Oral Answers to Questions

Jonathan Ashworth Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Maude]

If the hon. Gentleman wishes to make the case for why more and more taxpayers’ money should be spent on subsidising union officials, let him do so, and let him explain to his constituents why that is good value when what they want is taxpayers’ money to be spent on front-line public services, on which the most vulnerable people in our society depend.

[Jonathan Ashworth (Leicester South) (Lab)]

6. What recent progress he has made in increasing the number of central Government contracts secured by the third sector.

[The Minister of State, Cabinet Office (Mr Oliver Letwin)]

Since May 2010 there have been 702 purchase orders for third sector services by the Department of Health alone. There have also been 94 contracts with third sector organisations from five different Departments: four from the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, 21 from the Ministry of Justice, 15 from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, 47 from the Department for Work and Pensions and seven from the Department for Transport. Those contracts have a total value of more than £488 million. Unfortunately, I cannot say how that compares with the previous Government’s record as records were not kept at that time.

[Jonathan Ashworth]

I am grateful to the Minister for that answer. In the last week, I met a voluntary third sector organisation in my constituency called Tolsam, which does a lot of valuable work with the young unemployed and those not in education, employment or training. Given the scale of the youth unemployment problem our country now faces, will Ministers consider introducing a requirement that third sector organisations that work with NEETs and the young employed are favoured when awarding contracts?

[Mr Letwin]

The hon. Gentleman, who I have discovered has a very honourable record of visiting social enterprises in his constituency, makes a good point. We do believe that there is great merit in including in public sector contracting provisions that reflect social value and social outcomes. We are working on that and we intend to proceed with it.