build in obsolescence.
There have, understandably, been a number of comments and recommendations about improving the experience for visitors to the Houses of Parliament. That is important and we know that it is not brilliant at the moment. However, I urge those charged with oversight of this to bear in mind that this is, and will remain, primarily a place of work, not a place for visitors. When television was introduced into both Chambers, Parliament immediately became much more accessible to the public than it ever had been before. While physical accessibility is important, this will be a place of work, first and foremost, and we have to focus on that.
I very much support the proposals in the committee’s report and in my noble friend’s Motion for the way in which governance is to be set up. For far too long in this country we believed that big public projects could be managed as part of the business-as-usual of government, and they cannot. It is absolutely right to say that a specific, dedicated delivery authority should be set up in the right way, with a sponsor board to oversee it. My noble friend Lord Deighton may not thank me for saying this, but when it comes to selecting a chairman for the board I can think of no one whose name recommends itself better than his for that incredibly important role. As the man who oversaw the delivery of the 2012 London Olympics brilliantly successfully, this may be coming his way.
I totally support the Motion moved by my noble friend and I urge us all to get on with it. This is a genuine JFDI moment.
European Council
Lord Maude of Horsham Excerpts(6 years, 8 months ago)
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Baroness Evans of Bowes Park
My Lords, I am afraid I can say only what I have said already today and several times last week. Everyone has pledged that there will be no hard border between Northern Ireland and Ireland. We have always said that details of how to maintain an open border will be settled in phase 2 of the negotiations. If we do not achieve that outcome, which we believe we will, we will look to negotiate specific solutions for the Northern Ireland border.
Lord Maude of Horsham (Con)
My Lords, does my noble friend agree that it is unhelpful for negotiators on the EU side to say, as I understand Michel Barnier is reported to have said, that no bespoke agreement can be reached with the UK? Every single trade agreement that the EU has reached with third countries has been a bespoke agreement, and it is manifestly absurd to argue that ours cannot be one. This will be about trade but also about co-operation on security and intelligence. Does my noble friend agree that effective collaboration, particularly on intelligence, depends at least as much on trust in relationships as it does on the legal framework, and that evidence of serious good will in wanting this to be genuinely a deep and special relationship will be of huge importance in ensuring that security and intelligence collaboration can be as effective in future as it certainly is now?
Baroness Evans of Bowes Park
My noble friend speaks with great experience, and I could not say it better than he did.
Outcome of the European Union Referendum
Lord Maude of Horsham Excerpts(8 years, 1 month ago)
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Lord Maude of Horsham (Con)
My Lords, I took no part in the referendum campaign. I felt no temptation to campaign on either side and so feel none to revisit the campaign today in the way that some have already done and others will, no doubt, do. Suffice it to say that I found the claims made on both sides of the argument to be exaggerated and overblown. The more I listened to the discussions and debates and the more I read, the more convinced I became that the arguments were far more finely balanced than either side would accept.
I have some history in this. In the late 1980s and early 1990s I had a season ticket to Brussels. I had a seat, successively, on the Internal Market Council, the Foreign Affairs Council, ECOFIN and the Budget Council. At the invitation of my noble friend Lord Lamont, who was then Chancellor, my signature adorns the Maastricht treaty. He found himself unavoidably detained on that day and said, “Francis, this is your chance to put your footprints on the sands of history”. I have frequently been invited to recant that youthful act but have never been tempted to do so, because I think the Maastricht treaty could have been an inflection point in the development of the European Union. It could have been an end to the theology of one size fits all; it is binary, you are either completely in or completely out. At that point we became a partial participant in the European Union. Sadly, after 1997, the differentiation disappeared and the one-size-fits-all ideology regained its momentum.
I shall set out a few reflections on what should happen now. We do not need to rush this. We need to allow time for emotions to settle and for things to become a little clearer. The less seen of Mr Farage in the European Parliament the better. That kind of behaviour is not likely to create good conditions for us to conduct the necessary and difficult discussions that lie ahead. It cannot make sense to trigger Article 50 early when precisely the people within the European Union who are urging it are exactly the people who are urging retribution and who think that Britain must be punished for this intolerable act of insubordination. We need to pick our time and in the meantime engage in sensible, grown-up conversations with other nation states. It does not all have to be done at once. The priority is to maximise our participation in the single market. That is not as simple as it seems because the single market is nowhere near as complete as it is sometimes made out to be. I completely understand the argument, made passionately by the noble Lord, Lord Birt, for certainty. But a bad certainty now does not trump a better certainty later, so taking time makes sense.
Reform of freedom of movement has its own momentum. I suspect that some changes will come on that, irrespective of what Britain asks for. It will be increasing clear that our economic interests and those of the rest of the EU remain closely intertwined. This is not a zero-sum game. Economic activity lost to the UK will by no means automatically migrate elsewhere in the EU. We are and will remain the second biggest economy. If we start sneezing as a result of actions deliberately designed to harm us, economies on the continent with immune systems that are, frankly, rather weaker than ours will soon catch a cold.
There is a danger here of those who have made predictions taking decisions that make those predictions come true. On trade agreements, it was said by the United States that Britain would be at the back of the queue and that no one would want to make a trade agreement with Britain. I tested this in my last week as Trade Minister in Washington, at a dinner attended by many trade experts including several former trade representatives from both sides of the aisle. I asked whether this was correct and with one voice they said, “Nonsense. We would do a trade agreement with Britain in a heartbeat”—and, to be frank, it would be a lot easier than completing the TTIP negotiations with which I was engaged. They are moving extremely slowly at the moment.
Likewise, on EU nationals, to echo points that I have made at other times in the Chamber, the Government should immediately make clear that position of the 3 million or so EU nationals already settled here will be protected. It cannot make any sense to hold out on that. It will be much better to establish the uncontested truth that these 3 million nationals want to remain here. This makes the point of how interlinked our economies are and will remain.
There is a movement towards reform within the European Union. Maybe this is wishful thinking—we have often tried to persuade ourselves that there is a movement for reform. We used to say that Maastricht was the high-water mark of federalism. But clearly there is growing frustration with the outdated certainties of Juncker. There is widespread anxiety about the undiluted doctrine of free movement. We used to talk about the free movement of labour, but that was in a different world without the huge disparities in wealth between member states that enlargement has brought.
Is it wishful thinking to believe that there may be constraints emerging on the freedom of movement that will be sharpened and made more immediate and pressing by Brexit, but also by the French and German elections that are coming up and the need for the mainstream parties not to be outflanked by the parties of the far right? There is a clear need for greater integration within the eurozone if it is to survive. There has to be a question mark over that, given the Commission’s reluctance to use even the powers that it has at the moment to enforce fiscal clarity.
The European Union needs to move away from its binary view of life—that you are either in the club or out of it and that there is only one way to be a European. At the moment we are a 65% participant in the European Union: not in the eurozone and not in Schengen. I hope that the outcome of this vote at some stage will be that we remain a participant—not a member, that decision has made—but I hope that it will not be in a European Union that is in that sense binary, and that what we used to call variable geometry will come to live again, with different countries participating to different degrees for different purposes. That is what could have been and can be again. I put the chances of its happening as no better than 50:50—so we should stabilise as best we can and show commitment to preserving as much of the trading relationship as possible to discourage disinvestment and to encourage investment.
The Government can now make the investment decisions that lie within their power. I am sorry to see the Government deciding to postpone the decision on airport expansion. That can and should be taken quickly. There are also decisions on licences for the exploitation of shale gas—a commodity that will be produced domestically for domestic consumption, with no EU implications whatever—which can and should be made as quickly as possible. So we should take our time before triggering Article 50 and do it in a considered and measured way.
Oral Answers to Questions
Lord Maude of Horsham Excerpts(9 years, 11 months ago)
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Mike Freer (Finchley and Golders Green) (Con)
4. What progress he has made on his programme to achieve savings from greater efficiency in and reform of central Government.
The Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General (Mr Francis Maude)
On 10 June, my right hon. Friend the Chancellor and I announced savings through efficiency reform of central Government of £14.3 billion for the last financial year, measured against a 2009-10 baseline. These savings include both recurring and non-recurring items, and include £5.4 billion from procurement and commercial savings, £3.3 billion in project savings and £4.7 billion from work force reform and pension savings.
Mike Freer
I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for that answer. Is he able to quantify the specific savings to the taxpayer from Government Departments and agencies now being required to share buildings, rather than having their own stand-alone premises?
Mr Maude
We have got out of a huge number of properties. We have reduced our office estate by the equivalent of 26 times the size of Buckingham palace, raising £1.4 billion in capital receipts and saving £625 million in running costs. Our One Public Estate programme, which is working very closely with a number of local authorities, is saving even more money and releasing property for the private sector to create jobs and growth by local government, central Government and indeed the wider public sector co-locating, which both saves money and is more convenient for the public.
Mr Gregory Campbell (East Londonderry) (DUP)
Cost-effectiveness is of course something that all of us should aim for, but does the Minister agree that in trying to achieve that it would be better if best practice was shared right across the United Kingdom, including Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland?
Mr Maude
We try to promulgate good practice as best we can. We are, however, localists. We believe that the wider public sector—those who have responsibility and are accountable for the way in which the wider public sector operates—must be responsible for their own decisions. I have had very productive conversations with Ministers in the devolved Northern Ireland Government. There is much that we can learn from each other, and much that we can gain, as in the One Public Estate programme, from working together.
Jonathan Ashworth (Leicester South) (Lab)
Why has the Cabinet Office increased spending on consultants and agency staff to over £50 million in the last year?
Mr Maude
As the hon. Gentleman will know, the amount of money spent by the Government on consultants and contingent labour has been cut very dramatically from the grossly swollen levels that we inherited from the Government of whom he was a supporter. [Interruption.] It will sometimes go up a little bit, and it will sometimes come down a bit.
Mr Maude
Actually, we sometimes need to get the right skills that do not exist in government, and by and large we will make sure that we have the right skills available on the right terms. [Interruption.] I was grateful to the hon. Member for Barnsley East (Michael Dugher), who is chuntering from a sedentary position, for the support he expressed for our efficiency and reform programme in a very robust speech earlier this week.
