House of Commons
Monday 13 May 1996
The House met at half-past Two o'clock
PRAYERS
[Madam Speaker in the Chair]
Oral Answers to Questions
DUCHY OF LANCASTER
Non-departmental Public Bodies
1. Mr. William O'Brien: To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster what plans he has to make non-departmental bodies more accountable to the House; and if he will make a statement. [27664]
The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Mr. Roger Freeman): The Government are committed to improving the accountability of non-departmental public bodies. We welcomed the recommendations in the first report of the Committee on Standards in Public Life, and have recently published a consultative paper on propriety and accountability issues in public bodies.
Mr. O'Brien: Will the Chancellor address the vexed question of Members of Parliament who write to Ministers and find that their questions are shuttled off to some agency or other body? Many of those questions relate to the health, welfare and destinies of our constituents. Will the right hon. Gentleman ensure that Ministers who are responsible for their Departments answer such questions? Will he also ensure that non-departmental bodies are more open and democratic, and serve members of the community as they wish to be served?
Mr. Freeman: I am sure that all hon. Members have found the experiment involving chief executives of agencies answering questions of fact helpful. I well understand that one or two hon. Members might not approve of the practice, and it is open to them to write directly to Ministers and to ask for replies that can be made public in due course. I shall, however, bear in mind what the hon. Gentleman has said when we review the practice.
Dr. Spink: Does my right hon. Friend agree that it is absurd to refer to the governing bodies of grant-maintained schools as quangos? Are not those bodies staffed by dedicated local people who give of the wealth and breadth of their experience? Surely they should not be made more directly accountable to the House; they do an excellent job now--and they would no doubt have a view about the withdrawal of child benefit from some of their students by the Labour party.
Mr. Freeman: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for paying tribute to the work of not only grant-maintained school governing bodies but, by implication, national health service trusts and other bodies that draw on volunteers from the private sector who give their time freely and, in most cases, without payment. Let me record the Government's gratitude to all who serve on such bodies.
Mr. Derek Foster: Is not the real problem about quangos the fact that they have become the unelected, unaccountable and secretive state? As the right hon. Gentleman's party has been swept from office in local government, has it not transferred functions to unelected quangos and packed them with its placemen and women, and are not those bodies--health authorities, for example--totally unaccountable to the communities that they serve? Why does the Chancellor not apply his mind to that problem?
Mr. Freeman: I do not accept the right hon. Gentleman's analysis, and his suggestion that such bodies are in some way unaccountable to their local communities. The Conservative party has argued, and continues to argue successfully, that they are drawn from--and therefore represent, in a very real sense, the aspirations and needs of--their local communities.
Mr. John Marshall: Is my right hon. Friend aware that one of the first schools to become grant-maintained was Hendon school, in my constituency, which is now over-subscribed rather than under-subscribed? Is he also aware that, while Labour Members may attack non-departmental bodies in the House, they are happy to send their children to grant-maintained schools? That includes the Leader of the Opposition.
Mr. Freeman: I note what my hon. Friend says. We have reduced the number of non-departmental public bodies by 43 per cent. since 1979--from 2,167 to 1,227 at the end of 1995. That excludes grant-maintained schools and national health service trusts, but it reflects a welcome downward trend.
Government Policy Co-ordination
2. Mr. Simon Hughes: To ask the Deputy Prime Minister what recent review he has conducted of the co-ordination of Government policy; and what conclusions he has reached. [27665]
The Deputy Prime Minister (Mr. Michael Heseltine): The co-ordination of Government policy is kept under constant review. I have no proposals to change present arrangements.
Mr. Hughes: The first part of that answer might be a jolly good thing, because I was going to ask the Deputy Prime Minister whether there had been a particular review since the local government elections. If the governing party loses half the seats that it is defending, if it is left with about a dozen councils in England, Scotland and Wales, if it has the fewest local government seats that it has had since, I think, the last war and if it is now the third party in local government, is there not something to review and, if so, what is the result of the Government's evaluation of an abysmal local election performance?
The Deputy Prime Minister: I should have thought that the hon. Gentleman would remember that, at the last election, his party lost every by-election seat that it had won and that he would have learnt a lesson from that: one does not take short-term measures when one is fighting a general election campaign, which will be determined in real circumstances in a year's time, when the Tories will win.
Mr. Jessel: On Government policy on the national lottery and its provision for good causes, is my right hon. Friend aware that the Charities Aid Foundation has announced--if I heard my car radio right about half an hour ago--that there has been no reduction in the general provision of money for charities by the public as a result of the national lottery, and that that is apart from the money thrown up for charities by the national lottery, which is a tremendous national achievement and has conferred terrific benefit?
