Dame Meg Hillier
MP for Hackney South and Shoreditch · Labour (Co-op) · United Kingdom
“On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker, I have huge respect for the Minister, but she has said that she will not take any interventions. She is a very good Minister, and I trust that she will answer in detail the points that have been raised in the House today; having discussions with her and the Government after the debate is too late…”
“My hon. Friend talks about who makes our laws, and she has talked in articles that she has written about the primacy of this place. If the Bill goes forward, is she willing to accept amendments?”
“I welcome my right hon. Friend to her place and thank her for that response, which demonstrates the complications of these schemes. I asked the National Audit Office to look into this, and yesterday the Public Accounts Committee published its report on compensation schemes, suggesting that a central body be established.”
“I am pleased by my right hon. Friend’s answer, but she is in a unique position across Government to ensure that we are protecting not only women, but those who are blind or have visual impairments, who really value this technology.”
“I welcome the Chancellor’s clampdown on speculation and leaks ahead of the Budget; it is certainly an important step he has taken. On the issue of certainty, the National Wealth Fund is a critical investor in crowding in private investment around the UK. I noted that he has changed the remit.”
“Further to the points made by my hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth East (Tom Hayes), it is important that we talk here and that we have diplomacy, but what practical actions are the Foreign Office and the Ministry of Defence taking to ensure that there is a review of physical defence and security, so that we send a clear message to t…”
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“It is worth remembering that there have been 66 fires since 2008, as you will be aware, Mr Deputy Speaker. At any one time, there are eight fire wardens patrolling this building. As the Leader of the House said on the radio this morning, only at the end of last year there was one that could have been catastrophic, not for the whole building, but for a certain section of it. It was lucky that it happened during the week, because the patrol pattern must be a bit different at weekends. If it had happened at the weekend, it might not have been discovered so quickly. My hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant), in eloquent fashion, highlighted the “big stink”. The big stink of previous times led MPs to decide that it was time to build a sewerage system for London, but we are now suffering our own big stink in parts of the building.”
“We have pushed this problem away for far too long. It is heartening that it was only seven years ago that the former Clerk of the House commissioned a survey to look at the matter. He feels that that is a long time, but in the grand scheme of things he should be congratulated because it has moved things on much faster than at any time in the previous many decades. I had the privilege of looking at this on the Public Accounts Committee—I will touch on that and the finances a little later—and while serving on the Joint Committee under the chairmanship of the right hon. Member for Meriden (Dame Caroline Spelman). I thank her again for her stewardship of that Committee. We saw the shadow Sponsor Body at that time. Others have talked about the risks.”
“As the Leader of the House knows, this is just the beginning. I want to touch on the history—though that has been well covered by others; on the very real risks; and on the future plans, including the costs. I have the privilege of chairing the Public Accounts Committee. The right hon. Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh) was one of my predecessors, and although we do not agree on every aspect of this issue, we absolutely agree that we need to watch taxpayers’ money very closely. As he rightly says, it is not other people’s money; it is the money our constituents work hard for and expect to be spent wisely. As others have said, we have put this off for far too long. The hon. Member for Mole Valley (Sir Paul Beresford) talked about 1904; others talked about what happened 40 years ago.”
“It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (Jamie Stone) and to hear his wisdom. He is right that if we do not start by being open and honest about the challenges, we will be on a hiding to nothing. In that respect, the project has been bedevilled with problems, which I will touch on, but I hope that today, when it seems there is broad consensus for the Second Reading, we will be able to move forward. I welcome the Bill and the personal determination of the Leader of the House to get it through. Her predecessors, for understandable reasons and the reality of politics, were a bit nervous about taking this forward, and there were challenges in getting the vote through in January 2018, but we are here today, with huge progress having been made, and I congratulate her on getting us to this point.”
