Oral Answers to Questions
Stuart Andrew Excerpts(10 years, 1 month ago)
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The Prime Minister
I thank the hon. Gentleman for once again advertising the fact that this Government are cutting the tax on bingo operators, which is quite right, because their industry was decimated by Labour. I also thank him for drawing attention to the Chancellor’s approach of cutting beer duty because we want to back responsible drinkers, and because we back the pub trade. I am sure that the right hon. Member for Doncaster North (Edward Miliband) enjoys a game of bingo: it is the only time he ever gets close to No. 10. [Laughter.]
Stuart Andrew (Pudsey) (Con)
Yesterday the all-party parliamentary group on mental health heard a very powerful and moving account of the effects of post-traumatic stress disorder. Will my right hon. Friend join me in paying tribute to Simon and Louisa, who completed an epic run from Leeds to Parliament yesterday to promote their organisation which seeks greater research into the condition? Is it not the case that, as well as being one of the hidden costs of armed conflict, post-traumatic stress disorder affects thousands of people who have been victims of rape, sexual assault and other life-changing traumas?
The Prime Minister
I am happy to join my hon. Friend in paying tribute to those people, who achieved so much through their run and by raising and highlighting the importance of this issue. Organisations such as Combat Stress do an extraordinary job in our country. We must face up to the fact that because of the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, there will be many more people suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder who will need our help and support not just this year and next year, but long into the future. That is why I think that the Chancellor’s decision to take the money from the LIBOR fines and use it to back military charities, including those that deal with this issue, is very far-sighted.
Oral Answers to Questions
Stuart Andrew Excerpts(10 years, 7 months ago)
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Stuart Andrew (Pudsey) (Con)
Is there not a real danger that the economies of north Wales and northern England could be left behind if we rely solely on the existing north-south rail lines, which, by all predictions, will be full to capacity by the mid-2020s?
Oral Answers to Questions
Stuart Andrew Excerpts(12 years, 1 month ago)
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Stuart Andrew (Pudsey) (Con)
T5. Yesterday, Britain showed itself at its best. The Olympics offer us a chance to repeat such a show to the world. Does my right hon. Friend agree that it is disgraceful that strike action has been threatened during such a wonderful opportunity?
Mr Maude
It was distressing that the leader of the Unite trade union made that intemperate threat. I hope that the Leader of the Opposition will take an early opportunity to condemn these bully-boy paymasters, who are threatening, when the eyes of the world are on Britain, to bring the country to a standstill.
Oral Answers to Questions
Stuart Andrew Excerpts(12 years, 2 months ago)
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The Deputy Prime Minister
I am proud of the fact that we have stepped up to the plate to clean up the mess the hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Steve Rotheram) and his party colleagues left behind after 13 years in office. It is convenient for him to airbrush out of history the fact that when his party was in government it went on bended knee to Rupert Murdoch, yet now it will not even talk to his newspapers. It also let the banks get away with blue murder, but it now wants to tax them to the hilt. The country will not forget the mess it left the rest of us to clear up.
Stuart Andrew (Pudsey) (Con)
T6. I recently visited the Yorkshire College of Beauty Therapy, alas not for treatment—I feared there would not be enough time for that—but to see how successful its apprenticeship scheme has been. Members on both sides of the House are concerned about youth unemployment, so what are the Government doing to encourage employers to take on more young apprentices?
The Deputy Prime Minister
In the earlier list of proud achievements that I gave, I forgot to mention the fact that we are delivering more apprenticeships than have ever been delivered in recent times in this country. We are delivering 250,000 more apprenticeships during this Parliament than would have been delivered by a Labour Administration. My hon. Friend is absolutely right that the whole apprenticeship programme depends very heavily on companies and employers participating in the scheme and giving young people the opportunity to take up apprenticeship places. That is why in the youth contract, which will start in a matter of weeks, we are providing a £1,500 incentive to employers to take on young apprentices.
