Douglas Carswell's Blog

Could we manage with one less government department?

It should be "wound up", Vince Cable once said of the department he now heads.  It "doesn't perform a function".

Back in 2005, Vince lambasted the department for creating unnecessary bureaucracy; "It has no real role anymore and only exists as a contact point for industry without delivering what industry what".

Since then, the department has changed its name.  And Vince, of course, having been offered a swanky ministerial role heading it, now thinks it is marvellous.

But the rest of us ought to ask if perhaps Vince was right first time?

What is his department actually for?  Other than giving corporate interests political pull over government, why do we need a department for business and innovation? It is not as if government officials generally have much to teach businesses about innovation, is it?

Surely a nation of sixty million innately entrepreneurial people might just be able to manage without a Whitehall department for crony corporatism?

According to these statistics in the department's annual report, in 2012-11 Parliament approved a supply of £21,667,509,000 for the department and its assorted quangos.  No doubt some of that money would still need to be spent, even if the department didn't exist. 

But even so, unless I am mistaken, £21 billion is more-or-less what one would need to cut corporation tax in half?  I reckon that would do more to help British business than any government department in Whitehall ever could.  

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