Jim Shannon

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Jeremy. I thank the hon. Member for Middlesbrough and Thornaby East (Andy McDonald) for securing this debate. I do not say this lightly: he is truly a doughty champion—so I say well done. The issue of outsourcing is a sticky one that I well remember from my days as an alderman on Ards council. My wife used to say, “If you’re looking for the alderman, you mean the older man.” She always called me the older man, not the alderman. She put me in my place manys a time. I served on Ards borough council from 1985 to 2010, and I can well recall the financial arguments for and against outsourcing, and weighing the control we had against that which we would lose. I want to give a specific example that will, I hope, illustrate and support what the hon. Member for Middlesbrough and Thornaby East and other hon. Members have said. Ards borough council decided to keep leisure in house when we created our new leisure centre, which is now called the Blair Mayne wellbeing and leisure complex, after the heroic SAS man who is portrayed in “SAS Rogue Heroes” every Sunday night at 9 pm or thereabouts. North Down borough council had outsourced its service, and when the councils were amalgamated, both outsourced and in-house services were being provided. The pros and cons of each option are easy to see, and yet it is hard to determine the best way forward. That example shows most effectively that we should never believe in a one-size-fits-all approach.