§ 9. Mr. CoeTo ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will make a statement about the extension of compulsory competitive tendering.
§ Mr. BaldryMy Department is currently consulting local authorities and other interested parties on detailed proposals for extending CCT to local authority security work, vehicle management, management of on-street parking and legal services. We will begin consulting on other white collar services in the course of this year. I anticipate that legislation will take effect in a phased programme beginning in April 1995.
§ Mr. CoeI am grateful for my hon. Friend's response. He spoke of the solid benefits of compulsory competitive tendering. Is he also aware of the hidden benefits to a local authority department that chooses to bid for a service: perhaps for the first time it has to look afresh and self-critically at the costs and true resources of that department, to the benefit not only of the smooth running of the department but of the charge payer?
§ Mr. BaldryYes, competitive tendering has brought substantial benefits. Independent research has shown that it has reduced costs on average by 7 per cent. and on some services by up to 20 per cent. Those savings have been made to the benefit of local taxpayers and can be applied to other services in the local authority area. In addition, competitive tendering has improved contract specification, standards have risen, staff morale has improved and scrutiny has improved. All those have been brought about by competitive tendering.
§ Mr. DenhamIs the Minister aware of the great contribution to the quality of the built environment made by local authority architects' departments? Last week, for example, I attended a meeting with the Royal Institute of British Architects in Hampshire to celebrate a Hampshire school winning the national RIBA award for public design 884 and on Friday I attended the opening of the Tauntons college in Southampton, the design of which was completed by local authority architects.
Is not the Minister aware that the extension of CCT threatens to undermine the enormous contribution that local authority architects have made to the quality of the built environment and that many of our cities, towns and villages will be despoiled by cheap off-the-shelf design in place of the high-quality public architecture that we have enjoyed in recent years?
§ Mr. BaldryEven by the Labour party's terms, I can see no possible ideological reason why architecture has to be designed in-house. A few of us could think without too much difficulty of some fairly horrific examples of 1960s and 1970s buildings by municipal architects.
§ Mr. OppenheimWill my hon. Friend, in his customary big-hearted way, extend warm congratulations to Geoff Lennox, who was a committee chairman and later a senior officer at Derbyshire county council and dedicated his career firmly to fighting against contracting out local services—
§ Mr. SkinnerHe was never any good.
§ Mr. OppenheimHe was a big buddy of yours.
§ Mr. SkinnerHe was not.
§ Mr. Oppenheim—but who recently took a job on a large salary with a private sector company dedicated to selling contracted-out services to local government institutions? Does this show that at least parts of the Labour party are making progress, or is it just the usual mixture of hypocrisy and opportunism?
§ Mr. BaldryMy hon. Friend is absolutely right. A number of people in the Labour movement are seeing the light. My hon. Friend mentioned one; let me mention another. At a recent meeting of the Association of Direct Labour Organisations, Jack Dromey, the national secretary of the Transport and General Workers Union, warned that there could be no return to the 1970s, when, he acknowledged, the interests of producers had dominated those of customers. He said:
The managers, councillors and unions made arrangements which suited them, not the community as a whole. I can't put forward any ideological reasons why refuse collection has to be done in-house.As usual, the parliamentary Labour party is somewhat behind the rest of the Labour movement.
§ Mr. PikeWill not the Minister halt the extension of CCT to housing management, recognising the failure last week in Tory-controlled Wandsworth to introduce and privatise the management of some 8,000 houses in Putney and Battersea? Does he not recognise that that failed and abortive exercise has cost the tenants and residents there some £750,000 in trying to meet Tory policy?
§ Mr. BaldryThere is absolutely no reason why competitive tendering should not also extend to housing management. As to the hon. Gentleman's point about privatising, most of it is extending to council tenants a considerable choice, to which the Labour party seems opposed.
§ Mr. SkinnerOn a point of order, Madam Speaker.
§ Madam SpeakerOrder. Points of order come after Question Time, as the hon. Gentleman knows.
§ Sir Paul BeresfordDoes my hon. Friend agree that the whole point of competitive tendering is that it allows the in-house team to prove its ability, if it has it? Significantly, it has been proved in Tory boroughs, whereas Labour boroughs consistently fail, when they do not fudge the figures.
§ Mr. BaldryLocal authorities will increasingly have to demonstrate that they are giving good quality to local people for the vast sums of money that they spend. One of the best ways that local authorities can demonstrate that is to expose their services to competitive tendering. I find it amazing that the Labour party still has difficulty with that concept.