“I will no longer be the Chair of the Public Accounts Committee when all this happens, although I hope to have some input in the early stages. I am laying down a marker for my successors, however, because the length of the project means that at least another couple of Select Committee Chairs will be looking at this.”
“That must be considered, but of course in principle I support elections for all the reasons that others have highlighted. The scrutiny of this project is vital. This House will scrutinise it, the Estimates Commission will put the proposals forward and, thanks to the mechanism worked up with the Procedure Committee through the Backbench Business Committee, we can get those estimates and discuss them and the detail here. We have made sure that under the Bill the National Audit Office will have the powers to audit the Sponsor Body, the Delivery Authority and the project. The Public Accounts Committee will, as of right, be able to hold evidence sessions on the National Audit Office reports and examine the numbers in detail.”
“We need to make sure we scrutinise this fully and properly. I talked about the election of members to the Sponsor Body. We on the Committee wanted that, but the Government did not accept it. My one caveat about having elections is that we must make sure we have full balance across the House. I will probably want to press this in Committee, because we want to make sure that, for example, smaller parties such as the SNP are not disadvantaged if there is an open vote across the House and Members vote on party lines, as may happen. Given the excellent support and input of the hon. Member for Airdrie and Shotts and others, it would be invidious to cut out a Member because their party label meant they would not secure the votes.”
“The Joint Committee gave some thought to this, and the view was that members of the Sponsor Body should come to the House as Members representing the House of Commons Commission and others representing the Church Commissioners do to answer from the Back Benches. We learned from the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (Jamie Stone) that the more open we are the better, so I would say that that infrequent appearance might not be enough, and at certain points in the project we might want to have far more open access both to Members of this House and the media, because it is not just Members of this House who need to know about it; this is a taxpayer-funded project that the people of the UK need to know about and they need to know that questions can be asked about it.”
“The Public Accounts Committee, under my watch or that of any successor, will keep a close eye on things, as will Members of this House, but we need to get on with the project now. We need to get the Sponsor Body in place, and it needs to appoint the Delivery Authority. I congratulate the Leader of the House on, I hope, getting us to a consensus tonight.”
“There will be a number of known unknowns, because every time we remove a bit of wood panelling there may be asbestos behind it. We just do not know, because the building’s plans are not accurate. There will need to be figures in the business case, but a proper contingency must also be built in that will have to be explained to the Sponsor Body in case the Delivery Authority needs to draw on it, and the relevant bodies need to be held firmly to account. To put inaccurate figures out now would be unhelpful, and we must ensure—the Leader of the House will be on this—that the figures are in the realms of reality. No matter how expensive the project is, we must be honest with the taxpaying public about what is being spent. However, there will be no blank cheque.”
“Members who have already expressed an interest in bringing business, opportunities and work to their constituencies can show their local businesses what will be needed. For example, we will need to know how many wood carvers and stone carvers will be needed, so that the people out there who know how to do those things can gear up and be ready when bidding for that work starts. I want to finish by talking about the important issue of costs. We need to nail them down, but we must not rush to pluck a figure from the air. The costs that we have been talking about so far—around the £4 billion mark—were indicative figures based on 2014 prices. They are not the true cost of establishing the work necessary to improve this building. That cannot be known until the business case has been worked up and we actually discover what is behind things.”
“The Committee was horrified to discover that a delay in that area could have meant a three-year delay and hundreds of millions of pounds in extra costs. We will also get future office space and more flexibility over the buildings as a result of any new buildings on the northern estate. I remember when I visited New South Wales—I was there on holiday; this was not done at the taxpayer’s expense—I went to the head of the Sydney Olympics and was given the opportunity to visit the New South Wales culture minister. They had an amazing project to work with local businesses to help them to get ready to bid for projects on the Sydney Olympics. This helped businesses to learn how to procure and to work out a whole list of everything that would be needed on the Olympics. I would urge the Sponsor Body to adopt a similar approach, so that hon.”
