Local MP Presses Government on Accountability

Winchester MP Mark Oaten used a House of Commons business debate yesterday to press the Government further on its accountability to elected MP’s.

With Peter Mandelson appointed Secretary of State last autumn and sitting in the Lords, and many of the Business & Enterprise Department team shared with other Ministries there is only one Minister from six who works full time on the BERR portfolio in the Commons.

Having Secretary’s of State in the Lords is not uncommon but the ministerial team was always balanced to ensure proper accountability to elected Members of Parliament. The current situation is placing a huge strain on Commons business Ministers and results in less and less opportunity to effectively scrutinise government business decisions in the Commons.

Mark tabled EDM 2178 last year raising the matter and is a member of the Business & Enterprise Select Committee who commissioned a special report on the accountability of the Department recently.

That report offered a number of solutions to help improve accountability and commenting in the chamber yesterday on proposals to allow Lord Mandelson to speak in the Commons Mark said, “I am sure that there are all sorts of archaic reasons why we cannot do it, but now is not the time for old-fashioned, fuddy-duddy ideas; now is the time for the Government to demonstrate that they recognise and understand that there is a crisis”.

Mark also took the opportunity in yesterday’s debate to raise his concerns with some of the Governments steps to help business during the recession including:

• A lack of implementation of the various loan guarantee schemes the Government have introduced including very worrying stats released by the Federation of Small Businesses which shows banks are still not passing on lending. Where loans or other credit facilities are offered these often come at a high price and are certainly not uniform across the banking sector.
• Whilst applauding central Government Departments for sticking to their 10 day payment plan there is still a need for this to be passed down the supply chain and, most importantly, for local government agencies to pay their invoices far more promptly than they currently are.
• On procurement of government contracts Mark stressed the need to make tendering less bureaucratic and far more accessible to local SME’s to give them a fighting chance of winning public works contracts.

Mark Oaten commented:

“First and foremost in a time of incredibly hard economic times business needs to know that everything the Government does is properly scrutinised. We all want to ensure that government is held to account but right now, because of where the business Ministers are placed, this job is being made more difficult.

“There is genuine concern across all sides of the House that the business department needs to devote more time to parliamentary debate. I don’t care about old archaic rules which stop a Lords Minister addressing the Commons.

“Does a Winchester business care about that? No, they care about what options they have to get credit and that’s what we need to be able to find out for them.