Civil Service Reform

Debate between Lord Maude of Horsham and Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston

Tuesday 19th June 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Maude]

At the risk of my hon. Friend’s eyebrows going into overdrive, may I say that no final decisions have been made? He makes the argument. We have invited the pay review bodies to look at that proposal but no decision will be made until the evidence has been properly examined and the existence or otherwise of a strong rationale has been established.

[Ms Gisela Stuart (Birmingham, Edgbaston) (Lab)]

I would like to return to the issue of accounting officers being recalled to Select Committees. In his statement, the Minister referred only to the Public Accounts Committee. May I urge him to consider other Committees, such as the Defence Committee, given that procurement decisions can cover 10, 15 or 20 years? Will he consider not only making that clearer, as he said in his statement, but making it a duty?

[Mr Maude]

For the PAC, it is becoming the practice that, in the right circumstances, former accounting officers can be called back. I hear what the hon. Lady says; it is a powerful case. Actually, I would not find it objectionable if former Ministers were called back to Select Committees to talk about decisions they were involved with in a previous life. I see the right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw), the former Lord Chancellor, nodding assent, which is courageous of him.

Party Funding

Debate between Lord Maude of Horsham and Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston

Monday 26th March 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Maude]

I simply confirm what my hon. Friend says, and what I said earlier. This Government have by a quantum leap disclosed more information about Ministers’ activities and their meetings with outside organisations and individuals than the last Government ever contemplated. They operated behind closed doors; we have let the sunlight in.

[Ms Gisela Stuart (Birmingham, Edgbaston) (Lab)]

The Minister said in his statement that “what Peter Cruddas said was completely unacceptable and wrong”, and that much of it “was simply not true”. Is it now official Conservative party policy to lie to its donors?

[Mr Maude]

If that is the best the hon. Lady can do, it is a little bit sad. We have said that what Peter Cruddas said was wrong. It was obviously unacceptable, and much of it simply was not true, and that is why he is no longer treasurer of the Conservative party.

Public Bodies Reform

Debate between Lord Maude of Horsham and Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston

Thursday 14th October 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Maude]

Yes.

[Ms Gisela Stuart (Birmingham, Edgbaston) (Lab)]

Going through the list of quangos in the Department of Health, I can see the logic of pooling some of their regulatory functions. However, the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority provided more than regulatory functions; it also provided the forum for some very tricky ethical debates, without which the previous Parliament would have been unable to pass some of the legislation on such matters, because debates would have polarised along political or religious lines. Can the Minister assure me where that function of that authority now lies? Will he reconsider that change? The Health Secretary will have heard that as well because he has just arrived in the Chamber.

[Mr Maude]

We will end up with a single regulator for medical research. At the moment, such functions are dispersed quite widely. The functions of the HFEA and the Human Tissue Authority will lie within that single regulator.