House of Commons Hansard Debates for 26 Nov 1992

Ms. Mowlam : I readily acknowledge that the Financial Secretary has been here all the time. I did not deny that. I simply suggested that his attitude was arrogant when we were talking about people's jobs being under threat. That is a completely different point. Will the Minister undertake this evening--the Minister skated over this point--to guarantee that there will always be an in-house bid for services to be contracted out? The "competing for quality" document failed to give this assurance and I believe that, in the interests of fair and open competition, the Minister ought to give it tonight. It was implied in Committee that, if there was an in-house bid, it would be accepted, and in order to be fair to employees in the civil service departments, if the Government goes ahead, there should be such an assurance.

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It would also be appreciated if some assurance could be given that, if certain Departments are contracted out, there will be regulations to ensure that commercial interests are not involved. For example, if the present status of the Office of Fair Trading changes and it goes to a private contractor, there should be an assurance that the private contractor who gets the job could not have an interest in the work of the Office of Fair Trading. Quite clearly, such regulations would need to be put in place.

We believe that the citizens charter is part of the Government's plans, along with market testing, for cutting costs and--this is a crucial point-- transferring responsibility for sometimes poor quality public services to individual managers and workers, who cannot hope to influence change on the scale required. Quality services require guaranteed adequate resources and highly motivated and well trained staff. The Government claim that the charter upholds the principle of free choice ; the only principle guiding the Government is that the private sector knows best. Where is the choice for an individual who cannot change the person who empties the dustbins or the person who deals with tax matters?

The Opposition believe in the future of the public sector and in the quality of public services. We believe that the way in which the Government have handled the citizens charter is a cynical facade to cover the sustained destruction of the public sector and the wholesale transfer of many of its assets and responsibilities away from the citizen to private sector. That is not for the benefit of the citizens of this country.

7.3 pm

Mr. Michael Lord (Suffolk, Central) : I am very pleased to take part in this important debate. In a sense, the two opening speeches have summed up the dilemma. In my view, the solution to many of these problems is for us somehow to achieve the kind of efficiency that one sees in the best private companies, without necessarily going through the process of privatising those parts of government that do not really lend themselves sensibly to privatisation.

I congratulate my right hon. Friend on the citizens charter and his excellent initiatives and on much of the privatisation that has taken place so far, but sometimes, sound government, both local and central, is better than new legislation in helping us to cope with many of our problems. It is the quality of leadership and management in the public service that is crucial. Before changing structures, whether of local government, the health service or education, we ought to examine carefully why existing structures are not working--structures which until now, perhaps, have worked well and stood the test of time. As I have already said, some services do not lend themselves readily to privatisation.

The key, surely, to all this is leadership and responsibility at every level of the public service, with the Government themselves displaying those qualities as well as holding firmly to account those charged with delivering services to the public. The way in which men and women carry out their duties may be influenced largely by the leadership they are given within the structure in which they work. Perhaps some of our existing structures are now unworkable and have come to the end of their useful lives,

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but perhaps not. Many of them have developed and have been tried and tested, and we should give careful thought to each before changing them.

I shall give a few examples of issues which are of concern to me. The water industry has been privatised. I do not say that that is a bad thing, because I appreciate the problems in raising capital to fund much of the work that is needed. However, I am greatly concerned that enforcement, where people were polluting our waterways, was not carried out as it should have been and, as a result, many of our rivers and streams are badly polluted. Why was there not that enforcement? Why, over all those years, did the people responsible for ensuring that industries did not tip their waste into our rivers allow those industries to carry on doing just that? The responsibility lies not only with the individual who is charged with visiting those companies but with his manager and, at the end of the day, the very senior individuals in the water authorities whose job it was to make sure that rivers were not polluted. Why was that allowed to go on? Why were those responsible not brought to task? We are now in the business of reorganising the health service. We have done that before. We had districts, which have now gone, we now have our regions and our areas. I believe that the present reorganisation will be helpful, but I want to ask one or two questions about other aspects of the health service.

I well remember talking many years ago to a consultant in the health service. He shocked me by displaying total disregard for any responsibility in his hospital for efficiency or waste--waste which he knew was taking place on a daily basis to the tune of tens of thousands of pounds. He saw it as no part of his responsibility as a medical consultant to do anything about it.

