Oral Answers to Questions

David Anderson Excerpts

Wednesday 9th June 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Letwin]

I am happy to tell the hon. Gentleman that I am actually the unofficial bag carrier to the Prime Minister; I do not even qualify as the official one. We have organised ourselves in a way that means that we have cut to the bare minimum the number of groups that we operate. We have a far tighter Cabinet Committee system than that which was operated under the previous Government, because, as I said to the hon. Member for Luton North (Kelvin Hopkins), who asked an earlier question, we are absolutely determined that our Cabinet Committees be genuine decision-making bodies, not merely a dignified part of the constitution.

[Mr David Anderson (Blaydon) (Lab)]

12. If he will ensure that trade unions are involved in the work of his Department’s efficiency and reform group.

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

We are committed to proper engagement with public service staff and their representatives. Last week I had a good meeting with the Council of Civil Service Unions, and yesterday I attended a meeting of the TUC’s public service liaison group. We will invite the TUC and its member organisations, plus other representatives of public service employees, to meet regularly to discuss matters affecting the work force who deliver our vital public services, and to build on the work of the Public Service Forum, which I am committed to continuing and which will meet in July. There will be difficult issues to discuss, no doubt, but we are determined to air them through regular dialogue.

[Mr Anderson]

I thank the Minister for that reply. Will he look at the report that the Public and Commercial Services Union produced last year, showing that 20,000 tax collectors were sacked at a time when at least £40 billion of tax evasion and avoidance was going on in this country? Will he work with the unions to try to resolve that matter?

[Mr Maude]

I hear what the hon. Gentleman says, but he will recollect the former Chief Secretary to the Treasury who said that there was no money left. We have to run the Government with less money than there was, and there will have to be cuts. We hope, to the maximum extent possible, that public spending can be cut without affecting jobs, but it is unreal to expect that that will be totally avoidable.