“However, my Committee believes that it is pretty vital that the Sponsor Body manages both projects, because they are so interconnected. The fact that the cloisters have now been empty for 18 months even though that was an urgent project is not a demonstration of a lack of will—there are many issues involved—but with all goodwill to the Clerks the House, they are not project managers of major projects. The whole point about the Sponsor Body is that it will have the expertise to hold those who deliver these big projects to account and to ensure that they get on with it. It is important that we also hand over the northern estate to a body of people who really have that expertise. I am pleased that the Ministry of Defence car park issue now seems to be resolved, as it was getting ludicrous.”
“It is important that we build in scrutiny of the evaluation of, for example, the jobs and the money and of where the contracts are being let. In our speeches today, we have all been putting pressure on the Sponsor Body seriously to consider having a mechanism for ensuring that the wealth opportunities from this huge, amazing, international project are shared fairly across the UK wherever possible, and we must ensure that it is held to account for any pledges that it makes. We will hold its feet to the fire on this, and other Select Committees will have a role in that regard as well. I want to touch on the northern estate. My hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda, who is no longer in his place, suggested that it might be better not to glue that project to the main Palace project.”
“The Comptroller and Auditor General at the National Audit Office is coming to the end of his term at the end of this month, and one item on my list of things to talk to the new Comptroller and Auditor General about is ensuring that there is a good and thorough process. Of course the National Audit Office does an excellent job, but we need to ensure that this is on its radar in the right timeframe and that we work up a way of ensuring that everything works effectively. We need to get in early to ensure that costs are not suddenly ramped up at the end. I need to talk a bit about costs, and I will come to that in a moment. Other Select Committees will of course have the chance to examine these issues and, as the Leader of the House has said, there will be a further chance for this House to have a say in 2021.”
“This failed experiment was set to cost the taxpayer £467 million because of the early termination of contracts at the end of next year. It would be helpful to know what the total bill will be. My biggest concern as Chair of the Public Accounts Committee is that the Secretary of State has just laid out that there will be major local procurement processes over the next two years. It seems like a long time now, but that time will go very fast. How will he make sure that that procurement is done thoughtfully and sensitively and really reaches those small voluntary groups that were so cut out of the previous system?”
“The Public Accounts Committee has repeatedly highlighted the problems with the franchising system, and the fact that we were whittled down to a single bidder underlines that. I thank the Minister’s Department for sending me details of the franchise. The interesting point is the extension of the Govia contract, which will go on until November of this year, with an option to extend the agreement, the Secretary of State tells me, to April 2020. Does this mean that the outcome of the root-and-branch rail review will be so conclusive that he will have the time to run a new franchising project within six months?”
“We have seen the scandal of Windrush and, in Hackney, we have thousands of Commonwealth citizens who are likely to be affected. Some 41,000 European citizens are going through the immigration process and there are increasing problems with entrepreneur and spouse visas. Is it not time we had a proper debate in Government time about the functioning, or mis-functioning, of the Government’s immigration system?”
“The report of the Public Accounts Committee highlighted that this scandal does not stop with the Windrush generation, but that thousands of other Commonwealth citizens are affected, and my own caseload bears that out. When the Home Secretary came before the House to make his statement, he was not specific about whether the Home Office would go through the lists of people, identify those who could be affected and proactively contact them. Will the Minister either make that commitment today or acknowledge that the Home Office systems are just not fit for this purpose?”
“As well as the publicity drive that the Home Secretary has talked about, will his officials be going through, with their fingertips, every case of other Commonwealth citizens who are caught up in this?”
“The Prime Minister triggered article 50 in March 2017 to rush into a process, again, with no plan. She then recklessly called a general election a month later and lost even the fig leaf of a majority. Now we see a Prime Minister who has been incapable of negotiation over that two-year period and a Government who were secretive. I am Chair of the Public Accounts Committee, and my Committee has worked hard, along with other Committees, to try to get information about what was happening to prepare for Brexit, and answer came there none. I met the late head of the Cabinet Office, and he said it would damage our negotiating position if the Government revealed that information—information that is flowing around Brussels like there is no tomorrow, information that sectors of industry and the community know about.”
