Citizens Charter

HC Deb 09 May 1994 vol 243 cc19-20

39. Mr. Enright

To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster what assessment he has made of the results of introducing the citizens charter.

Mr. David Davis

As I told my hon. Friend the Member for City of Chester (Mr. Brandreth) earlier, the citizens charter second report is just such an assessment.

Mr. Enright

But does the Minister agree that the citizens charter is totally incapable of stopping Departments throwing away taxpayers' money? For example, how could it possibly get back the £200,000 that was lent to Unicorn Heritage plc and a gang of failed business men? How does it help that?

Mr. Davis

That is a disgraceful use of parliamentary questions. The "Competing for Quality" initiative, of which the charter is a part, achieves an enormous amount of improvement in value for money—as has already been said, £135 million gross in this year alone.