Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lord Watson of Wyre Forest and Lord Maude of Horsham

Wednesday 2nd March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Maude]

That is a very good question, to which I do not have an immediate answer. I am prompted by the hon. Gentleman’s interest to look into the matter, and I will get back to him with some answers.

[Mr Tom Watson (West Bromwich East) (Lab)]

Teleconferencing provides a key opportunity for digital policy. The head of that policy in the Minister’s Department was appointed without a fair and open competition, as a former party staffer. That was one of 30 appointments revealed by freedom of information releases this week. Can the Minister tell me who those 30 people are and what they do?

[Mr Maude]

Of course I understand why the hon. Gentleman is so outraged by the idea of people with party affiliations fulfilling a public service vocation, because of course none of that ever happened under his party’s Government—a Government who, with the hon. Gentleman as one of the principal operators, distinguished themselves by their approach to cronyism.

I can tell the hon. Gentleman that anyone who has been appointed to a civil service role has passed all the appropriate tests, which, as he will know from his experience as a Minister in my Department, are extremely rigorous.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lord Watson of Wyre Forest and Lord Maude of Horsham

Wednesday 9th June 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Maude]

The terms of reference for Will Hutton’s review are being drawn up and finalised. As my hon. Friend says, the review will look at the multiple between the best-paid and least-paid employees in the public sector. We are decentralisers and localists, so we will not expect to exercise our writ across the whole of the wider public sector. We think transparency will play an important part in driving down the differentials.

[Mr Tom Watson (West Bromwich East) (Lab)]

7. What plans he has to publish non-personal data held by Government Departments.

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

In our first month in government we have already published a number of key data sets, including the Treasury COINS—combined online information system—database, MRSA and C. difficile weekly infection rates for each hospital, and details of the salaries of 172 civil servants who are paid more than the Prime Minister. The letter from my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister on 29 May set out specific commitments to publishing further data on spending, contracts and the civil service during the rest of the year. We will also give the public a right to data so that people can obtain the Government-held data sets that they want.

[Mr Watson]

The right hon. Gentleman is doing a great job and I hope he gets the support of my Front-Bench team in accelerating the programme of releasing public sector data, but does he accept that the Government cannot be selective about those data? They cannot print 172 civil servants’ salaries without telling me what Andy Coulson is paid.

[Mr Maude]

All this will be divulged in due course. If I may, I should like to pay tribute to the hon. Gentleman. When he was a Minister in the Cabinet Office, he pursued the agenda of data transparency with admirable vigour, and I suspect he was somewhat frustrated by the lack of progress that it was possible for him to make. I look forward to working closely with him as we jointly pursue this agenda in the public interest.