“What a shambles this has been, Mr Speaker. Today we see desperate measures by a desperate Government. We hear that the Cabinet is riven, and Government Members are at loggerheads. To add insult to injury, this hugely important constitutional issue—the biggest issue of my lifetime—is now the centre of a Conservative party leadership contest. That tells us what we need to know: this stopped being about the 2016 referendum or the British people a long time ago, and it is all about the party that purports to be in government today. We have seen repeated mistakes. A referendum was passed with no rules and no planning—not even half a dozen civil servants in the basement of the Treasury or the Cabinet Office working out what might happen if the vote went the way it did.”
“We are being asked to agree the withdrawal agreement with no guarantee of what comes next. The little certainty that gives is cold comfort for businesses out there. We are being asked to take a leap of faith, but I have no faith in this Government to deliver on this or any further stages of Brexit. We are being asked to vote for this withdrawal agreement with no knowledge of what will be in the political agreement. It is a leap into the dark, and I am not prepared to take that leap and put my constituents in that position. The Public Accounts Committee has highlighted, in 10 reports, the problems, challenges and costs of preparing for no deal. Of course, the civil service has had to prepare for both a no deal and a deal simultaneously, double the cost. The cost is high in pounds, but it is huge in the confidence of this nation.”
“My hon. Friend makes an important point. My Committee has repeatedly said that businesses and people need to know what is happening, yet the Government advised businesses only in October 2018 about some of the preparations they would need to make for a no-deal Brexit. We estimate huge costs for businesses, billions of pounds—I do not have time to go into it today—just to prepare for a potential no deal alone. This deal was unveiled last November with none of that information, and it would have been easy, sensible and proper government to be talking to sectors about what might happen. Had the Government done that, they might have heard the reality for people on the ground. Yet we are here with this desperate last-ditch attempt by the Government to rescue themselves, and this country, from a disaster of their own making.”
“Understandably, many in this House feel that is not ideal, and the right hon. Member for Esher and Walton (Dominic Raab) talks about renegotiation with the European Union. He had the privilege of serving as the Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union and he knows, as I know from the three years I spent negotiating in Europe for the last Labour Government, that we cannot negotiate the changes that would need to be negotiated in two weeks, or even up to 22 May. While we are still a member, we rely on working together with the other 27 nations in the European Union, so we need to make that change. We have been very good at this. Our diplomatic skills and the talents of successive Governments of different colours have achieved a lot in the European Union, so it is in our power to achieve a lot, but not in two weeks.”
“That lack of certainty is hitting prices in our shops, and our constituents are having to pay more for the basics. It is hitting businesses, which are stopping me in the street to tell me about the challenges they face as they prepare for a potential no deal. The cost of preparing for that no deal is very real for them. Every time we speak about this, the exchange rate falls and there is uncertainty. It is utter recklessness for Her Majesty’s Government to lead the country into this uncertainty. We need to accept that we need a longer extension both to reach agreement and to pass the relevant laws. It has been oft-quoted today, here and elsewhere, that we should not rush into European Parliament elections. I say that we should not let the tail wag the dog. If that is what has to happen for us to have a longer extension, so be it.”
“The hon. Gentleman served honourably on the Public Accounts Committee, of which he was an assiduous member, and we both know that, yes, we need certainty, but to jump into the dark by passing this motion today without any of that detail is too much of a leap of faith. My point is clear: the Government could have shared and discussed a lot more. If we remember back to the 2017 general election, the discourse we were having then was remarkably different from the discourse we are having two years later. It is for that reason that I now think we need to have a deal that goes back to the people, because we are now three years on from the original referendum and the people are now seeing that there is no certainty in what is being proposed.”