I have been particularly keen over the years to have matrons brought back into our hospitals. I wonder why they ever went. Matrons were brilliant at their job. They knew how to deal with patients and relatives, consultants and surgeons. They also kept a good eye on the efficient running of their hospital and looked out for waste. Why did they go? Whose idea was it that they should go? To a great extent, the lack of that kind of efficiency has affected our view of our hospitals and resulted in the changes that we have been forced to make.

I served on the Committee that considered the role of the health ombudsman and I was amazed at the cases that were brought before us. Often, there had been a complete breakdown in communications between doctors and patients. There was also the jargon which was used. On one occasion, we were told that the default lay with the "line manager". I made the point to the witness whom we were interviewing that there might well be line managers at Ford of Dagenham but I saw no place for them in our hospitals. That impersonal way of discussing things relates very much to the way in which people deal with each other, the kind of leadership shown in hospitals and the way in which they were organised.

In education, standards have fallen greatly in recent years. During that time, what have our inspectors, who are charged with the task of keeping up standards in schools, been doing? What have local authorities being doing all that time? Have they been doing the job that they are paid to do? I suspect not. So, because the education system is not what we want it to be, this House decides--or rather the Government decide--that drastic measures are needed to restore standards. But if the people originally charged

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with the responsibility for keeping up standards had done their job, perhaps the subsequent changes would not have been necessary, and many children would have had a better education.

The relationship between central and local government is extremely complicated. In the old days, it was sensible and happy ; central Government decided how much local government should spend and, by and large, local government was happy to accept that money and to spend it sensibly. There was a reasonable relationship between the House and local government. Then, a few years ago, Liverpool and the Greater London Council started to behave in what the Conservative party thought was an unreasonable way. We had to take steps to change the rules and the framework, because the people who had taken control of some authorities had to be restrained.

What have we achieved so far with these changes in local government? We changed from the rates to the community charge and then from the community charge to the council tax. We are already discussing another reorganisation of the structure of local government. The basic problem remains, however. It concerns the relationship between the House and local authorities : how we trust them, how they trust us and how we work together. Unless that relationship is healthy and happy and restored to a sensible basis, no amount of changes to structure or system will bring about the sort of relationship that we want.

How much is wrong with British Rail? Is the problem its structure, or its management? I use British Rail regularly, and I think that the management of the system is what is wrong, not the system itself. How many organisations or businesses of any other kind would think of changing the structure of their organisation before being sure that the fault did not lie with the management? Now we are looking into how to make British Rail more efficient ; but I strongly believe that if we change the company's structure dramatically without first having ascertained that the present one will not work much better under a different managerial system, we will do the country a great disservice. I suggest that we go slowly in this direction. Tonight, the privatisation of Whitehall has been mentioned. It may well be a good idea. I have always thought that we have one of the best civil services in the world--it is widely respected. Perhaps it is not the most efficient of organisations, but we cannot have everything. Perhaps it is a good idea to privatise Whitehall, but for heaven's sake let us look first at ways of making our civil service much more efficient in its present form before we reach too readily for the privatisation lever.

What is the role of the Minister in all this? What is the role of our Secretaries of State in running their Departments? They have a duty to look inwards at the Departments to find out whether they can improve their running. That is part of their responsibilities. The Inland Revenue is a good example of a body that has to be handled extremely carefully because of the confidentiality of many of its activities. It is also a good example, therefore, of why we should first try to do everything possible to make it more efficient in its present form before trying to change it radically. The Government, they say, want to reduce legislation. They are introducing 28 Bills in this Session of Parliament--a fair amount of legislation, resulting in a lot of disruption. If changes are to be made, there will obviously

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be disruption ; but unless something really needs changing, an unwarranted amount of disruption may be entailed. Sometimes that disruption lasts so long that one wonders whether it has all been worth it.

Although it may sound as though I am criticising the public services, I am not. We should appreciate the job that public servants do. If they are well led and rewarded, their job can be rewarding for them and they can provide an excellent service for us all. I am conscious that I have posed more questions than I have answered. I have already said that I think that the citizens charter is excellent in principle. I do not suggest for a moment that privatisation is wrong ; it is usually right. Nor do I suggest that structures must never be changed, but I do say that before any structure is changed, its leadership and management should be examined so as to ensure that it is the structure, not the management, that is at fault. Sometimes a fresh appraisal, a new management and a new approach are needed within existing frameworks. The quality of service to the public is often more likely to be improved by sound, firm government every day than by a never- ending flood of legislation.

