PC 5: Appointments

[Sir Dylan Macmillan]

If the Government want to have a discussion about the Constitution then I will be happy to discuss a great many topics, including separation of powers and creating a majority-elected Upper Chamber in accordance with the Conservative Party's Manifesto. What I am not prepared to compromise on is the belief I hold that public sector appointments should be free of the political bargaining that they have been subject to over the last decade, most notably with Mr Mandelson this and last year, and my belief that corrupt individuals should be banned from serving at any level of elected office for a period of time that the courts deem to be appropriate. If these proposals are too radical for the Government then that is a shame, but I would hope that they will be able to work across party lines to build these proposals into law whatever the outcome of the division on the matter.

[John Baker]

I like how someone Jack thinks the Opposition has spun around in circles, when we are the ones debating the problem, and their never ending obsession with the circumstances around the bill. I've called on the Government to try and help reform the system. However, clearly they are happy to figure out all the reasons to oppose this legislation instead of the text of the bill itself. If the Labour Party, is happy to instead act like the opposition, while the Conservative Party does the work of the British people, then so be it. Leaving the Appointments system as is to allow for a commission to get a report out in a few years, is not in the interests of the British people. Why leave the system broken during that time. No member of the Labour party has answered that yet. I've now asked several times to the Labour Party, why leave the system broken, while the commission works on a report? Can't we try to fix the system while the commission is working on a report? Every issue can't be spent having years and years of focus testing and spin preparation. Sometimes you have to attempt to fix a problem while the experts are giving you a more long term solution.

[Will Frost]

Mr. Baker is right. If New Labour was as interested in fixing the problem as they are finding ways to insult the Conservatives, the Commissioner for Public Affairs would have been given the autonomy she needed years ago and Mr. Mandelson wouldn't have been allowed anywhere near the Dome.

[CWard]

“ Sometimes you have to attempt to fix a problem while the experts are giving you a more long term solution.”



If this isn’t the long term solution the problem isn’t getting fixed and it’s a bad bill. I’m not going to vote in favour of a bad bill that isn’t a long term solution

[John Baker]

So instead you happy to leave a problem broken? My argument has been consistent. We need to do something now, while the inquiry is getting it's report. Tell me Mr. Ward how only an inquiry is going to be the long term fix? Tell me why you are happy to leave the pipe broken and leaking until the plumber gets here? That's the core problem with Labour's argument, they don't want to address the problems or recognize the actual text of the bill. They simply want to find some secondary excuse to vote against the bill. Labour is clearly happy leaving the appointments system as is for the time being. That's not how you run a government. You have to deal with problems both in the short term and in the long term. You have to be willing to propose legislation and solutions that address the short term. The Labour party is happy to do the bare minimum on this issue but also somehow complain that our solution doesn't completely fix the problem, I'm sorry you should make sure you have a comprehensive solution before labeling the oppositions solution as a bad bill because it doesn't fix the problem in the long term. The Labour Party can pretend to dislike the bill all day long, but there's a reason they are scrounging for every excuse in the book other than merit to justify not voting for this bill.

[CWard]

An inquiry tells us how broken the pipe is. Is it clogged, rusted, burst, frozen, is there too much pressure, not enough? Were the seals not fitted properly or is it corrosion? These all have different fixes. Now if it’s just a clog or a small leak my family trusts me to get my tools out and take a look. But if it’s a big problem, I know my limits. I call a plumber to look at it to tell me what the problem is and how to fix it. That’s what a smart person does, that’s what a good government does. They ask experts to diagnose problems and find good long term solutions that will fix the actual problem.

The issue with this bill is that it doesn’t diagnose. It pretends to know the source of the issue without calling the plumber. It then starts wrenching away on pipes without knowing what experts have said and advised and pretends the pipes are fixed, meanwhile it’s causing more issues with red tape and bad devolution practices. It causes more problems than it aims to fix.

[Astrid Goldman]

I like my legislation as I like my men; strongly-built and well-rounded. This Bill is weak and half-baked. More Bill Shatner than Bill Clinton.

I'm a mathematician at heart, I like facts and figures rather than puffed-up chest-beating. A full report must be commissioned into the matter of public appointments, by experts I add, not trigger-happy egotists like Bill Croft. Once the inquiry has reported, the Government should take the advice and act appropriately. What we have here is legislation by panic.

The public want a Parliament that is focused on helping people; introducing a minimum wage, properly funding our NHS, improving schools. If a Bill isn't built on facts, it's built solely on good intentions and happy thoughts, and that tells us all we need to know about how the Tories operate.

[Dame Evelyn Redgrave]

During the motion debate on Peter Mandelson, I called for wider, cross-party proposals on reforming the process of public appointments. I’m therefore proud that the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats have worked together since the vote to produce the Public Appointments Comprehensive Reform Act that will immediately offer improvement by strengthening the Office of the Commissioner for Public Appointments and securing the independence of that office.

It will also legislate for an independent inquiry, as was a key pledge of the Prime Minister during her leadership campaign, and therefore together these measures will mark a crucial beginning in reforming the public appointments system. An inquiry can tell us many things but frankly, in answer to some from Labour, we do not need an inquiry to tell us that strengthening the Commissioner for Public Appointments is a necessary step. We know this already.

Labour MPs, including the Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister, term this cross-party effort for reform as a “backroom deal” or merely dismiss it, offering little by the way of constructive solution. Many of their colleagues chose to defy the will of Tony Blair by voting against Peter Mandelson before and so I call upon the Cabinet to show the backbone of their SCG MPs by seriously and constructively working for comprehensive reform.

[Sir James McCrimmon]

Labour's calls for an inquiry are good, and I agree there needs to be one - that's why it's in the bill! But we cannot allow the status quo that led up to this to remain for the forseeable future. This bill isn't the perfect solution, but it is a patch on the gaping holes in our system. We can't just go out and buy a new pair of pants. While we wait, let's do the obvious thing and patch it up.

[John Baker]

The difference between the Government's position and our position can be effectively stated like this: you are at home and your dishwasher broke, well you could wait to buy a new dishwasher until next week, and not do the dishes till then. That's the New Labour's policy, do nothing now because we plan on fixing it later. However, you still have dirty dishes, the Conservative and Liberal Democrats have decided that no, we'll do the dishes in the meantime and go and get the dishwasher next week. The long term solutions are the same, the difference is in the policies are what do in the meantime, to leave the system broken or try and fix it. New Labour wants things to remain the same, making no changes to the system for what could be years before the inquiry has published a report, I say that's too long to let dishes pile up in the sink. We have to make meaningful changes now. Otherwise nothing changes, and we still have the same corruption and cronyism that we had last week.