Oral Answers to Questions

Debbie Abrahams Excerpts

Wednesday 11th February 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Letwin]

In recent years, my right hon. Friend the Minister for the Cabinet Office has had the unique distinction of having made public services more efficient by finding vast efficiency savings, which have amounted to some £20 billion a year in the current Parliament. Had the last Government followed such a lead, we might not have been in the dire situation in which we found ourselves in 2010, and the need for our long-term economic plan might not have been as great as it was.

[Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)]

T1. If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.

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

My responsibilities are for efficiency and reform, civil service issues, public sector industrial relations strategy, Government transparency, civil contingencies, civil society and cyber-security.

[Debbie Abrahams]

Today’s National Audit Office report on late payment says that the Government’s policy to pay invoices more quickly risks boosting the working capital of the main contractors rather than benefiting small businesses down the supply chain. Why then did the Government on three separate occasions refuse to adopt amendments I tabled ensuring that small businesses all the way down the supply chain would have been paid on time?

[Mr Maude]

We have gone infinitely further than any previous Government ever did to ensure that payment is speeded up through the creation of project bank accounts and inserting into main suppliers’ contract terms a requirement that they pay quickly as well, because the concern is a very real one. Small businesses can end up being starved of cash and it is not acceptable, so we are driving much better practice through these legal obligations. The situation is better than it was, but there is much more still to do.