7.15 pm

Mr. Matthew Taylor (Truro) : This is the second time in the opening months of this Parliament that I have dealt with what has been termed a flagship of Government policy. The previous occasion was the debate on the poll tax legislation ; now we have the citizens charter. It may be instructive to examine the reactions to those two measures to get some idea of the reaction to the Government.

The previous Prime Minister, at the end of her time in power, had a peculiar knack of splitting her party and uniting the country against her ; certainly, that is what the poll tax legislation did. This Prime Minister seems to have more of a knack of making everything grey, torpid and languid --at least until recent weeks.

In debating the flagship of the Prime Minister's Administration we have a virtually empty Chamber. The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster may have been hoping for some support from Back Benchers, but not many of them have shown up to offer it, and the one speech so far by a Conservative has shown at best half-hearted support. That is because the charter has been extraordinarily narrowly focused and unambitious.

The principles behind the Minister's version of the charter are, of course, shared by all in the House. He makes a great deal of welcoming support from both sides of the House, but that support is hardly surprising. Of course public services should be responsive to consumer preferences and should meet the public's need for high-quality services--no one can doubt statements put in those terms. The issues that need to be debated concern how such a charter should be shaped, how its provisions should be delivered and guaranteed and how much real change it should bring about. Unfortunately, Ministers seem content to ignore all alternative views on those matters. The Conservative charter has been shaped too much by Ministers and by a Government who are unprepared to fund public services properly or to back the charter with full access to information. The Government's limited agenda was epitomised in the Minister's speech tonight.

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Contrary to the Government's view, most of the public take a more pragmatic view : they think that management can be improved, savings made and alternative avenues explored, but they also take the view that they need to know more than the Government allow them to know. They cannot trust Ministers to run every local service centrally. Above all, they take the view that many services will be improved only by greater investment in them. Why else did 78 per cent. of people polled during the general election campaign say that they were prepared to pay an extra penny in the pound on income tax to fund improvements in education?

In the House yesterday, the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster spoke of the transformation of public services brought about by the citizens charter. In the past few days, I have had letters from constituents concerned about bed closures and the introduction of car park charges at my local trust hospital. I have heard from a friend stuck in the underground waiting without explanation while a tube simply did not move, and from others who daily have to stand on packed trains on their way to work.

A constituent, trying to collect his daughter from a railway station late at night, was unable to discover why the train was delayed. He telephoned Paddington but received no answer ; he contacted the station but it was no longer staffed ; and he telephoned the information bureau at Truro, but that was no longer staffed either. Eventually, his daughter arrived some two hours or more late.

I received a letter today from an elderly person who had received a warning of an overdue bill from what was formerly a public service, desperately upset by the tone of the letter. Many people have contacted me during recent weeks and months after experiencing problems with the disability living allowance unit and getting not so much as an answer to a telephone call or even a letter of explanation.

Those people will not recognise that there has been a transformation in public services ; nor will the majority of people who regularly use public services, as opposed to Ministers who do not. The charter is weak on real commitment and vague about compensation schemes, because the funding is not there.

Having set the targets, what are the mechanisms for delivering them and making progress? When targets are not met, who will knock heads together or put in extra funding, and who will take decisions on what is needed? Where services prove that they cannot meet the standards set by the charter, will their funding be reconsidered? Shall we have a report in the Budget or autumn statement process telling us how the charter failures match up to the Government's investment proposals? Some charter proposals are not funded at all--for example, the citizens charter set the response time for an ambulance to arrive at an emergency in rural areas at 19 minutes. In Cornwall, the health authority is dependent on the air ambulance even to come close to that target. Cornwall has many remote areas and, especially in the summer when the roads are choked with caravans, it would be ludicrous to expect land ambulances to reach people in 19 minutes. Everyone in the county knows that the air ambulance is vital, yet despite the fact that the Government say in the citizens charter that people can expect such a service, they will not fund it. It relies entirely on coffee mornings, fetes and other fund-raising events supported by the generosity of the people of Cornwall.

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It is hypocritical of the Government to claim credit for the citizens charter when it is the charitable donations of a low-wage area such as Cornwall that delivers their pledges, not Government investment in order to bring services up to scratch.

Another example of how the Government's supposed transformation of a public service, its management and the delivery of the service does not come up to scratch was the recent decision, approved by Offer, the Office of Electricity Regulation--the body which is supposed to protect the ordinary public--to increase electricity prices in the far south-west by 5 per cent. and to cut electricity prices for those nearer to power stations. Businesses therefore face a 10 per cent. price differential in areas where the costs of running those businesses are already higher than in most parts of the country. Not only are people suffering from that increase, but when I raised the matter with a Minister at the Department of Trade and Industry, he was not even aware of it. When Conservative Members of Parliament from the south-west told the Prime Minister that their seats were at risk to the Liberal Democrats because of that decision, he did not know what was happening.

The transformation in public services is not an improvement. All that has changed is that things get worse and Ministers and Prime Ministers no longer know what is going on in the basic services on which people rely in their homes and businesses.

The basic elements of a good service may be obvious, but to what extent did Ministers consult to discover which aspects of services people felt were most in need of improvement? Too much of the early round of the citizens charter consisted of asking Ministers and civil servants what targets they should be setting, not asking the people on the receiving end what they needed, be they suffering from a disability, in education or the consumers of a service.

Have the Government insisted, Department by Department, on proper, early and responsive consultation with the users of public services in future before setting the charters and updating them? Too often Ministers have answered the questions themselves, guided by their own ideological assumptions about what people ought to want and ought to know, not what they want and what they want to know.

An example of that is the school league tables. Did Ministers ask parents' representatives what kind of information would be useful to them in choosing a school for their children? I do not mean at a meeting of the Conservative supper club or at a Conservative fete or raffle. Did they comprehensively and rigorously consult to discover what people wanted?

Parents point out that exam results are not the be-all and end-all. They are concerned about the atmosphere in a school, the quality of the facilities and class sizes. Above all, they recognise that the social background of pupils will have an impact on examination results, making comparisons of raw results difficult or even meaningless.

Information is a good thing, but it must be adequately provided in the form which people want and in which they can use it. The Audit Commission has shown that value-added league tables can work, but the Government have still made no pledge to publish such information in a form which will be readily usable. They tell us that parents will be able to obtain the information from the tables. The Government could not even get the data in the tables right,

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so how do they expect parents to extract that information? The Government design systems too much to suit their own political priorities and not enough to suit those of the consumer.

That brings me to an essential point in the process. Ministers like to stress the importance of information, but they must be prepared to accept the pressing need for a freedom of information Act. Citizens are free only if they have rights of access to information at their determination, at their choice, not merely to information that Ministers choose to deliver to them.

As I said yesterday, in the documents that we now have, the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster is reported to have pressed his colleagues, Alan Clark and the noble Lord Trefgarne, to make available to the public information on the reinterpretation of the guidelines governing Iraqi arms sales, but that advice was not followed. The Minister lost his argument.

Now that he is in a stronger position, he should be pressing the Government for a freedom of information Act. Such legislation would have made it unnecessary for us to rely on him in his losing battle or on the chance decision of a judge in court to make the information available. Above all, individuals would have been able to rely on the legislation in order not to be sent to prison when not only were they not breaking the rules but they were being encouraged by Ministers to act as they did.

For a Government to hail the citizens charter as a flagship policy yet to refuse to give the public the basic entitlement to information that a freedom of information Act would provide, suggests once more that the citizens charter is shaped more by what Ministers decide that people should know, rather than what the public want and need to know.

The Government are repeatedly criticised for their changes to legal aid and for tackling the problem of lengthy cases and the costs to which they give rise not by reforming the system, to make it easier to obtain access to justice, but by cutting back finance to limit the numbers who can hope to have any chance of enjoying justice in the first place. The question is not whether a public or private service, or public individuals or private individuals, are involved. Everyone should be able to seek redress through the courts without being financially blocked. We hear no complaints about that from Ministers with responsibility for the citizens charter.

I do not deny the need for an efficient and value-for-money civil service ; nor do I deny that there can be real value in market testing, but it must be used with discretion--on that, the Minister is woolly and unclear. Neither he nor anyone else has expressed concern about confidentiality within the Inland Revenue, yet everyone accepts its importance because there can scarcely be an area of government where confidence in the security of information can be more important to the ordinary person.

Only today, we saw how unreliable confidentiality can be in the public sector. I was appalled when I saw the front page of The Sun this morning, but not because of the Chancellor of the Exchequer's actions. I overheard one hon. Member--his identity and party do not matter--say, "Mind you, it looks like his account is in pretty much the same state as mine." I suspect that is the general reaction but most members of the public would not

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expect to see such details about themselves on the front page of The Sun and repeated on the front page of the Evening Standard tonight.

I do not suggest that any privatisation will necessarily undermine the charter's confidentiality clause, but confidentiality is crucial in the case of the Inland Revenue and, as there is no problem with that Department, if it is not broken, why try to mend it? There is a silly continuing debate about who first thought of the citizens charter. My right hon. Friend the Member for Yeovil (Mr. Ashdown) published his book, "Citizen's Britain", and then Labour and the Government published their charters. They are merely different interpretations of party interests in serving the system better. My right hon. Friend's book came first, but we should not make anything of that.

Different views are expressed in the House about what should be done. The Government are market-orientated and tend to assume that if something is market-tested or privatised, it is likely to become better--unless someone can prove otherwise. Probably, the proof of that pudding will only be in the eating.

Members of Labour's Front Bench--perhaps because civil service trade unions are a little too influential--tend to protect the status quo and the public sector. Inevitably perhaps, my party tends to call for more root-and-branch reform of the way that our democracy works. It is not just a question of localising and decentralising, in which I support Ministers. It is a question of giving ordinary individuals real political control, of decentralising political control as well as management, in both central and local government, as Tower Hamlets has done with its neighbourhood councils ; of giving the public more control not of privatising services but of democratising them ; and of not having schools opting out of local democracy but giving them even more of it and of maintaining local democratic control over those schools.

It is a question, too, of a far-reaching root-and-branch reform with a Bill of Rights, so that the public can have real access to justice and freedom of information. That is the kind of citizens charter that we need and the kind of citizen's Britain that we need--but it is the kind of agenda that the Government signally fail to address.

7.34 pm

Mr. Gyles Brandreth (City of Chester) : The hon. Member for Truro (Mr. Taylor) referred to the number of right hon. and hon. Members present in the Chamber, but omitted to touch on the quality. Were the Liberal Democrat Benches stuffed to overflowing, they would not present quite as much intellectual firepower as my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for the Civil Service, seated alone on the Government Front Bench. Throw in the Whip, my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Hallam (Mr. Patnick), and add my right hon. Friend the Chancellor for the Duchy of Lancaster and one is talking about a veritable All Souls on wheels.

I would not throw myself into that intellectual cocktail, but it is worth recording that the last occasion on which I spoke in the presence of my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Duchy and my hon. Friend the Under- Secretary of State was a quarter of a century ago,

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when sitting at our feet admiring us was the President-elect of the United States. He went west, and it worked out slightly differently for him.

The civilised nature of this debate might suggest that there is no real division between the two sides of the House, but I suspect that there is-- despite the courtesies that pass to and fro. Opposition Members give the impression that they are determined to see the worst in everything, whereas my right hon. and hon. Friends and I are determined to bring out the best, particularly in our public services.

Since the arrival of the citizens charter, Opposition Members have been cynical at worst, sneering at best, and grudging with their praise. Perhaps they are irritated because, having thought of it first, they were not quick enough off the mark in making the public realise that, or perhaps because we thought of it first. That is a foolish game to play.

More seriously, perhaps Opposition Members are irritated that ordinary people believe that the charter stands for something important. The Opposition's patronising attitude towards the charter annoys those who use it not simply to obtain a better level of service for themselves but to deliver better services to others. The charter and the new office that it creates will, for the first time, offer accessibility, courtesy, punctuality, and openness--all central to the agenda of public service. Opposition Members dismiss the charter as gloss, public relations, and hype --not realising that those who use our public services are crying out for higher standards, and that the providers of our public services want to do a better job. Many of them welcome the challenge that the charter presents, and are proud of the charter mark.

I have long wondered why there is only one Monopolies Commission, so I warmly welcome the fact that public bodies having that monopolistic status- -such as the Benefits Agency and the courts--are to be confronted by a series of ever more stringent standards, designed to deliver the best service and value for money. Being treated courteously and quickly by a named official is not trivial but a fundamental change of approach. Standards are important, but so are incentives, and for half a million civil servants now to receive performance-related pay is as it should be.

The good news is, all that is begining to work. After yesterday's statement by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Duchy, I mentioned that I happened to be the grateful recipient of a refund from British Rail after travelling on a severely delayed train. Of course we would all prefer our trains not to be late ; but the refund not only compensated me completely for the money that I had spent and lost, but will help, cumulatively, to concentrate the mind of British Rail.

