Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Oliver Letwin and James Morris

Wednesday 7th September 2011 Commons Chamber

[James Morris (Halesowen and Rowley Regis) (Con)]

1. What progress he has made on establishing the big society bank.

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

I am delighted to be able to tell my hon. Friend that we are making excellent progress in establishing the big society bank. I am equally delighted to be able to tell him that it will be called the Big Society Capital group.

Big Society Capital announced appointments to the management and board in July. It is now securing Financial Services Authority and state-aid approval, and we expect it to be open for business in the spring.

[James Morris]

Does the Minister agree that the most important thing about the initiative is that it gets funding to organisations in some of the most deprived communities in my constituency?

[Mr Letwin]

My hon. Friend is a noted, effective and passionate advocate of his constituency. It is of course for Big Society Capital itself to decide exactly where it places its investment funds, but I have absolutely no doubt that it will want to prioritise social intermediaries who focus on those families who are most vulnerable, and on those individuals and families who are most in need of help.

Open Public Services White Paper

Debate between Oliver Letwin and James Morris

Monday 11th July 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Letwin]

Yes, my hon. Friend is absolutely right. What we are about is trying to improve public services for all. By giving people choice and power, we enable the money to be focused, as she rightly says, on the places that are seen to be best by the service users, thereby increasing the proportion of public services that are excellent and gradually dragging up the average. Of course we also want to make sure that we do not have any coasting or substandard services, so she will also find that the White Paper contains a series of measures precisely to target providers that are consistently failing or consistently mediocre.

[James Morris (Halesowen and Rowley Regis) (Con)]

Last Friday, I met representatives of a number of voluntary organisations across the black country. Does the Minister agree that it is precisely those groups that we need to energise to get involved in improving the delivery of public services in my constituency?

[Mr Letwin]

I do agree with my hon. Friend. It is vital that we energise the voluntary and community sector now, and the White Paper will show the sector a huge path forward. The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office, my hon. Friend the Member for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner (Mr Hurd), who has responsibility for civil society and who was here a moment or two ago, will shortly say more to the voluntary sector about the opportunities that the open public services White Paper framework provides for it.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Oliver Letwin and James Morris

Wednesday 2nd March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Letwin]

My hon. Friend raises another extremely important question. It is emphatically not the Government’s intention to subsidise small and medium-sized enterprises through the contracting process, but rather to enable Government to be more efficient by promoting the kind of innovation that SMEs so frequently bring to the work they do. Our feeling is that if we get locked into contracts merely with very large suppliers, we often lose that innovation, and we are determined to avoid that result.

[James Morris]

SMEs are vital to the black country economy. What is the Minister doing to ensure that small and medium-sized companies in places such as the black country can compete for Government contracts on a level playing field?

[Mr Letwin]

Again, that is an enormously important question. One of the purposes behind our move to spread contracting to SMEs is precisely to ensure that we do not get such an unbalanced economy. We want to reach out to firms that have the best propositions—often, small and medium-sized firms—in parts of the country where there are not major contractors who do much business with Government. We believe that that is a good way of helping to build the economies, and enterprise and innovation, in those areas of our country.