Nicola Blackwood (Oxford West and Abingdon) (Con)
5. What progress he has made on providing support for social enterprises.
Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)
7. What recent steps he has taken to remove barriers to small and medium-sized enterprises participating in government procurement.
The Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General (Mr Francis Maude)
In response to the hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman), I think that my tie is at least as pink as yours, Mr Speaker.
The direct spend of central Government with SMEs increased from £3 billion in 2009-10 to £4.5 billion in 2012-13. SMEs benefited from a further £4 billion in indirect spend though the supply chain. We are therefore well on track to deliver our ambition that 25% of Government spend through the supply chain should be with SMEs. However, we are still not satisfied, so we are taking forward a number of the recommendations of Lord Young of Graffham on creating an SME-friendly single market in, among other things, the Small Business, Enterprise and Employment Bill.
Debbie Abrahams
I thank the Minister for his reply. However, with £36 billion owed to small businesses in late payments, will he ensure that the Small Business, Enterprise and Employment Bill requires companies to demonstrate that they will pay all their suppliers promptly in order to be on the Government’s approved supplier list?
Mr Maude
The hon. Lady is a doughty campaigner on this front and I commend her for it. The policy of central Government is to pay undisputed invoices within five days and to pass 30-day payment terms down the supply chain as a condition of contract. The situation is therefore improving. We encourage our prime contractors to pay more quickly than the 30-day commitment on a voluntary basis. We have tasked Departments with managing their contracts in a way that ensures that that happens. We also encourage SMEs that are not being paid by the prime contractor sufficiently quickly to let us know so that we can investigate.
Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)
8. What progress he has made on the commitment in the “Open Public Services” White Paper of July 2011 to publish public service user satisfaction data on all providers from all sectors.
Gareth Johnson (Dartford) (Con)
T1. If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.
The Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General (Mr Francis Maude)
My responsibilities are efficiency and reform, civil service issues, the public sector industrial relations strategy, Government transparency, civil contingencies, civil society and cyber-security.
Gareth Johnson
I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for that statement. Does he agree that, contrary to some suggestions that have been made, the chief executive of the civil service will be best placed to accelerate the pace of reforms in the civil service in this country?
Mr Maude
We do believe that the new post will play a vital role in embedding the programme of efficiency reform that we have driven. I appreciate the support of Labour Front Benchers for that approach, so that there will be consistency whatever the result of any election. He—or the new chief executive officer, whether a he or a she—will work closely with the Cabinet Secretary and myself in supporting the performance management of permanent secretaries, but will also line manage the heads of the cross-Government corporate functions. That will increase the focus on driving efficiency.
Michael Dugher (Barnsley East) (Lab)
Last week, the Minister for Civil Society made his first, stunning intervention as the new Minister responsible for charities by saying:
“The important thing charities should be doing is sticking to their knitting”.
When so many charities and people who work for them do such a magnificent job in every part of the country, was that not the most condescending, patronising, inept, out-of-touch and just plain wrong thing for the Minister to say? Will he finally now apologise?
Rehman Chishti (Gillingham and Rainham) (Con)
T2. As part of our long-term economic plan, the Government have disposed of more than 1,250 properties since 2010. What is the Minister for the Cabinet Office doing to release more Government properties so that we can reduce costs and become more efficient?
Mr Maude
As I said earlier, we have already reduced our office estate by the huge amount of 2 million square metres since 2010, the equivalent of 26 times the size of Buckingham palace. The strategic land and property review being led by my officials in the Government Property Unit will enable sites worth at least £5 billion, and potentially much more, to be released over the next five or six years.
Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)
T3. Small businesses in my constituency have long since given up trying to jump through the hoops that they face in even bidding for Government contracts. They certainly do not recognise the description that the Minister gave of the opportunities for Government procurement. Is not the truth that despite all his talk, it is almost impossible for small businesses to get Government contracts?
Mr Maude
In that case, it is remarkable that the amount of Government business being given to small and medium-sized businesses has risen to nearly 20% and is on course to rise even higher. Under the arrangements left in place by the Government whom the hon. Gentleman supported, a lot of small businesses were simply frozen out because the process was so bureaucratic and clunking that they could not even get into the starting gate, let alone have a chance of winning the race. Now they can, and increasingly they do.
Graham Evans (Weaver Vale) (Con)
T5. Will the Minister join me in congratulating Cheshire Community Development Trust on the work it does to help the people of Weaver Vale to get into work? Does he agree that that is exactly the sort of social action that should be used as a template to unite communities across the country?
Mr Gary Streeter (South West Devon) (Con)
T6. In the previous financial year more than £85 million was spent by the taxpayer on full-time trade union representatives. Is that a fair figure, and what is the Minister doing to reduce it?
Mr Maude
At the time of the last general election there was no monitoring whatsoever of the volume of taxpayer-funded trade union facility time in the civil service. We now have controls in place that saved £23 million last year, and we have already reduced the number of full-time taxpayer-funded union officials from 200 in May 2010 to fewer than 10 this summer.