Public Bodies Bill [Lords]

Jon Trickett Excerpts

Tuesday 25th October 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hurd]

In large part these measures are designed to make existing flexible arrangements clearer, precisely to make more effective the sort of cross-border work needed in exactly the type of situations to which the hon. Gentleman refers.

As I was saying, the amendments are similar to the current provisions relating to the delegation of Welsh environmental functions in clause 16. The amendments delete those provisions and incorporate them in a slightly revised clause so that the delegation of functions is covered in concurrent clauses.

Amendments 5 and 8 to 11 will extend the definition in clause 1(3) of “eligible persons” to whom the functions of a body or office holder can be transferred under the general order-making powers of the Bill and to whom property can be transferred under clause 24 to include co-operatives, community benefit societies and charitable incorporated organisations. This issue was raised in Committee, not least by my hon. Friend the Member for Dover (Charlie Elphicke), at which point I made a commitment to consider how alternative models such as co-operatives and community benefit societies could be supported to deliver public services, where appropriate. It has always been the intent behind this section of the Bill to ensure that the reform of public bodies is effective by enabling the transfer of functions to a range of persons, so I am therefore pleased to be able to introduce these amendments.

In addition to the provision on co-operatives and community benefit societies, there is now an amendment to include charitable incorporated organisations. Although such charities are yet to come into being since being introduced by the Charities Act 2006, work is well under way and we have taken the opportunity to allow future orders made under the Bill to transfer functions to them. I would like to assure the House that, no matter to whom functions are transferred, it is the Minister’s responsibility to ensure that proper accountability mechanisms are in place, especially where the body is in receipt of public funds.

[Jon Trickett (Hemsworth) (Lab)]

We very much welcome these new clauses, which were amendments that we proposed at the time and the Minister very fairly said that he would take them away and look at them. I wish to raise one issue about charities. Is he able to explain why he is envisaging a particular form of charitable association which is not yet in existence? He has made some brief comments, but they left us puzzled in Committee.

[Mr Hurd]

Charities do fall within the scope of the Bill as far as we are concerned. The hon. Gentleman will be aware that the 2006 Act allowed for the introduction of a new type of organisation—a charitable incorporated organisation. We just felt it sensible at this stage, for the avoidance of any doubt, to include such organisations in the Bill.

I know that the House wants to move on, but let me first address amendments 6, 7, 13 to 15 and 21 to 24. These minor and technical drafting amendments clarify and improve certain aspects of the Bill, and I shall briefly explain the changes they make. The amendments to clauses 11 and 20 are simply drafting changes that move measures that are relevant to the procedure for making orders, which are currently in clause 32, to clauses 11 and 20 as that is where the other measures on procedure are found.

Amendments to clauses 14 and 15 clarify that where Welsh Ministers have powers to modify the constitutional arrangements of bodies, in so far as changes may be made to the extent to which a body is accountable to Ministers, this refers to accountability to Welsh Ministers. The changes to clauses 21 and 23 remove any potential confusion regarding the restrictions in those measures. If a Minister cannot create a power to make subordinate legislation, it follows that he cannot “authorise the creation of” a criminal offence or any of the other powers under clause 21(1). Therefore the removal of the words

“or authorise the creation of”

does not change the effect of the restrictions on ministerial powers.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jon Trickett]

It is good to see you back in the Chair, Mr Speaker. I add my own thanks to the Clerks and Committee Chairs for the orderly way in which the business was conducted to those of the Minister for the Cabinet Office. I thought that the Back-Bench contributions sparkled. Let me briefly mention my hon. Friends the Members for Leicester South (Jonathan Ashworth), for North Durham (Mr Jones) who worked hard as the shadow Minister, for Clwyd South (Susan Elan Jones), for Wigan (Lisa Nandy), for Walsall South (Valerie Vaz) and for Telford (David Wright). Proceedings also sparkled in cross-party unity. It was interesting sometimes to find allies in each of the other parties represented in Committee. I mention the hon. Members for Ceredigion (Mr Williams) and for Arfon (Hywel Williams). It was also good to work closely with the hon. Member for Dover (Charlie Elphicke), who is no longer in his place.

It is true that the Bill was somewhat improved following our debates, at least in two matters where the Government accepted defeat—and with some grace, I have to say—on the question of the port of Dover. It was good to see the Minister move the amendment on co-operatives as eligible bodies and particular forms of charitable organisations. All that is very welcome. We worked in good order with good humour. I said many times—and I repeat it now as it is a good thing to say—that the two Ministers were both extremely reasonable, although they were occasionally reasonable men doing unreasonable things.

No Labour Member would object in principle to the idea that we should keep the quango state, as it is called in the United Kingdom, under constant review. In March 2010, the Labour Government set out almost £500 million-worth of savings that could be achieved by reducing the number of arm’s length bodies. We expected to reduce their number by 123 by 2012-13. Labour had inherited just over 1,100 quangos when we came to power in 1997; in fact, we axed about 400 of them during our term in office.

