Results 1-20 of 2,508 for in the 'Commons debates' OR in the 'Westminster Hall debates' OR in the 'Lords debates' OR in the 'Northern Ireland Assembly debates' speaker:Oliver Letwin

Oral Answers to Questions — Cabinet Office: Statutory Register of Lobbyists (7 November 2012)

Oliver Letwin: The plans for developing a response to the Select Committee’s report and other evidence are still under way, and we have not issued guidance to Departments yet on a timetable. However, I rather think that we will do it quicker than the 13 years in which the previous Administration failed to introduce any systematic approach to lobbying.

Oral Answers to Questions — Cabinet Office: Statutory Register of Lobbyists (7 November 2012)

Oliver Letwin: I think I can say that I disagree with every part of the right hon. Gentleman’s question. He was a distinguished Minister in the previous Government and will be perfectly aware of these things. The special adviser in question made a full declaration of what she was doing to the permanent secretary and the Cabinet Office. It is also on the parliamentary register, because she is a special...

Oral Answers to Questions — Cabinet Office: Statutory Register of Lobbyists (7 November 2012)

Oliver Letwin: My hon. Friend makes a very good point. The Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General is already taking steps to limit the extent of the public payroll and the taxpayer supporting people engaged in trade union activity inside the civil service. My hon. Friend also raises a wider point. Part of the evidence from the Select Committee and others in response to our proposals on the...

Oral Answers to Questions — Cabinet Office: Statutory Register of Lobbyists (7 November 2012)

Oliver Letwin: The short answer is neither. The reason the hon. Gentleman’s party failed to move on this for 13 years is that it is a genuinely complicated issue. We issued proposals not too long ago and we believe in evidence-based policy making rather than policy-based evidence making. We are therefore paying serious attention to the Select Committee of this House and to others and I would have...

Oral Answers to Questions — Cabinet Office: Statutory Register of Lobbyists (7 November 2012)

Oliver Letwin: My hon. Friend is absolutely right that there is a big difference. We must consider every measure we can to ensure that there is full transparency. In this case, there was transparency—the information can be seen on the register of the House and was fully reported to the permanent secretary and the Cabinet Office.

Oral Answers to Questions — Cabinet Office: Apprentices (7 November 2012)

Oliver Letwin: I am conscious of the enormous work that my hon. Friend has done to promote apprenticeships. I believe that he recently launched the apprentice card, which is a huge innovation, and I think that he is the first ever Member of Parliament to have a parliamentary apprentice. The whole House owes him gratitude for that. We do not hold figures for the total number of apprenticeships across the...

Oral Answers to Questions — Cabinet Office: Apprentices (7 November 2012)

Oliver Letwin: My hon. Friend is right that the DWP has managed to get almost 2,000 apprentices into its supply chain through its procurement practices. The Cabinet Office fully supports such schemes where they are appropriate and consistent with providing value for money. We encourage Departments to take forward proposals that are consistent with providing value for money.

Oral Answers to Questions — Cabinet Office: Apprentices (7 November 2012)

Oliver Letwin: We are totally in favour of apprenticeships and of promoting them. My right hon. Friend the Member for Welwyn Hatfield (Grant Shapps) was saying —my right hon. Friend the Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General has repeated this—that we need to ensure that we get value for taxpayers’ money and do not create a set of rules that militate against that. Within...

Oral Answers to Questions — Cabinet Office: Lobbying White Paper (5 September 2012)

Oliver Letwin: The Deputy Prime Minister has recused himself from any involvement with the question of lobbying due to a possible conflict of interest with his wife’s activities, and therefore I have not had any discussions with him whatsoever about this subject.

Oral Answers to Questions — Cabinet Office: Lobbying White Paper (5 September 2012)

Oliver Letwin: Yes, I will explain why we are where we are. The hon. Lady would, I am sure, share my view that it is important when issuing a consultation to pay some attention to the responses received. When we issued the consultation with a set of proposals for a statutory register, an enormous number of responses were received. We are going through them, considering them extremely carefully. The Select...

Oral Answers to Questions — Cabinet Office: Lobbying White Paper (5 September 2012)

Oliver Letwin: My hon. Friend makes an important observation. One issue that came up in the course of the consultation, which many consultees and indeed the Select Committee commented on, is the question of scope. The Government’s initial proposals did not include any reference to lobbyists that were “in house”—the ones to which my hon. Friend refers—whether they be charities,...

Oral Answers to Questions — Cabinet Office: Lobbying White Paper (5 September 2012)

Oliver Letwin: I certainly do not want to get into any partisan repartee across the Dispatch Box on a matter that ought to command considerable cross-party agreement and support. I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for the remarks he has made on the record in the past about supporting the principle of regulating lobbying. I should, however, point out that his party was in government for a very long period...

Oral Answers to Questions — Cabinet Office: Codes of Conduct (5 September 2012)

Oliver Letwin: The ministerial code and civil service code set out the standards of conduct expected of Ministers and civil servants. They are published for the House and were last published in May 2010.

Oral Answers to Questions — Cabinet Office: Codes of Conduct (5 September 2012)

Oliver Letwin: The hon. Gentleman asks an important question. Clause 1 of the ministerial code makes it abundantly clear that no Minister can hide behind anything as “Ministers have a duty to Parliament to account, and to be held to account, for the policies, decisions and actions of their departments and agencies”. My right hon. Friend the Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General...

Oral Answers to Questions — Cabinet Office: Codes of Conduct (5 September 2012)

Oliver Letwin: Yes, I entirely agree with my hon. Friend. Indeed, that system has served us well and is, I believe, accepted by the independent adviser on ministers interests.

Oral Answers to Questions — Cabinet Office: Civil Service (21 March 2012)

Oliver Letwin: Our aim is to maintain the superb quality of our civil service while reducing its quantity. Under this Government the civil service headcount has come down from 487,000 to 435,000, which is smaller than it has been at any time since the second world war. Of course, this reduction helps to reduce the deficit, but it is also a natural consequence of our intention to reduce bureaucracy, improve...

Oral Answers to Questions — Cabinet Office: Civil Service (21 March 2012)

Oliver Letwin: The right hon. Gentleman has a distinguished career, which includes at one time being Parliamentary Private Secretary to Lord Kinnock, so presumably he has some experience of figures that go completely wonky, and the ones he is presenting give a very wonky picture. What the NAO report actually revealed is that the cost to the Departments was £600 million, the payback to the taxpayer was...

Oral Answers to Questions — Cabinet Office: Civil Service (21 March 2012)

Oliver Letwin: The hon. Lady will be aware that, as I mentioned in my first answer, there has been a massive reduction in the headcount of the civil service as a whole. Of course there have been particular cases in which particular people needed to be hired, but the broad effort we have been making has brought down the deficit and increased dramatically the efficiency of the civil service.

Oral Answers to Questions — Cabinet Office: Civil Service (21 March 2012)

Oliver Letwin: My hon. Friend, the Chairman of the Public Administration Committee, is absolutely right. My right hon. Friend the Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General and I have had meetings with the Prime Minister, the head of the civil service and the Cabinet Secretary, and under the aegis of those two very senior officials the review to which my hon. Friend refers is now being carried...

Oral Answers to Questions — Cabinet Office: Civil Service (21 March 2012)

Oliver Letwin: I am afraid that some wildly inaccurate reports have been floating around, but it is certainly true that the review that the Cabinet Secretary and the head of the civil service are leading on, which I mentioned in my previous answer, is looking right across the board to try to work out what a modern civil service ought to look like, bearing in mind all the technology and other advantages we...