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Public Bodies Reform

It is very good to have such a consensual approach from the man who famously told the world on leaving government that there was no money left. There will be savings as a result of the process, and there need to be because the right hon. Gentleman was a prominent member of a Government who left office spending £4 for every £3 of revenue. They were having to borrow £1 out of every £4 just to keep the lights on, the teachers in the schools, the pensions being paid and the doctors and nurses in the hospitals. This Government have to clear up the mess that his Government shamefully left behind, and there will be savings from the process. ... We became used to the previous Labour Government bandying around large numbers in respect of the savings that they proposed to make, but we know that when the National Audit Office went around after those much vaunted efficiency exercises over which he and his colleagues presided, it found that in most cases they had not saved money at all. It was all about the optics and trying to make a point; it had nothing to do with reality. I am sorry to say that jobs will be lost as a result of this process, but, in order to clear up the fiscal mess that the right hon. Gentleman's Government left behind, that is sadly an inevitability. Savings will be made as a result of the exercise, but, as I said at the outset, it is not principally about saving money, although it will do so. It is principally about increasing accountability—the important presumption that when an activity is carried out by the state, and there is no pressing need to do so at arm's length from government, it should be carried out by someone who is accountable democratically, either a Minister who is accountable to this House and, through this House, to the public, or a local authority that is accountable to local residents. It is very good that the right hon. Gentleman agrees with our approach and thinks it sensible. He tried to claim credit for it himself, actually, so, as the various bodies that we have discussed today start to complain, as some will, and as some vested interests will with a very loud voice, I shall be able to tell them that our approach is a consensual one—that the Labour party wants to play its full part in responsibility for the whole exercise.