Trade Union Reform (Civil Service)

Debate between Lord Maude of Horsham and Mark Pawsey

Tuesday 10th March 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Maude]

It is very hard to tell.

Let me deal head on with the hon. Lady’s points. She says that this is an attack on public servants, but it is absolutely the contrary. She talks as if this is an attack on union facility time. It is not. I said in my statement—she might have listened to it; she had it in advance—that I supported the use of facility time. Facility time for trade union duties is protected by law. Trade union duties—the resolution of disputes and grievances—are important, and the presence of trade union officials and representatives within the workplace can be helpful in achieving that. What we are concerned with is the abuse and the use of paid time off in facility time for large numbers of civil servants to attend their union conferences with their expenses paid by the public. That is not acceptable. That is what we have called time on.

I know that the hon. Lady and her colleagues do not like it, and we know what the reason is. The reason is perfectly simple: it is that the Labour party is paid for and puppet-mastered by the trade unions. She should come clean and say that the Labour party election campaign that she is trying to hold together and conduct is paid for by exactly the trade union leaders who have no doubt written the script that she has read out to the House today.

[Mark Pawsey (Rugby) (Con)]

The practices that the Minister described as seeing on his arrival at the Cabinet Office in 2010 will have come as a complete shock to my constituents. May I tell him that my constituents will very much support the steps he has taken to ensure fair use of union time by officials?

[Mr Maude]

My hon. Friend is completely right. To be honest, it was a complete shock to us to see how much this system had been abused, and how little effort was made by our predecessors to count and control the costs of what was happening. Opposition Members say that this is an attack on public servants, but the truth is that public servants would much rather have this money spent on public services, which is their vocation, than on supporting trade union officials at the taxpayers’ expense.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lord Maude of Horsham and Mark Pawsey

Wednesday 29th January 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Maude]

We will certainly not shelve any options that could bring improved services and cut the cost to the taxpayer. I am aware of the uncertainty. That will be resolved as soon as possible so that people know where the future lies. To give a bit of reassurance, I remind the hon. Lady that the first shared service centre in Swansea, which has been fully outsourced rather than being a joint venture, is taking on more staff.

[Mark Pawsey (Rugby) (Con)]

8. What plans he has for the National Citizen Service in 2014.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lord Maude of Horsham and Mark Pawsey

Wednesday 14th December 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mark Pawsey]

It is the small businesses that often have the greatest difficulty in accessing Government contracts, and that is because of a regulation from the European Union. Will the Minister tell us what steps he is taking to reform EU regulations to make it easier to secure contracts with Government both at a national and local level?

[Mr Maude]

The first thing that we are doing is trying to ensure that the way in which we implement the European directives is sensible and not overly bureaucratic and legalistic, which it usually is at the moment. The European Commission is introducing proposals to streamline and simplify the procurement directives, which we welcome. I was talking to Commissioner Barnier in Brussels two or three weeks ago, and he was very open to that happening.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lord Maude of Horsham and Mark Pawsey

Wednesday 27th April 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Maude]

I certainly do not want to shame the ones that are doing well. We have found a number of examples of procurement processes that are not meeting the new requirements. For example, Durham police recently issued an invitation to tender for a £50,000 leadership training contract. The pre-qualification questionnaire alone was 38 pages long and contained a request for 163 separate items of information plus a security vetting form. That is unacceptable, because it causes many smaller businesses to lose the will to live, and they simply do not apply.

[Mark Pawsey]

I am the former owner of a small business supplying products to the public sector. When applying to be added to a new tender list, I was often frustrated by the amount of red tape required. Will the Minister confirm that in future fewer company policies and statements will need to be provided to participate in the tendering process?

[Mr Maude]

We want to strip away all that nonsense. Under the last Government, there were 6,000 pages of guidance for some kinds of procurements. It is not surprising that smaller businesses just did not bother to apply; they knew that they were going to be excluded. There were turnover requirements and requirements for a track record of doing exactly that kind of work. The truth is that that is very bad for small businesses and we want to make things much better.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lord Maude of Horsham and Mark Pawsey

Wednesday 20th October 2010 Commons Chamber

[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.]

--- Later in debate ---

[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?

[Mr Maude]

We will be mandating that all of central Government should buy through centrally negotiated contracts. That will save £500 million in the current year alone, and will drive savings running into billions of pounds in the years that lie ahead.