At this point, the Opposition will no doubt cry--certainly they should cry- -that the answer lies in further investment. So it does, but it does not inevitably and solely lies in further cash investment. Investment is also possible in terms of better management, better practice and better service.

The British Rail passengers charter, published in March--happily, on my birthday ; I see the whole thing in personal terms, and the joy of the citizens charter is the way in which it relates to the citizen as an individual--is just one part of a package of measures designed to make life easier for the rail traveller. The targets have been set ;

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performance is being monitored, and the results are being published ; fares are being adjusted to take account of different standards of service on different routes.

Previously, such disciplines have been conspicuous by their absence. It is no use Opposition Members saying that everything is all right as it is. Without the charter, the standard to which I have referred would not have been introduced. Under the charter, British Rail has introduced the standards of reliability and punctuality that passengers should be able to expect. Every four weeks, as part of its "track record" initiative, British Rail is publishing up-to-date performance figures. The results show that, while many routes are meeting their targets, some are still failing to do so. On routes where British Rail continues to under-perform, season ticket rebates of up to 10 per cent. may be triggered by the charter.

The principles of the passengers charter are to be extended in the future : British Rail has now committed itself to publishing conditions of carriage that are fairer, simpler and easier to understand, and the 1993 reliability and punctuality standards for Inter-City, regional railways and Network SouthEast will be published this month.

I should like the passengers charter to be extended to cover the quality of railway stations, as well as services on trains. The conditions in ticket offices, waiting rooms and public lavatories are often an absolute disgrace ; perhaps, in the fulness of time, the charter will get to grips with that. Incredibly, the ticket office at Chester station--where I shall be in a matter of hours--is currently located in a Portakabin. That is not a temporary measure ; it is to remain there for a couple of years. Would hon. Members fly on an airline that made them buy their tickets from a nissan hut? No : they would feel a certain lack of confidence about the validity of their tickets.

The city of Chester is historic ; it is the jewel in the crown of the north. [Interruption.] Forgive me ; it is the jewel in the crown of the country. We may have to wait for the privatisation of British Rail for a solution to the problem--although I prefer to think of it as private investment in the railways. No railway station that had benefited from private investment, and from the attitudes that are prevalent in, say, the British tourist industry--attitudes that should be prevalent throughout public services--would allow the lavatories and ticket office at Chester station to remain in their present condition.

The parents charter is another of the successes of the citizens charter movement. In England and Wales, school examination results are now published, and comparative tables showing examination results in local secondary schools are now being made available to the parents of children who are about to transfer to such schools. From autumn next year, national curriculum results, truancy rates and the routes taken by pupils when they reach school-leaving age will also be published. Already, parents are receiving written reports on their children at least once a year ; they are also reminded of their right to appeal if they are not successful in their choice of school. School prospectuses and governors' reports must now include examination results and truancy rates.

I am delighted at the breadth of the welcome for the publication of the tables. Noting the approval of The Guardian and that of the hon. Member for Macclesfield (Mr. Winterton), we begin to wonder whether the Government are on the right track ; but, given that all the parents to whom I have spoken also approve, I realise that the Government certainly are. I was also delighted to read

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in today's press that the Opposition are apparently now back-tracking in their objection to the league tables. At least they are consistent in their back-tracking : I commend them for that. The Opposition's earlier attitude was extraordinarily patronising to parents, who understand full well that, although examination results constitute a fundamental test of a school's performance, they are not the only test : a range of other performance indicators contribute to the overall picture. I hope that, as the parents charter progresses, those other indicators can be developed more fully. Inevitably, the cultural and the sporting life of a school will be involved. Let me declare an interest as chairman of the National Playing Fields Association. Such aspects as the number of well-used school playing fields are elements of the equation that adds up to a successful school. I hope that we shall also be able to develop performance indicators in relation to a school's commitment to the community, careers advice and further education advice, and that parents will gain easy access to those indicators.

I know full well that parents in my constituency will not only look at the league tables, but visit the school to which they intend to send their children and look at it in the round. Let me cite two schools in particular. Blacon high school has made a substantial contribution to technical education ; it also has a wonderful team of handbell ringers. Currently that is not to feature in the league tables, but in time, if we can develop the right kind of indicators, we shall be able to incorporate it. Similarly, Bishops high school, in my constituency, has a marvellous community library. Its role as a community school is very important to it : the school library is shared with the community at large.

