Consultants And Consulting The People

EDM number 1803 in 2006-07, proposed by Dai Davies on 28/06/2007.

That this House notes that the Prime Minister said in his acceptance speech when elected as Labour party Leader in Manchester on 24th June 2007 that he had visited every part of Britain and listened to and learned from the British people; supports his views that `only by a new government building trust by involving the British people will we as a country meet the new challenges of 2007 and beyond'; further notes that the Prime Minister said in his first speech on the steps of 10 Downing Street as Prime Minister on 27th June 2007 that as Prime Minister he would `continue to listen and learn from the British people'; further notes the contrasts between this belief and wisdom and knowledge of the British people and the decision of the Government to spend huge sums of public money on private consultants to inform its policy-making, including, according to figures published on 19th June 2007 by the Committee of Public Accounts, £2,800,000,000 in 2005-06 alone; believes that the British public, particularly those who work in key sectors such as nursing, firefighters, the police and teachers plus groups such as Citizens Advice, Help the Aged, and trade unions, know more about public need, their place of work and job structure than private consultants; and calls upon the Government to consult the people rather than spend further fortunes of taxpayers' money on overblown and under-informed consultants.

This motion has been signed by a total of 26 MPs.