“I completely agree but, above all, we must rule out no deal. We have voted in this House, yet a no deal remains a risk. No responsible Government should lead us over a cliff edge and put up fig leafs.”
“If we were to propose and pass a Bill for a second referendum, the reality is that this House would have to vote on at least five separate occasions to frame that legislation. I will not talk about such hypothetical situations. We need to rule out a no deal. There is consensus here, and the Government need to make that absolutely clear. Parliament is coalescing, as the indicative votes process shows, around certain options, on which we will have a chance to vote on Monday and, potentially, Wednesday, yet the Government have made no commitment that they will take any notice. The votes are not binding, but I hope we will get some comfort from Ministers today about how the Government will react to those votes.”
“Of course, it is up to the Government of the day to set out their position, but I would hope that, at the point at which Parliament debates and votes on this again on Monday—that is happening only because the Government have failed so abysmally—the Government might have the courtesy to have their listening ears on and be prepared to hear what Parliament may be willing to support. I have said my piece. The Government need to listen, and they must rule out a no deal. We need to make sure we are moving forward. We need a longer extension and, ultimately, we will need to go back to the people, because we are now three years on from the referendum. Things have moved on. The public are not fools, and they can see when things are not working and when this Government have let them down. I rest my case.”
“We can get into the weeds, but the big picture is that only a handful of civil servants in the Minister’s Department actually know in detail at any point what might or might not be happening with a company’s balance sheet. Earlier, the Minister talked about local government, but it is not privy to that information. Indeed, the Minister is not privy to that information. Is not the big risk that things can be happening with very little or no real scrutiny? The public is in the dark, the Minister is in the dark, and certainly other public service purchasers are in the dark, and is that not one of the big problems?”
“Will the Government lay out on Thursday, alongside the motion, their considerations on what will no doubt be a proposed period of extension, which could obviously be amended? Through the work of the Public Accounts Committee, we see the real challenges of being prepared to leave, even with a deal, by 29 March. Even a short extension would give little comfort to people out there. So will the Leader of the House give us, either now or then, an indication of the length of time that the Government would be proposing on Thursday for an extension to article 50?”
“It is a digitally focused system, so there are real lessons there for the Government, and we are keen to hear from them how they will make sure that those citizens are protected because of the lessons that they have learned from the Windrush scheme. In summary, the Home Office has very much focused on processes—it introduced new rules, which, in turn, led to different processes—but it has not taken a bigger-picture view of the impact that those processes and the problems have, if not resolved, on real people’s lives. When someone loses their job and their livelihood there is a long-term impact. These issues were flagged up to the Home Office by many of us in this House, by many agencies and by Governments. This report now flags up some serious issues for the Government to respond to, and we look forward to their response.”
“As well as Commonwealth citizens, there are also lessons that could be applied to those going through the European Union registration scheme in the hope that the Government can stave off a similar crisis. At the moment, our European Union citizens have until the end of this month to register as resident in this country. That is a fast-paced programme. After that date, it is important that anyone who has not got the right paperwork is caught by the Home Office so that their existing rights, which have been guaranteed by the Government, are protected and that they do not hit problems with employment and other services if they have to provide certain information that they do not have.”
“There is a big systemic issue in the Home Office. I speak as someone who, although Chair of the Committee now, was in the past a Minister in the Home Office, in part dealing with immigration. Under several Governments there have been poor systems, poor data and poor information about people, but this Government set great store by their Atlas programme, which is their new software system to deal with immigration matters. We as a Committee are clear that, on its own, a new software programme does not solve matters. We have to make sure that, in the first place, the right data is being put in. We want to make sure that the Government are focused on sorting out those systemic issues, and we have made a number of recommendations on which we expect the Government to come back to us with a response over the next six to 12 months.”