The White Paper that was published yesterday contains much encouraging material. It is, moreover, a stylish publication, featuring good English and clarity of presentation, which is important. It seems that putting over information in an accessible, clear way is now dismissed as gloss and hype, which is a pity. So much of the paper is good that it is difficult to know what to highlight. Personally, some people might wish to highlight the various commitments in relation to the Inland Revenue--which, I must confess, wants to take more from me than I earn, and is writing to me from a variety of addresses with a series of different but equally indecipherable signatures.

I share the concern that was expressed earlier about

confidentiality. If we cannot trust our bank, it is a little depressing. I have read the scurrilous stories about my right hon. Friend and flexible Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer. I must say that I do not believe them for a moment--but, if they were true, how marvellously courageous my right hon. Friend was last night in voting with Conservative Members who decided to support the pay freeze. A man in those personal circumstances has a chance to offload his own problems with a single vote--and what does he do? He thinks of others first.

Although I speak in a slightly jesting manner, there is a serious undertone to this, because some 90 Opposition Members voted for a wage increase at a time when wage restraint is being urged on those in the public sector and forced on those in the private sector by the recession. It is a serious issue, particularly in the light of this afternoon's statement on the standard spending assessment.

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Mr. Davidson : How many other sources of income does the hon. Gentleman have, and how much do they amount to?

Mr. Brandreth : They are negligible. Since becoming the Member of Parliament for City of Chester, I have devoted myself completely to my role as a Member of Parliament. If the hon. Member were here as often as I am, he would know that I have no time to be anywhere else but here or in my constituency, where I am committed to being a full-time Member of Parliament--fortunately, with experience from elsewhere, which I hope helps to inform my judgment.

As a constituency Member, my greatest concern is about the Benefits Agency. I am pleased that it published its customers charter at the beginning of the year. It sets out minimum national targets, including, for example, the fact that income support claims should be cleared in four days, which is down from a target of five days for the year 1991-92 ; that 65 per cent. of child benefit claims should be cleared in 10 days ; and that 60 per cent. of family credit claims should be cleared within 13 days.

By the end of 1992, each of the Benefits Agency's 159 districts will display local targets, standards and information on performance achieved against them. Its annual report will be available at every local office. I shall study that with interest and concern, because although those standards are commendable they still are not good enough by any manner of means. I hope that it is an on-going programme, because we need to jack up standards each year. The Benefits Agency charter commits the agency to telling customers about their appeal rights each time a decision is made about a benefit, explaining that customers who have a complaint about the service they receive can contact the customer service manager, who will respond within seven days. It has set a target that at least 85 per cent. of customers should say that they found the service satisfactory or better. I do not think that 85 per cent. of customers in my constituency are yet finding the service satisfactory or better, but I am glad that the standard has been set and I hope that we can achieve it, sustain it and then improve on it.

The major development outlined in the Secretary of State's statement yesterday and amplified today is the extension of market testing. This obviously must make sense. We want the highest standards and best value in all our public services, and all that market testing means is to test a particular service in the market to see whether it can be done better. I did not understand the semantic by-play that was going on earlier, because the issue seems quite simple : if an agency or department is delivering the goods, it has nothing to fear. If it is not, let us find something that can. The list of Government Departments where market testing will take place, which was published yesterday, is very impressive : the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, Customs and Excise--I was delighted to see that--the Ministry of Defence--I was delighted to see that ; we have plenty of opportunities for it in Chester--and the Department of National Heritage, where several items caught my eye, such as the national lottery. The lottery will obviously be handled most effectively by an independent agency with the right guidelines. There will be forms, a contract will be agreed and the standards will be

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established. All we are attempting to do is test it against the market to see who can deliver the goods most satisfactorily in terms of quality and price.

I was pleased to see the royal parks and historic royal palaces mentioned in the list. The monarchy was not listed, although it has little to fear, as I doubt that another team could do the job more effectively or could provide better value for money.

The Labour party has an enviable record for changing its mind on almost every public service reform introduced by the Government. I think I am right in saying that it opposed the next steps agencies, yet now its leader supports them, although I was a little confused by what the hon. Member for Redcar (Ms. Mowlam) said this afternoon. It used to oppose parental choice, but now it claims to back it. Last week, it opposed the publication of examination results, but this week--at least according to the news report that I read this morning--it now supports them.

