Charlie Elphicke
Main Page: Charlie Elphicke (Independent - Dover)Department Debates - View all Charlie Elphicke's debates with the Cabinet Office
(13 years, 10 months ago)
Commons ChamberOrder. I understand that the House is eagerly anticipating later business, but when there is a constant hubbub it is very discourteous and most unfair both on the person wanting to ask the question and on the Minister deputed to answer it.
3. What recent progress has been made on his Department’s review of non-departmental public bodies.
Last week I announced the first results of the Government’s review of quangos. This is a work in progress; the principal aim is to increase accountability. We believe that where the state carries out a function it should be accountable to a Minister or to a local council unless one of three rigorous tests is met. To pass, the function must be purely technical, tasked with measuring facts or figures, or plainly required to be politically impartial. We reviewed 901 bodies and intend that nearly 200 will cease to be NDPBs, and we will merge a further 118 and substantially reform a further 171.
Does the Minister agree that the review should include the misuse of public funds by quangos and public sector balance sheet organisations in paying lobbyists to brief against the Government or elected Members in the execution of their mandates?
Guidelines already limit the use of external consultants for those purposes, and we intend to tighten them further, because the public find it quite offensive that a quango should be spending taxpayers’ money on hiring external consultants to lobby the Government to encourage them to spend more taxpayers’ money.