“I am sure that the whole House is hanging on what that compensation scheme will look like. This is also a generation of people who are not getting any younger. Some of them have already died waiting for a resolution. Let me go through a number of our concerns. The first is that, although the Department has reviewed all 11,800 cases of people from the Caribbean who may be affected, we understand that there are around 160,000 cases from other Commonwealth countries that have been not reviewed by the Home Office. It is not the policy of the Home Office at this stage to review them. We are concerned about that, because there are many people from other Commonwealth nations who are affected, or could be affected, by this, and it is important that the Government understand that, get on top of it and make sure that others are not affected.”
“Since the failure of this system, the Government have set up a Windrush scheme. Although it has achieved much—people can ring up and speak to an individual—it has certainly not helped everybody as it should have done. The urgent hardship fund that the Government established took eight months to set up. One of the concerns that we had as a Committee was that people had lost their jobs, and therefore their livelihoods and their homes, and so had to borrow money off friends. The lack of urgent funding was a real issue. We are pleased that the Government have now set up the scheme, but we think that there is more to be done. As we speak and as our report was published, there is no compensation scheme yet established, and we are a year on from that. It would be helpful to hear the Government’s response in that regard.”
“Some went on holiday to the country in which they or their parents had been born, and were refused readmission to the UK, and others were deported. The Home Office was warned about these problems and about the potential impact in 2014 through countless individual cases raised by Members of Parliament and by others working for some of the individuals concerned. Caribbean Ministers also raised these issues from 2016. I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend the Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy), who did so much to raise the profile of this issue. Our job as a Committee is not just to look at what went wrong. It is important that the Minister is here to listen to what went wrong so that lessons can be learned. Most of our recommendations are about what can be learned for the future.”
“We also flagged up concerns about the future and laid down a number of recommendations for the Home Office, which are to be responded to through the normal Treasury minutes process and in other responses by certain deadlines. What we discovered was that the Home Office failed to understand the real-life impact of policies that it was implementing. There was a group of people with citizenship and residency rights who were badly affected—people who were legally in the country with citizenship prior to 1973 when citizenship was granted automatically to many citizens, including those from the Caribbean Commonwealth. By changing the rules, the Government created huge problems for many people, but appeared unaware of that. I will come on to the warning signs that they missed in a moment. Those people, as I said, lost jobs and lost housing.”
“I rise to speak briefly on what is our 82nd report of this parliamentary Session, which looked at the Windrush generation and the Home Office. We asked the National Audit Office to look into this issue when it became apparent that a large number of British citizens and residents had lost jobs, homes, benefits and access to healthcare as a result of errors in the Home Office. We then took evidence from those who represent people who were victims of this and from the victims themselves, and we challenged Home Office officials about how they handled the matter. That is what our report covers. We looked into what led to the Windrush scandal and how the support that was set up to help those affected is working.”
“Some of these people may now be in their countries of origin, so there is an international aspect to the issue. Just as some people went back to the Caribbean on holiday and could not come back into this country, there may be people in the same situation in other Commonwealth countries. It is absolutely imperative that the Government deal with this matter before it becomes the next big scandal.”
“Our role as a Committee is not to dictate or comment on the exact details of Government policy or whether the Government are making the right policy, but to examine whether that policy is working. It is very clear in law that if people arrived from certain countries to the UK before 1973, they automatically gained citizenship, and others had rights to residency. We are saying loud and clear to the Government that other people from the Commonwealth are in this group, and it is not good enough just to expect them to find access to what is badged “the Windrush scheme”, because that may not mean as much to people from Canada, Australia, Nigeria, Ghana or wherever. In our recommendations, we have urged the Government to actively reach out—to assess the cases that they have on their files, but also to encourage people to apply.”
“The Government have set up a scheme for Windrush—there is some architecture in place now—so it is really important that this message goes out to the wider Commonwealth. This issue has been raised with me since before this report and our inquiry; many across the wider Commonwealth are concerned. It is important that the Government deal with this situation more effectively, as we have recommended.”
