Industrial Action Update

Debate between Lord Maude of Horsham and Philip Hollobone

Thursday 10th July 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Maude]

I repeat the point that I made earlier, which is that all local residents are affected by policing decisions and that all local residents who are voters have the right to vote in those elections. The constituents of my hon. Friend the Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick) whose children have been denied access to the special school they depend on were never consulted about this. They had no say in it; they just have to take what happens as a result of a strike called by union leaders on flimsy, outdated mandates, and I think that that is wrong.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

Parents in Kettering whose children have been affected by today’s industrial action have telephoned me this morning to make the reasonable point that parents are now subject to fines if they take their children out of school during term time but that such legislation does not apply to teachers who deny loads of children their education for a day. Will my right hon. Friend bear in mind that very reasonable point when drawing up future legislation to prevent such industrial action in schools?

[Mr Maude]

I hear what my hon. Friend says; he makes an interesting suggestion. Children being able to attend school on a predictable and regular basis is incredibly important in relation not only to their education but to the interests of their hard-working parents who want to go to work in order to support their families week in, week out. When arbitrary action is called in this way, based on flimsy and outdated mandates, damage is done to children and to their parents.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lord Maude of Horsham and Philip Hollobone

Wednesday 25th June 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Maude]

The hon. Lady is making assumptions about what will happen to those jobs which I have no reason to believe are justified. If the quality of the work and the efficiency at Newport is as good as she believes, I am sure that the management of SSCL will want to look carefully at retaining jobs there.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

Which part of which Department has provided the most fertile ground for efficiency savings?

[Mr Maude]

That is a very good question, but if I were to go through that in elaborate detail, you would cut me short, Mr Speaker. There are opportunities for efficiency savings right across Government and the public sector. We have made significant progress, but, as my hon. Friend would expect, there is considerably more that can and should be done.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lord Maude of Horsham and Philip Hollobone

Wednesday 30th April 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Maude]

I shall certainly look at the last point that the hon. Gentleman made. Nobody takes any pleasure in job losses. We have had to lose jobs in the public sector. The civil service is 17% smaller than in 2010 because, sadly, we inherited the biggest budget deficit in the developed world. We have to make economies and do things better. I hope that the new venture, SSCL, will emerge as a vibrant business in the private sector that can win more business and thereby create more jobs. However, it does need to restructure to begin with.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

What proportion of civil service jobs was outsourced at the start of this Parliament in 2010 and what proportion will be outsourced at the end of it in 2015?

[Mr Maude]

That is a very good question. It is difficult to be precise because when business is outsourced to the private sector, it is hard to know which of the jobs in a business that provides services to Government and to other organisations relate to Government business. It is therefore hard to know what the baseline is. A larger number of activities will be carried out outside the public sector, many of them through the spin-outs of public service mutuals, which are a way of delivering much greater job satisfaction—

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lord Maude of Horsham and Philip Hollobone

Wednesday 4th September 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Maude]

I do not think the hon. Gentleman is right on that. Actually, vacant space in the central Government estate is running at about 2.5%, compared with the national average of over 10% across the public and private sectors, so in fact Government Departments and agencies are not finding it impossible to surrender leases—they are doing so very effectively—or to sell properties where that makes sense, although our preference is to occupy the freeholds and get out of the leaseholds.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

rose—

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Hollobone]

What does the Minister expect the footprint of the Government estate to be by the end of the present Parliament compared with May 2010?

[Mr Maude]

Certainly, so far as the central Government estate in London is concerned, it will be down by well over a quarter, but that is only the beginning, because obviously property disposals and vacancies take time, for some of the reasons that the hon. Member for Denton and Reddish (Andrew Gwynne) just referred to; that cannot be done literally overnight. We have made considerable progress already, however, as it is down by nearly a quarter and there will be much more to come.

Civil Service Reform

Debate between Lord Maude of Horsham and Philip Hollobone

Tuesday 19th June 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Maude]

The answer is that we are absolutely not moving to the presidential-type system. I recommend that the hon. Gentleman talk to his right hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn, who has experience of this. The simple truth is that if a Minister is to be accountable for what their Department does, it is not that unreasonable to suppose that they should have a better degree of choice in selecting the principal instrument for the performance of their Department.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

If local residents in the borough of Kettering phone Kettering borough council, of which I have the honour and privilege of being a member, they speak to a human being who answers the phone within 10 seconds. We ran the British empire with fewer civil servants than we have now, and if Kettering borough council can do that, should not organisations such as the Inland Revenue helpline be told that they have to do the same?

[Mr Maude]

My hon. Friend makes a powerful case, not just for the merits of Kettering borough council, but for what central Government and the civil service can learn from the best in local government. We make that point in the plan. There is, for example, good experience in local government of local authorities sharing services to a much greater degree than in the past—including, in many cases, sharing chief executives. We have suggested that this is also something that central Government could learn from.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lord Maude of Horsham and Philip Hollobone

Wednesday 14th December 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

10. What progress he has made in reaching agreement with trade unions on the Government’s proposed reforms to public sector pensions.

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

We have engaged in intensive and frequent discussions with the trade unions. At their request, talks are continuing at scheme level in the four public sector pension schemes that are currently being discussed, and we continue to make progress, I believe, in all four. We are determined that public sector pensions will remain among the very best available, but in order to make them sustainable and affordable for the long term, reform is urgently needed.

[Mr Hollobone]

Under the Government’s offer, a teacher earning £32,000 a year could anticipate a pension of £20,000 a year, whereas a private sector worker earning the same salary would have to devote some 38% of his or her wages in order to get a pension of the same size. Given the terms of the Government’s offer, should the trade unions not now call off any threat of further industrial action?

[Mr Maude]

I simply pray in aid what Lord Hutton, the former Labour Pensions Secretary, said yesterday, when he referred to public sector trade unions “holding a gun” to the taxpayer’s head. He said that the offer was generous and that it was hard

“to envisage a better offer being made.”

I hope that we can now move quickly to resolve the final, outstanding issues, so that we can move on without further disruption to people’s lives.

Industrial Action

Debate between Lord Maude of Horsham and Philip Hollobone

Wednesday 30th November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Maude]

Far from having the views about public sector workers that the hon. Member for Derby North (Chris Williamson) wrongly attributes to me, all of us in this House have dedicated ourselves to public service. We know that this is an honourable calling and we know how dedicated are the 6 million public sector workers. I commend the 75% to 80% of public sector workers who have ignored the irresponsible call for strike action and gone to work today as usual.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

Will my right hon. Friend take this opportunity to praise those ordinary, hard-working trade unionists in Kettering who have crossed picket lines today to go work to serve members of the public and refused to believe the misleading advice they get from their overpaid, hot-headed trade union bosses, who are itching for a fight with the Government?

[Mr Maude]

I am afraid that there are some trade union leaders who seem to be absolutely hellbent on confrontation and industrial action. We absolutely did not want that and I join my hon. Friend in commending those of his constituents who are trade union members but who have ignored the call to strike, crossed the picket lines and gone to work to serve the public, as is their vocation.