Digital Switchover (Disclosure of Information) Bill

From the Minister’s last remark, one can guess that there will be another raid on the National Lottery if there is an overspend. I am grateful for the Minister’s reply and will study it with care. I take particular note of his points on a possible role for the National Audit Office under clause 79 of the BBC agreement. The Minister also talked about transparency of accounts. The BBC’s accounts are occasionally interesting, but I have never found transparency in them. It is such a large organisation that it is difficult to discover anything about it. If the BBC is going to keep accounts of this, they will have to be separate and published separately. There is more important point here, however. If any government department is given £600 million of taxpayers’ money by the Treasury to spend as part of a help scheme, a social security handout or whatever, it is subject to a form of parliamentary scrutiny. First, it is probably subject to an order coming before another place and your Lordships’ House, setting out the terms on which those who are vulnerable or need help will get the money. It consequently appears in that department’s annual accounts and is subjectto NAO and various form of parliamentary scrutiny—by a Select Committee in another place or whatever. Here, however, we have something totally different. The Secretary of State, presumably for the DCMS, will decide who gets the help, what the justifications for it are going to be, and what the terms are. As we have heard, not of that will be debated by Parliament. It will in effect be a private agreement—although it may be published—between the BBC and the company that the BBC and/or the Secretary of State employs to manage the scheme. There needs to be some form of scrutiny. It is entirely unsatisfactory that there should be none because this is taxpayers’ money, and we need to know not only that it is well spent, but more importantly, that it is going to the right place and to the people who matter. There are two elements to this: not just safeguarding the taxpayer but ensuring that those who deserve it get it. I do not think that the Minister fully addressed that issue. I am grateful for the Minister’s response, and I shall study it with care. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn. Clause 1 agreed to. Clause 2 [Kinds of information referred to insection 1]: