DTI part of “bloated bureaucracy”, says Letwin
The Shadow Chancellor has branded the Department for Trade and Industry (DTI) part of a “bloated bureaucracy” and pledged that a Conservative government would cut £750 million and 4000 jobs from the Department’s budget.
Unveiling the plans, which form the latest plank of the Conservatives’ proposals to “slim down fat government”, Mr Letwin said: “We need to change the entire culture of Whitehall.”
He told reporters that: “The DTI is all too typical of the bloated bureaucracy of Labour has created. Instead of helping business to flourish, it all too often stifles free enterprise.”
The savings and job losses would be made through removing 3400 civil servants from DTI headquarters, performing a “keep or kill” of its quangos, reforming business support programmes, and ending its enhanced early retirement scheme.
Mr Letwin claimed that UK business has been hampered by a Government culture that favoured over-regulation, and argued cutting back on government would increase economic growth and energise the job market.
He was disparaging of what he called the “Euro-sclerotic” economies on the Continent, and of Labour’s policy of “gold-plating” European Union regulations, a practice he said the Conservatives would end.
However, the Shadow Chancellor rejected the Liberal Democrats’ call for the complete abolition of the DTI. “There is a clear need for a department that deals with trade, but it needs to be focussed,” he said.
He insisted there would be no sackings, and the voluntary redundancies would be funded by selling off assets that the department would no longer need after it had been slimmed down, including various headquarter buildings in Whitehall.
Asked how he would deal with likely protests from unions, Mr Letwin said the absence of forced sackings should alleviate concerns, as should a buoyant job market.
He refused to comment on whether a Conservative government would have a trade and industry secretary in Cabinet, saying that would be for leader Michael Howard to decide. But he added: “I am absolutely convinced that we will want to see a very powerful voice for business within the Cabinet.”
Fleshing out the policy, trade spokesman Stephen O’Brien said that under the Conservatives the DTI would concentrate on reducing regulation and improving competition instead of burdening businesses with red tape.
“We want to see a focussed DTI that champions British business, not hangs like a millstone around its neck,” he said.
“The department should be concentrating on its core functions of deregulating, providing information, enabling access to overseas markets and people, maintaining competitive marketplaces and defending the interests of British business.”
Asked why the Conservatives proposed that the Small Business Service would be reabsorbed into the DTI, Mr O’Brien claimed it existed largely because of political expediency – as an overt sign of the Government’s commitment to small business.
In reality, however, small businesses by and large required the same support as other businesses, and reabsorbing the SBS would ensure they had access to the full range of services. Specific needs of small businesses – notably early financing – would be retained, he added.