The Deputy Prime Minister: My hon. Friend is right to draw the House's attention to that exciting news, which builds on the considerable increase in charitable giving that other Government measures have already achieved. The present lottery additionality is welcomed by many causes.
Mr. Prescott: Does the Deputy Prime Minister acknowledge the disarray in the presentation of Government policy on British beef, where the Secretary of State for Health accused the public, and not the cows, of being mad? Does the Deputy Prime Minister therefore agree with the Foreign Secretary's assessment in his leaked letter to the Prime Minister that the Government suffer from poor co-ordination of policy? Does the Deputy Prime Minister accept any responsibility for that?
The Deputy Prime Minister: The whole House knows that this is one of the most difficult issues that any Government have faced in a long time; trying to make party points out of it serves no purpose. The Government's policy is clear: we are, where we can, helping the farming community and we are dealing with the issues in world forums and in the world political scene, wherever relevant. We must persuade other people in sovereign countries to change their minds. We will not do so by belittling our effort on a party political basis.
Mr. Wilkinson: Reverting to the vexed issue of the European Union's ban on British beef exports and the difference--the apparent difference, of course--in the governmental approach to it between acquiescence and possible retaliation, will my right hon. Friend and Her Majesty's Government concentrate on the EU's ban on British beef exports to non-EU countries as that is clearly beyond the EU's jurisdiction? Will my right hon. Friend make it clear that, if that aspect of the ban persists, Her Majesty's Government will be prepared to retaliate?
The Deputy Prime Minister: I think that my hon. Friend would want to bear in mind the fact that many of those countries introduced a ban of their own and that a significant number of them did so long before the European Union. This is an international issue; it is now a European issue. The beef market in many European countries is suffering more than this country's beef
market. This stretching, difficult political issue can be dealt with only by negotiation, however aggravated and difficult it undoubtedly is.Government Policy (Europe)
6. Mr. MacShane: To ask the Deputy Prime Minister what new initiatives he is planning to promote Government policy on Europe. [27669]
The Deputy Prime Minister: The Government have recently published a very clear statement of their policy on Europe in the White Paper on the intergovernmental conference, "A Partnership of Nations". I commend it to the hon. Member.
Mr. MacShane: The tiredness of that reply and the feebleness of the previous one show exactly the extent to which the Deputy Prime Minister no longer puts real energy behind any of the Government's policies. His party is now a sick joke over Europe. As a strong European and a man who has given many years of service to his party, does he not feel that the time may have come to retire and enjoy a few years of peace, leaving the party fight to the rabble behind him?
The Deputy Prime Minister: No.
Mr. Anthony Coombs: As the Labour party so cravenly does not want to be isolated on Europe, and as the Liberal Democrats want a European federal state, will my right hon. Friend confirm that the Conservative party is the only one that wants to see the competencies of the European Union repatriated to this country in the forthcoming intergovernmental conference?
The Deputy Prime Minister: My hon. Friend gives me the opportunity to state quite clearly that the real difference between the Government and the Opposition side is that we wish to have a Europe based on the nation state whereas they wish to have a Europe to which they are prepared to move critical powers, the effect of which would be to undermine the competitiveness of the British economy. Nowhere is that more clear than in their willingness to accept the social chapter and the minimum wage, the effect of which would be to deter investment in this country and to create more unemployment than is in any way justified. My authority for that last statement is the right hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull, East (Mr. Prescott), who has made it absolutely clear that the minimum wage, "as any fool knows", to quote his words, will cause a loss of jobs.
Mr. Beith: Will the Deputy Prime Minister clarify whether the Government see the European Court of Justice as a necessary body to which the Government must have recourse if other European countries take action that distorts markets or prevents free competition, as in the case of beef, or as an unwelcome intrusion into the private affairs of member states? Surely it has to be one or the other.
The Deputy Prime Minister: No, it does not have to be one or the other at all. There cannot be a single market without rules and there cannot be rules without someone to enforce them. Therefore, there has to be a European
Court of Justice. In the Government's view, that does not mean that all its decisions are right, or that some of its powers cannot be improved. As we propose in the White Paper, we intend to address those issues and we shall certainly do so at the intergovernmental conference.
Mr. Caborn: Will the Deputy Prime Minister tell the House how he intends to promote the new policy on competitiveness that was outlined by the President of the Board of Trade in a speech last week? It cuts across the two White Papers on competitiveness and has left them in total disarray. How will the right hon. Gentleman communicate that?
The Deputy Prime Minister: If I had a problem of that sort I would address it, but as there is no such problem I have not had to put my mind to it.
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