Constitutional Reform and Governance Bill

I rise to speak in favour of clause 37, which covers the office of the Comptroller and Auditor General, and to oppose amendments 68 and 78, and new clause 41. A number of provisions already protect the independence of the post holder, including the appointment process, the length of tenure and the terms of the appointment. Let me start with some context, so that we can understand the significance of the legislation, why it is important to be clear about the purpose of the Bill and why we must tread carefully in this territory. The Comptroller and Auditor General is an Officer of the House of Commons. He is not a civil servant and is completely independent of the Government. Uniquely, he is selected by the Government and the Opposition. He reports to Parliament on the activities of the Government and his work is overseen largely by the Public Accounts Committee—the oldest Committee in Parliament, which was set up 150 years ago—which is always chaired by a member of the Opposition. Therefore, there are a number of locks throughout the process to ensure the independence of the Comptroller and Auditor General. All those arrangements are supported by complex legislative structures and significant parliamentary conventions, many of which have existed for a long time. The result of all those conventions and laws, as well as what we are talking about in clause 37, is to enable the Comptroller and Auditor General to function absolutely independently of the Government. That is what they all do. He must have complete discretion in how he carries out his functions. I worked closely with the Father of the House, after the retirement of Sir John Bourn. We were clear at all times that we must not mess with the traditional independence of the Comptroller and Auditor General. There may be an opportunity later to discuss the corporate structure and all the rest of it, but the fundamental point is that the Comptroller and Auditor General is completely independent of the Government and that he alone and nobody else—not the Public Accounts Committee and not the board of the National Audit Office—signs off the reports. Nobody else can affect his judgments. He is completely independent, and that is vital. That statutory independence, which is underpinned by the new Bill, is not a notional phenomenon, shrouded in cobwebs and dating back centuries, or at least back to Gladstone. Rather, it is real, it is current and it forms a key plank of our constitutional fabric. One only has to look around the world at what has happened in other countries to know how important it is—indeed, vital—to have an independent supreme audit office. Every country has a supreme audit office, but not all of them are as independent or effective as ours. Indeed, ours is arguably the best in the world. I am therefore pleased that the current arrangements, whereby the Comptroller and Auditor General's appointment is proposed by the Prime Minister following consultation with the Chairman of the PAC, have endured—I say "consultation", but it goes much further than that. Frankly, they both have a veto. This gentleman—Amyas Morse, although the Comptroller and Auditor General may be a lady in the future; we do not know—can be appointed only if the Prime Minister, who is obviously a member of the Government by definition, and the Chairman of the PAC, who by convention is a member of the Opposition, both agree. In fact, in appointing the current Comptroller and Auditor General we improved the process further. Last time, when Sir John Bourn was appointed, my predecessor, Bob Sheldon—now Lord Sheldon—was given a list by the civil service and he interviewed the candidates in his flat. It was a closed process. We now have an open competition, and this time there were a number of advertisements, and anyone could apply. The interviews were carried out at length by myself and the permanent secretary to the Treasury, who represented the Prime Minister. I would like to thank the permanent secretary for the many hours of work that he put into this. By that stage, we had already appointed the new chairman of the National Audit Office, Sir Andrew Likierman, and he was also involved in the latter part of the process. We had an open competition with a number of good candidates, and I believe that we came out with the best.