Departmental Business Plans

Debate between Kevin Brennan and Oliver Letwin

Monday 8th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Letwin]

First, I should welcome the welcome. As I think the right hon. Gentleman knows, I am one of the longest-term proponents of consensus not only between members of the coalition but across the whole House. If the right hon. Gentleman is in effect saying that the Opposition will now back the general principle of having a clear timetable for actions, input measures, outputs—

[Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)]

Targets?

[Mr Letwin]

No, not targets.

[Kevin Brennan]

Milestones?

[Mr Letwin]

Mr Speaker, perhaps you will forgive me if, to avoid further confusion in the hon. Gentleman’s mind, I explain the difference between a target and a milestone. A target is an effort by a Government, of which there were many under the previous Government, to determine what the whole of the public service would achieve through micro-management. Such targets were often not met. What we are talking about are actions that lie under the direct control of Government and which it is absolutely right that we should manage ourselves.

To return to the point I was trying to make, if the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Mr Byrne) is welcoming the idea that we should set these things out clearly and he is going to sponsor that as an approach to government, that would be in the interests of the nation, because we could continue that process over many years and that would be a huge advance.

The right hon. Gentleman asked whether we can achieve a power shift if we do not do certain things, and he mentioned citizens talking about policing with police officers.

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[Mr Letwin]

I totally agree with my hon. Friend. It is all about people and the choices that they make. The fundamental failing of the method of doing business that prevailed for many years was not that it was ill-intentioned, because it was well intentioned, nor that it lacked energy, because it had a good deal of energy, but that it did not look into the reaction one can get from individuals when one does certain things in relation to them. This whole programme is founded on the presumption that when we trust people and give them power and make them accountable, they do the right thing, and that is what we are trying to do here.

[Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his statement, but will he have it translated into plain English and place a copy in the Library of the House? A milestone tells someone how far they have to go to reach a target destination, even if it is on a moveable horizon.

[Mr Letwin]

The hon. Gentleman’s plain English is wonderful to behold. I do not think that anyone has ever accused me of being any good at speaking English [Laughter.] I do not intend to try to cure my ways now. I am trying to assist this Government to carry out the most important programme of structural reform that has happened in this country for many years so that they can improve our public services and make life better for our citizens, which matters an awful lot. The point about horizon shift is that it is serious. The previous Government caught themselves repeatedly on the hook of trying to achieve a result on Wednesday that they could show the public by Thursday. Often, the upshot was to achieve nothing whatsoever. We are saying that we will try to achieve things in the long term without trying to achieve publicity goals on the way, which is an important change.