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Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills Order 2009

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Garden of Frognal, for her contribution to the debate, and I share in her frustration that on many of the clear questions she posed to the noble Lord the First Secretary of State, we still await an answer. To dismiss in particular one of her questions—that on what has been the real cost of setting up the department—by confining it to the cost of signage, misses the point. Just as we eventually got the figure of £9 million out of the wasted cost of setting up the previous exercise, we await with great interest to learn what is the real cost of this one. I would say this to the First Secretary of State: I join him in his tribute to the skill and experience of his staff in the new department. It is not their fault that the Government keep chopping and changing departments. As my right honourable friend Kenneth Clarke and I and our team have said on several occasions, we pay tribute to the experience and skill of the staff. It was good to hear the First Secretary of State identify his support for his staff as well. That gives me an opportunity to stress that my criticism is of the First Secretary of State and his ministerial team, along with his predecessors in this Labour Government. In many ways, skilled and experienced civil servants look to Ministers for decisions. Sadly, out of this Government we have probably had more reviews than most West End musicals because things are reviewed time after time. My noble friend Lord Onslow pointed out that we have been waiting for a decision on nuclear energy for as long as I can recall, indeed since this Government first came into office. For the First Secretary of State to dismiss it and say that they have not wasted any time at all puts a new definition on time which, I suppose—as I pay tribute to him as perhaps the first time lord on modern earth—makes him right to seize this opportunity. There are key questions he has not answered, and perhaps he might write to the noble Baroness and I—not communicate by mobile telephone but in a letter that he might also place in the Library. And could he possibly, at last, answer this question: what on earth has happened to the Postal Services Bill? I have asked him about it on many occasions and I am still awaiting his answer. Why was it not in the gracious Speech, why does he not bring it forward now, or is he still being blocked by his ministerial colleagues? Does he not owe it to this House, which spent so much time and energy on improving the Bill? Indeed, he paid tribute to this Chamber for having improved the Bill dramatically. The noble Lord first nods his head and now shakes it, which is an indication of the ambivalence of this Government and their inability to make decisions. I should also say that he has not responded to my questions about £340 million-worth of cuts, which the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, and now the noble Baroness, Lady Garden, and I along with several other noble Lords have asked about. Where are these £340 million-worth of cuts going to bite? For example, how is the First Secretary of State going to deal with the important knowledge-based economy? He has failed to touch on all the questions asked about the falling numbers in university places, for example. In many ways, this is a timely debate because we are trying to work out what benefit the reorganisation of departments has brought. The Explanatory Memorandum is explicit. Under the heading "Impact", it states: ""The impact on business … is foreseen to be nil … The impact on the public sector is likely to be negligible"." This debate is about the purpose of the reorganisation. We are still asking all the questions. We will continue to ask all the questions, including the one that I know the First Secretary of State feels strongly about, because we shared the frustration of young people when we were involved in the administration of the British Youth Council together in the 1970s: how is this going to help to reverse the growing tide of youth unemployment? That is one of the biggest questions of all, but it still lies unanswered. In the mean time, I beg leave to withdraw the Motion. Motion withdrawn.