Public Bodies Bill [Lords]

Charlie Elphicke Excerpts

Tuesday 12th July 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Maude]

The office of chief coroner will be brought into existence. It will not be set up in the elaborate way and with the extensive additional costs embodied in the proposals of the previous Government. The office will exist. The functions, to the extent that they are needed, will be exercised in a way that is affordable in the current circumstances. If the right hon. Gentleman, for whom I have considerable respect, is really suggesting that we should spend this amount of extra money on this matter, he needs to tell the House what he would cut to enable that to happen.

[Charlie Elphicke (Dover) (Con)]

Surely the concern is not just over the amazingly expensive offices that many quangos like to equip themselves with, but over the amount of pay that they receive. People at the UK Film Council get more than £150,000 a year, the British Waterways chief executive gets £230,000, and a similar amount goes to the chief executive of the Dover Harbour Board, dare I mention it? Surely we should ensure that the cost of each individual is reduced to a sensible amount.

[Mr Maude]

One of the benefits brought about by this Government is to make all that more transparent. We have exposed for scrutiny by the public and the House what those high salaries are, and it is right that we should do so. They may be completely justified in many cases, but they ought to be justified and scrutinised, so I make no apology for introducing that degree of transparency.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Maude]

My hon. Friend’s point simply amplifies the case for the presumption that we are instituting in the Bill that there needs to be a really compelling case for a state function being carried out in a way that is not accountable. That is the purpose of the Bill.

[Charlie Elphicke]

Will my right hon. Friend give way on that point?

[Mr Maude]

My hon. Friend will forgive me, but I really do need to make progress. A great many Members wish to contribute to the debate.

Our first test of a body was the existential test—does its function need to be carried out at all? If, as in most cases, the body’s functions were deemed necessary, we then sought to establish whether the functions should be carried out independently. We had three tests. If a body carries out a highly technical activity, if it is required to be politically impartial or if it needs to be able to act independently to establish or measure facts, it is right for it to remain outside direct ministerial or other democratic accountability. That is clearly the case with bodies such as the new Office for Budget Responsibility, Ofgem and many others.

Any body that does not meet any of those tests will either be brought back into a Department, where it can be held accountable to the House through a Minister, or devolved to local authorities. In both cases there will be democratic accountability. Or in some cases, a body’s functions could be carried out outside the state altogether in the private or voluntary sector. We went through an extensive process to determine the outcome of the review.

The first task was simply to establish how many quangos there were and what they did. It may sound absurd, but it was and remains incredibly difficult to get firm information on that. Many do not publish accounts, there is no central list and there are many different types of quango with different statuses. The official list of non-departmental public bodies contains 679 bodies, excluding those in Northern Ireland, but that does not include non-ministerial departments, Government-owned public corporations or trading funds. Our review covered 901 bodies, and we believe, but cannot be certain, that that is the true extent of the landscape. I stress that departmental executive agencies were not within the review’s scope. They are directly controlled by Ministers, who are accountable to Parliament for what they do.

At the end of that review, I announced our proposals to the House on 14 October last year. They were that 481 of the bodies should be substantially reformed, including 192 abolished entirely and a further 118 merged. Since that announcement we have concluded consideration of a number of other bodies, and I can tell the House that the current total is that 495 bodies will be reformed, including 200 abolished and 120 others merged into 59 successor bodies. We have moved quickly to implement that programme, and I am pleased to tell the House that 45 bodies had been abolished by the end of April this year. Overall, we expect to make administrative savings—I stress that they are administrative—of £2.6 billion from public bodies over the spending review period. That money will be better spent on protecting public sector jobs and on front-line services.