Departmental Business Plans

Mary Macleod Excerpts

Monday 8th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[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.

[Mary Macleod (Brentford and Isleworth) (Con)]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that if we want to increase numeracy and literacy standards in our schools and reduce the gap in educational attainment between the rich and poor, we need to reduce bureaucracy, micro-management and targets and increase real local accountability?

[Mr Letwin]

My hon. Friend is completely right, and that is the plan that is set out here. It applies not just to schools, but to hospitals and many of our other public services. The only way in which we can improve such services is to give the professionals the ability to get on with the job without micro-managing them through bureaucracies, and to hold them to account for the actions that they take and the successes that they achieve.