I want to put it on the record before making some more general points that we will support properly costed savings in administration, bureaucracy and other forms of overheads. Clearly, if bodies have come to the end of their useful lives, they should be put humanely wherever quangos go when they are no longer needed. We gave the Bill a fair hearing on Second Reading, and did not divide the House. In Committee, too, we tried to be more than reasonable and fair. To an extent, there is a shared agenda and there is certainly a consensus that the quango state should at least be kept under review. However, following Committee and today’s debates on Report, I am sorry to say that I find it impossible to recommend that the Bill be given a Third Reading.

All the bodies that we are discussing were established through primary legislation, a process with which we are very familiar, involving reasoned and detailed debate here, in the other place and in Committee. Surely the most appropriate way in which to consider the abolition of most of these bodies is through the same reasoned and detailed debate. It may be possible to deal with some it of through secondary legislation—I do not want to make a universal law—but it seems to me that Ministers are being given far too many powers that will be exercised by means of orders placed before the House. Already, even before the House has finally decided to enact the Bill, the Government have, by administrative means, begun to disassemble the various quangos with which we are now so familiar. They have gutted the regional development agencies, which were there to create jobs, enterprise and growth, and which are needed above all in times of difficulty such as those that we are now experiencing. They have cut staff, changed their functions and reduced their funding without a by-your-leave from the House, although the House spent many weeks, indeed months, setting up the RDAs in the first place. The same applies to the Equality and Human Rights Commission. What I consider a disgraceful 66% reduction in staff has made it difficult for the commission to perform duties that were conferred on it by the House. It is not right for Ministers to take administrative measures to curtail the lives of bodies that were established by Parliament to carry out particular public functions before the Bill has been enacted.

Ministers will claim, as they have done repeatedly, that there will be detailed debate on each body at a later stage through the secondary legislation process. However, it is simply not right for such important issues to be debated only by means of statutory instruments. That is not, in general, the way in which to reverse primary legislation.

In the other place, the Bill was debated for what must have seemed an eternity, particularly to civil servants and Ministers. Literally hundreds of amendments were tabled, and, as we have heard, there was criticism of the infamous schedule 7. The Bill was condemned as a mass enabling act which circumvented the proper and due process of Parliament, and it emerged substantially changed. I am sorry to inform any of their lordships who read the record of tonight’s debate that they must again pay special attention to the Bill if it is passed tonight, because so much of it has been dealt with inappropriately. I urge them to look carefully at some of the amendments that have been driven through.

We should remember that when Conservative Members first envisaged the Bill, they said that it was designed to save money. It was extraordinary that the Prime Minister should say that it would save £30 billion, given that two days earlier the Secretary of State, in another newspaper article, had said that it would save £20 billion. Now we hear that, in fact, we will save £2.6 billion. However, we gather from parliamentary questions that I have tabled that the savings will amount to about £1.5 billion. The financial underpinnings of the Bill are a shambles, and that typifies the way in which it has been handled more generally. Therefore, my patience and good-will in respect of the Government’s course of action on quangos have tonight been stretched to breaking point.

The House was given less than five hours to consider the Bill on Report, even though there was a glut of Government amendments and a list of incredibly important organisations that ought to have been discussed, but which were not. There was an odd moment in the Lobby, when the Government Whips seemed to be dragging their feet, presumably in order to avoid a debate on the Welsh television channel. Therefore, as I predicted earlier, this evening we have not had an opportunity to deal with all the matters before the House. We did not get an opportunity to look at the regional development agencies, the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority, the Equality and Human Rights Commission or the Human Tissue Authority. Above all, we did not get even a moment to discuss S4C, a vital service to the people of Wales. These are just some of the bodies covered by the Bill which, disgracefully, the House did not have a proper opportunity to debate.

[Jonathan Edwards]

My colleagues were delighted to see the Labour amendment on S4C. Will the hon. Gentleman confirm that if Labour are returned to power—or when broadcasting is devolved and Labour take control of the Welsh Government—it will honour its commitments?

[Jon Trickett]

What I will say about S4C is that we tabled our amendment and we made our position clear both in that and in the speeches made in Committee, which the hon. Gentleman can read, and thereby see the precise commitments we made.

Throughout the consideration of the Bill, there has been no appropriate means for consultation or for the making of representations by the many bodies whose futures are being damaged or by their clients who will be affected by these measures. Evidence sessions were not permitted, and bodies who had a case were ignored, as were people who benefit from the services they offer—the disabled who depend on the Equality and Human Rights Commission, for instance, or those who depend on the Royal British Legion.

The Ministers have been fair-minded, but the truth is that this whole process has been ramshackle. Giving Ministers the power to strike down organisations without there being proper parliamentary scrutiny is the worst kind of government; that simply does not meet the high standards this House should expect. The Bill should be condemned based on the decision on the chief coroner alone. For these reasons, the Opposition firmly oppose the Bill and will seek to press the House to a Division.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—