Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Oliver Letwin and Michael McCann

Wednesday 5th September 2012 Commons Chamber

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

The ministerial code and civil service code set out the standards of conduct expected of Ministers and civil servants. They are published for the House and were last published in May 2010.

[Mr McCann]

I am grateful to the Minister for that response, but does he concede that a review of both codes is necessary to ensure that Ministers cannot hide behind civil servants when failures occur and, most importantly, that senior civil servants do not avoid scrutiny by using political independence as a camouflage for frustrating Government policy?

[Mr Letwin]

The hon. Gentleman asks an important question. Clause 1 of the ministerial code makes it abundantly clear that no Minister can hide behind anything as

“Ministers have a duty to Parliament to account, and to be held to account, for the policies, decisions and actions of their departments and agencies”.

My right hon. Friend the Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General has recently issued the first steps in the civil service reform programme, which seek to enlarge the area of accountability for senior civil servants to include direct accountability both for the quality of their policy advice and for its implementation.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Oliver Letwin and Michael McCann

Wednesday 24th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Letwin]

Yes, indeed, I can; in fact everything I have been describing tends to that end. We are going to make sure SMEs know what contracts are available; we are going to make sure they get a proper account of what is awarded; and we are going to make sure that Departments are held to account in awarding to SMEs. We want transparency all the way through the process because that is what will drive Government to let contracts to SMEs.

[Mr Michael McCann (East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow) (Lab)]

Now that Lord Young has gone, does the Minister agree that SMEs have never had it so good in respect of their share of Government procurements given the scale of cuts announced in the spending review?

[Mr Letwin]

Lord Young has resigned. My personal view is that the longest and deepest recession since the war, and the vast fiscal deficits that the Labour party bequeathed to us, have left not only SMEs but the entire country, and, of course, the Government, with an enormous challenge that we are now trying to meet.

Departmental Business Plans

Debate between Oliver Letwin and Michael McCann

Monday 8th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Letwin]

My hon. Friend can also have an early Christmas. We have instituted from 1 October the one in, one out rule. I should explain that it is more powerful than the rule that a regulation should be eliminated when a new one is introduced—it is that a regulation of equivalent cost to business should be eliminated, or indeed a collection of them with an equivalent cost to business. I want to take this opportunity to tell my hon. Friend and the House that since we introduced the one in, one out rule, the large flow of domestic regulation that was crossing my desk and others before that has somewhat diminished. Since 1 October, there has been one proposal.

[Mr Michael McCann (East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow) (Lab)]

May I add my name to the list of Members who are mesmerised by the use of the language of horizon shifts? On the question of monthly reports, the Government have announced that about 500,000 public servants will lose their jobs under their plans. How many of those jobs will be saved in order to support the initiative that the Minister has announced today?

[Mr Letwin]

The first thing that I should say is that the Government have not made any such announcement; the Government accept the Office for Budget Responsibility’s forecast about the net effect on public sector employment. That does not mean anything like that number of current employees losing their jobs—nothing of the kind. Secondly, of course, had this initiative been introduced now by a Labour Government —to judge by what the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Mr Byrne) said it might have been, and that is a delightful prospect—it would have been accompanied by various things. Large numbers of consultants would have been hired to set up complicated websites and there would have been large reviews, huge expenditure and so on—and probably great expenditure on advertising. The total that we have spent on this exercise to date is zero. We have not employed a single consultant, we are constructing the websites ourselves and we are not advertising, because we are a Government and not a magazine.