“Absolutely. As my right hon. Friend and I know, there are probably more citizens affected by the issue in our own borough—perhaps this goes beyond my remit as Chair of the Public Accounts Committee—who are from the wider Commonwealth than from the Caribbean. I am glad to see that the Immigration Minister is in her place to hear this statement. As I said in response to the hon. Member for Glasgow North (Patrick Grady), it is important that the Government really get a grip on this issue and take a proactive approach to publicising the support that is available. If people are legally entitled to support and protection, it is absolutely right that the Home Office ensures that they have access to it, and that they know their rights.”
“Bill Presented Postnatal Check-ups (Mental Health) Bill Presentation and First Reading (Standing Order No. 57 ) Wera Hobhouse, supported by Christine Jardine, Layla Moran, Rosie Duffield, Rosie Cooper, Catherine West, Tom Brake, Dr David Drew, Tim Loughton, Jo Swinson and Steve McCabe, presented a Bill to require routine six week National Health Service check-ups for new mothers to include mental health assessments and advice; and for connected purposes. Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 22 March, and to be printed (Bill 352).”
“As I said earlier, it is not our job to recommend how the Government do things. They have promised to deliver a compensation scheme, and my hon. Friend can rest assured that my Committee will be keen to look at that when it is unveiled—as, no doubt, will the National Audit Office. Our concern was that, a year on, there is no further information about the compensation scheme while people are waiting. Although it is beyond the remit of what we were looking at, a compensation scheme could involve a formula or there could be bespoke compensation. It is obviously for the Government to decide exactly how that goes ahead. Once a compensation scheme is established, no doubt many of us will be scrutinising it—including, quite possibly, the Public Accounts Committee.”
“I put on record my thanks to the outgoing Comptroller and Auditor General, whose term of office is limited to 10 years and will come to an end on 31 May; Gareth Davies is due to take over on 1 June, if his letters patent are issued. Sir Amyas has been a fearless advocate for what is good in the public sector and for challenging Governments of whatever party—he has worked under different Governments of different hues—to ensure that Parliament is provided with the information that it needs to engage in scrutiny.”
“I am delighted that the hon. Members for The Cotswolds (Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown) and for South Norfolk (Mr Bacon) are present. They have both served as my deputy Chair, a role that I created for Members of the Government party. As parliamentarians committed to scrutiny, we recognise the importance of the Committee’s work, whichever party is in power. It is important that we have the decent information that the National Audit Office provides. As my party’s Front-Bench spokesperson, my hon. Friend the Member for Bootle (Peter Dowd), noted, the Comptroller and Auditor General is also the NAO’s chief executive, so it is important that they have the ability to lead an organisation of some 800 people. In that respect, Gareth Davies also has my confidence.”
“They need to be fearless and strong in their attention to how the Government spend the taxpayer’s money, manage projects that deliver for the citizen and ensure that they are being done as well as they can be. It is therefore important that we appoint someone with backbone, robustness and serious experience. Interestingly, this is the only time in the position’s history that we have required applicants to hold a financial qualification—although the incumbent, Sir Amyas Morse, does have such a qualification. I am reminded today of Sir Amyas’s comment that it is not his job to be popular. It is important that the Comptroller and Auditor General be able to stand up for what they believe is right, based on the facts and the numbers, and ensure that the House is provided with the real numbers so that we can debate the issues.”
“As other Members have done, I thank the Prime Minister for coming to the Chamber today to move the motion. It is a symbol of the importance of the Comptroller and Auditor General’s role that it is supported both by the Prime Minister and by myself, as a representative of the Opposition and as Chair of the Public Accounts Committee. I am honoured to chair the Committee, but it is only 157 years old, whereas there has been a Comptroller and Auditor General in some form for considerably longer. The position that we are approving today is a constitutionally significant one, because the Comptroller and Auditor General has to deal with whichever Government are in power.”