'U-turn' on quango cull bill, says Unite

2 March 2011

'A significant U-turn' has been conceded by the government in its bid to abolish quangos without full parliamentary scrutiny, Unite, the largest union in the country, said today (Wednesday, 2 March).

A crucial schedule in the Public Bodies (Reform) Bill has been removed by the House of Lords which means that quangos can't be abolished 'at a ministerial whim, with the flourish of their cost-cutting pen'.

However, the nearly 200 organisations named in the bill are still in line to be axed – but, in future, a minister won't be able to use a statutory instrument to abolish quangos not mentioned in the current legislation.

Unite National Officer Rachael Maskell said: 'If Schedule 7 had not been struck out by the peers, a minister could have stood up in the House and announced, without further ado, that a public body was to be abolished. Government by ministerial whim and flourish of their cost-cutting pen is not good government.'

'The removal of this schedule will mean that no minister now has this power to abuse the democratic process. Ministers will need to go through full parliamentary scrutiny first, which is what should be expected in a democracy.'

'We clearly still have a long way to go in getting this government to think more cleverly about the jobs public bodies do, but this is a definitely a U-turn? and a significant victory for common sense.'

This would give greater protection to such bodies as the Health and Safety Executive (HSE).

Unite has argued that the coalition has adopted a 'slash and burn' ideology to public bodies that do an immense amount of good work as economic generators, defenders of consumer and legal rights, environmental champions, and guardians of standards in public life.

Rachael Maskell said: 'The government has lumped all the quangos under threat, such as the UK Film Council which funded The King's Speech, into a basket marked 'Saving money at any cost', when we all know that life is more complex than that.'

'This bill is gradually crumbling as public bodies are being removed from this legislation. There can only be a certain number of U-turns before common sense shows that this legislation was badly drafted with little thought.'

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