Open Public Services White Paper
Stuart Andrew Excerpts(12 years, 10 months ago)
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Mr Letwin
My hon. Friend is right in that I cannot recall a single instance in the White Paper of our referring to ourselves as “managing” public services. That is because we do not think Ministers are particularly good at managing things. We think Ministers and Governments are better at creating frameworks within which others, who are professionals, can manage things and be given the incentives to manage them best for those whom they are serving.
Stuart Andrew (Pudsey) (Con)
During my time working in the hospice movement, I witnessed time and again that the independence of hospices enabled them to provide first-class care, and that parents of children in hospices would often say that they had set the benchmark for the care they had received. Will not the freeing up of public services from the Whitehall grasp enable them to learn from the hospice movement and provide first-class public services in this country?
Mr Letwin
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The hospice movement provides an admirable example of much that is best about public service in our country, and we do, indeed, want to learn from it in many respects. We are, of course, trying to ensure that the method for funding the hospice movement always preserves its independence and ability to carry on providing the unbelievably good service it currently provides.
Oral Answers to Questions
Stuart Andrew Excerpts(12 years, 11 months ago)
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Stuart Andrew (Pudsey) (Con)
I spent 16 years in the fundraising sector. Does the Minister agree that one giving barrier for many people is the abolition of cheques?
Oral Answers to Questions
Stuart Andrew Excerpts(13 years, 2 months ago)
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The Deputy Prime Minister
That was another much-rehearsed question. [Interruption.] I merely sigh at the laborious way in which these questions have been rehearsed and over-rehearsed.
The Prime Minister was away on an official trip. The fact that the Prime Minister is away on an official trip does not mean that he is not the Prime Minister any more. When the chief executive of a company goes on a business trip, he is still the chief executive. When the manager of a football club attends an away game, he is still the manager. As I sought to explain earlier, last week I was away for just under two working days, and I returned as soon as it became clear that I was needed back here.
Stuart Andrew (Pudsey) (Con)
T9. The pilot for the public reading stage of the Protection of Freedoms Bill is an innovative way of opening up the legislative process to the public. In that context, can my right hon. Friend update the House on progress on the delivery of a mechanism allowing formal parliamentary debate of petitions bearing at least 100,000 signatures?
The Deputy Prime Minister
My right hon. Friend the Leader of the House is working on a proposal to deliver precisely what my hon. Friend has described: the ability of people who petition the House to ensure that their demands are heard on the Floor of the House of Commons. That is one of a number of innovations that will open up the way in which we scrutinise legislation and allow the public, as well as ourselves, to have a say in how we do it.
Big Society
Stuart Andrew Excerpts(13 years, 2 months ago)
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Stuart Andrew (Pudsey) (Con)
I congratulate hon. Members on securing this debate. I am delighted that we are discussing the big society, because its principles got me where I am today. I relied upon them during my 16-year career in the charity sector.
Much of what is great about this country stems from the social action that the individuals, groups and movements of the past provided. For too many years, however, we have come to rely too much on the state. Too often these days we hear, “The council should do x”, or, “Why doesn’t the Government do y?” Society has become too small. Instead, we should encourage people and communities to do x and y, where they can, and that is why I fully support the Prime Minister in his desire to make the big society a big part of our political agenda. If nothing else, he has got the whole debate going—one that has been too quiet for too long. As Kennedy famously put it:
“Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country.”
Those who are cynical and critical of the big society all too often talk about money. Yes, it is important and as a fundraiser I knew that, but the trouble is, as my hon. Friend the Member for Stourbridge (Margot James) said, some charities have become too dependent on a single income stream. That was a dangerous precedent which we in my charity avoided, but I welcome the fact that the Government are providing £100 million to help those charities that might be struggling.
In my job, I realised that the most important and greatest commodity that any charity or organisation can enjoy is people: people caring for the community, being neighbourly and having civic pride. That is all incredibly expensive; indeed, we could not buy it with all the money in the world. Such people inspired me as a young boy on a poor council estate to do my bit, and two individuals spring to mind: Iorwerth Rowlands and Jackie Waddicar. Our estate had little money but bags of spirit, and those two people led it to build the facilities of which others became proud and envious. They did a fantastic job despite the low incomes in the area, and that belies the patronising idea that some communities cannot do so because they are poor.