I wonder how long it will be before Opposition Members drop their objections to market testing. There was a little semantic by-play this afternoon, leaving the options open, but perhaps the hon. Member for Vauxhall (Ms. Hoey) will clarify that. It would be wonderful to have a simple yes or no on whether Labour agrees with market testing.

It is understandable that some people are frightened of market testing. People are often frightened of the real world. I understand that and sympathise because I come from a family of good public servants. My mother is a teacher. I have a sister who is a teacher, another sister who is a nurse and a third sister who is a social worker. I have a sister-in-law who is a teacher and a brother-in-law who is a civil servant.

Mr. Waldegrave : Not more!

Mr. Brandreth : This is beginning to worry my right hon. Friend. Half a dozen members of my family are on the public payroll--and now me, too. A "magnificent seven" of us are living off the state. For us, the funds continue to flow in, and with any change we feel threatened.

I mentioned the threat that was clearly felt by the 90 Members who decided last night to vote against a pay freeze, despite what people are feeling all over the country and the effect that it might have if the example were followed in local authorities, which have been given a 3.7 per cent. increase. Seven tenths of local government expenditure goes on salaries, but if authorities keep to the guideline of up to 1.5 per cent. that will not force cuts on anybody. But cuts will be forced if people follow the example given by Opposition Members, including, I believe--I am ready to be corrected--Opposition Front-Bench spokesmen, who voted to put their own snouts in the gravy at a time when restraint is called for. A survey of Members conducted at the last general election showed that 79 per cent. of the new intake had no experience of business or manufacturing. They were teachers, social workers, lawyers--dirty work I know, but somebody has got to do it--journalists, trade union officials and political researchers. It is a pretty depressing litany and we have to break the mould. We must confront the real world, which is what market testing is all about.

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We must break the mould and cope with change, because without it and without being ready to confront change, we shall not achieve any improvement.

I have a distinguished--I use the word nicely--forebear by the name of Jeremiah Brandreth, who was the last person to be beheaded in this country for treason. He was executed at Derby on 7 November 1817. I do not believe that my ancestor was guilty of the sedition with which he was charged, but I must share with the House the family secret that he was a Luddite. He was known as the hopeless radical ; it is a funny feeling knowing that his soul descendants are on the Opposition Benches--the other side. That is why I have that nice familial feeling tonight.

My ancestor was a Luddite ; he could not cope with change. There are people --sadly, they include Labour Members--who believe that we should go on doing things exactly as we have always done them, simply because they have always been done that way. Unlike Jeremiah Brandreth, I believe in change. In Lord Liverpool's day, those who were locked in the past may have been executed ; happily, today we have a much more civilised approach. We call it the citizens charter.

8 pm

Mr. Hugh Bayley (York) : We were promised quality rather than quantity from the Conservative side tonight, but we seem to have had a fair amount of quantity from the hon. Member for City of Chester (Mr. Brandreth).

I was glad to see "The Citizen's Charter--First report : 1992" yesterday. One of my first contributions in the House after being elected in April was a call for the Government to follow York city council's example in being the first public authority not only to produce a citizens charter but to publish an annual report on its successes and failures in implementing its charter standards. At that stage I was not given a firm assurance that that would be mirrored by the national charter, so I am delighted that only six months later the report has appeared. I wish that all Cabinet Ministers would listen as readily to my suggestions, and I congratulate the Ministers concerned on producing such an important part of the citizens charter initiative.

I was interested in one comment made by the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster when he introduced the White Paper yesterday. He said : "more than 90 per cent. of the 150 or so initial commitments" I find it slightly odd that he should talk about "150 or so" commitments rather than a precise number. The right hon. Gentleman said :

"more than 90 per cent. of the 150 or so initial commitments in the citizens charter White Paper have been met or are in hand".--[ Official Report, 25 November 1992 ; Vol. 214, c. 869.]

I ask the right hon. Gentleman how many commitments have been met and how many are in hand. I would gladly give way now if he wished to give me the information--or perhaps the question will be answered by the Minister who sums up.

I ask that question because I carried out my own survey, if that is how it should be described, by asking parliamentary questions in the summer, on the first anniversary of the publication of the citizens charter. I wanted to find out how many of the 10 key promises which the Prime Minister made in introducing the charter to Paliament on 22 July 1991 had been fulfilled. I found that only one had clearly been achieved one year after the

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