Local Government Services

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 11:29 am on 16 April 1993.

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Photo of Hugh Bayley Hugh Bayley , City of York 11:29, 16 April 1993

All I can say is that the Minister is a better politician than a statistician. I am comparing across all the bands. The Minister is selecting certain groups of the population and comparing them. I am comparing across the board. The figure that matters is the figure that people pay, and that is the figure I am using.

The choice is not only between cheap and expensive services—although services cost less in Labour areas—but between better and worse services. As I have shown in my examples, people receive better services in Labour county councils such as Cleveland and Humberside. Those councils provide nursery education for a greater proportion of the population. Humberside provides a home help service free of charge for a greater proportion of the population.

How can the trick be achieved? Labour authorities provide better services at lower cost. The answer is obvious. Anyone who has been in business as I have—I set up and run my own business—knows the answer: it is achieved by being more efficient. The figures prove that Labour authorities are more efficient, because they provide better services at less cost.

Conservative Members talk about the need for a partnership between the private and public sectors, because they believe that private sector provision will always be more efficient. They should look to Labour authorities, some of which have resisted compulsory competitive tendering yet have produced better services at less cost than Conservative authorities that have fallen head over heels for CCT.

If Conservative Members are looking for efficiency, they should tell their colleagues in Conservative-led local authorities to look at the efficiency record of Labour-led local authorities, as well as looking at the private sector. Conservative councillors have a lot to learn from better-run Labour local authorities, and they should learn those lessons if they are serious about improving the services to people in their areas.