The hospice movement is an exemplar of the big society, and it was my privilege to work in it for more than 12 years. The movement all started thanks to the inspiration of Dame Cicely Saunders, a person who saw the glaring need to care for people at the end of their lives—and did something about it. Today, we see hospices throughout the country, and remarkably the vast majority are funded thanks to the generosity not of the Government but of the public. Most draw on the considerable help of thousands of volunteers to care for patients in both hospices and our communities. Such community ownership, and the community’s relationship with its hospices, mean that people are responsive to patients’ needs.
The hospice movement has had many inspirational leaders who have helped it to evolve and develop over the years. Indeed, Sister Frances Dominica recognised the glaring need to help children through the movement. I spent the previous seven years working for Martin House children’s hospice in Yorkshire, which cares for more than 300 terminally ill children and more than 100 bereaved families every year, at a cost of more than £4 million. Almost 90% of that money comes from the public, and it is a credit to the good people and businesses of Yorkshire that it keeps coming, even in these most difficult financial times. The care that the hospice provides is second to none, and, as one family said to me, the trouble is that it is the service against which all others are measured, and they can barely catch up. The hospice would of course like more public finance, because nobody would say no to extra money, but too much state involvement would dilute the wonderful facility that is Martin House, and heaven spare it top-down targets from Westminster.
Throughout my career in the charity sector, I saw how the big society is working, but I want to see it become bigger. Many politicos who are sceptical about the big society ask, “What does it mean? What does it stand for?”. They want that all-important buzzword to describe it, but they should take it from someone who has spent their working life in it: the big society is so big that no word could possibly do it justice.
Oral Answers to Questions
Stuart Andrew Excerpts(13 years, 7 months ago)
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Mr Hurd
I suspect that the right hon. Gentleman will eat his words later when he hears the Chancellor. I do not see any steamroller in evidence in relation to the big society, which is absolutely central to the Government’s mission. A central strand of that mission is to open up the public services to a more diverse set of providers, including and specifically contributions from the voluntary and community sectors. As the right hon. Gentleman well knows, they are in a position to add a huge amount of value. That is a specific commitment of this Government, and we are going to deliver on it.
Stuart Andrew (Pudsey) (Con)
2. What steps he has taken to increase the efficiency of his Department’s mechanisms for Government procurement.
Julian Smith (Skipton and Ripon) (Con)
8. What steps he has taken to increase the efficiency of his Department’s mechanisms for Government procurement.
The Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General (Mr Francis Maude)
Procurements of major projects by the British Government have typically taken 77 weeks. They have frequently involved the extensive use of external consultants. That process is costly and wasteful, excluding small businesses, social enterprises, and voluntary and charitable organisations. That results in procurements that are too often uncompetitive, delayed, expensive and ineffective. We are taking steps to streamline the process. In the meantime, we are renegotiating contracts with the bigger suppliers to the Government on a single-customer basis, thus leveraging the Government’s buying power. That will deliver some £800 million-worth of savings in this financial year alone.
Stuart Andrew
Sir Philip Green’s report showed just how little time the previous Government afforded to the basic principles of cost-effective commissioning and procurement. Does the Minister feel that that attitude is embodied in the ill-considered note left by the ex-Chief Secretary to the Treasury as he left his old job?
Mr Maude
If the last Government, including the right hon. Gentleman, had bothered to spend the time that we are spending getting into the unglamorous parts of Government spending to find out just how much money can be saved, he might not have felt it necessary to leave a note in quite the stark terms that he did, true though it was. The fact is that there is a huge amount of wasteful spending. Sir Philip Green has done a sterling service in picking up some stones and providing the evidence for that, and we will be acting on his recommendations to see how we can take costs out of the overheads of Government. That is the best way to protect front-line services and to protect the jobs of dedicated public servants, which the right hon. Gentleman claims to care about.