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Stormont Estate (Northern Ireland) Order 2006

My Lords, I thank the Minister and the department for ensuring that the responses to the consultation on this issue have been published on the departmental website. That has been extremely useful in aiding our deliberations on this order today. However, after reading the responses to the consultation, we are very concerned that the Government are continuing to press ahead with the order. None of the responses supported the use of a PFI arrangement to fund a scheme of this type. There were several responses, including those from the FDA, a union which represents a great number of managers and professionals in the Civil Service, and NIPSA, which represents all non-industrial staff in the Northern Ireland Civil Service. Will the Minister assure us that the PFI option will actually provide value for money? It is estimated at £1 billion over the next 20-year period of the contract. That equates to a commitment of £50 million per year. Departments will have to fund that directly from existing departmental budgets to meet the rental costs for the buildings that are currently owned by the Civil service and the public. As with all PFI projects, the taxpayer is being asked to fund guaranteed profits for private sector companies. Why does the Minister believe that this scheme is the best option? Is the arrangement flexible enough? A PFI contract for the Stormont Estate will result in the NI Civil Service being required fully to occupy the office accommodation for the duration of the 20-year contract. Would that not prevent any movement of certain departments or offices outside of the Belfast area? Should not the Civil Service retain its own ability to manage accommodation requirements in the future? This PFI contract will mean the loss of any flexibility to do with relocation and transfer issues that may arise as a consequence of future reorganisations of departments under devolution. How can that be reconciled with the firm commitment that the Government have given under the review of public administration that equality and targeting social need—TSN—considerations will be applied to the future location and dispersal of all civil and public service jobs? Surely, tying the Civil Service to this PFI accommodation for 20 years directly contradicts that commitment. In the response from FDA, 64.3 per cent of its members felt that they had not been informed enough about the impact of the Workplace 2010 project. Does this not seriously undermine the project and the validity of the consultation that took place? The FDA further stated that when it asked members if they had been able to highlight concerns about the project within their own departments, almost 80 per cent of members felt that they had not been given the opportunity to do so. What does the Minister propose to do to ensure that those employees who are affected by this project are properly engaged with it? We on these Benches are unhappy about the order that is before us today. I urge the Government to think again and advise them not to bring the order forward in the other place.