Constitutional Reform and Governance Bill

May I say that I was immensely reassured by the speech of the Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee? It is vital that the Comptroller and Auditor General remains absolutely independent in judgment. Whatever the governance arrangements and administrative structure built up behind the Comptroller and Auditor General, his judgments—perhaps hers in the future—on reports must be independent. As the Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee said, that is built into the entire structure, the cross-party nature of the appointment and the nature of the office. I shall not pursue the argument about the overall structure of the Bill. I fully accept that the commission and the Government have struck the right balance in relation to the NAO and its board, so I shall not detain the Committee for long. I intend simply to comment on the amendments and new clause, and to ask a question about the application of clause 37 which I hope the Minister will be able to answer. I agree with the Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee that it would not be a good idea to define the functions of the Comptroller and Auditor General too closely. Any such definition might result in a restriction that we would not want to see. However, I think it worth asking about a particular aspect of new clause 41. The new clause states:""The purpose of the following provisions is to further strengthen Parliamentary control and supervision of the expenditure of public money"." One of the problems that I see with the present structure, not in theory but in practice, is that it is far better at supervision than control. In other words, it is far better at looking back than looking forward. The Comptroller and Auditor General has two roles. The job of Comptroller is the forward-looking job of ensuring that the Government do not obtain the public's money for purposes that have not been authorised by the House, while the job of Auditor General is that of looking back to see whether that money has been properly spent. I think that, at some point, we must consider the important question whether the arrangements for the forward-looking role are as strong as they could be, and as strong as the arrangements for the backward-looking role. I disagree with the PAC Chairman about amendment 78. The hon. Member for Luton, North (Kelvin Hopkins) made clear that what concerned him was the problem of bodies which are not, in organisational form, public bodies at all but private trusts or companies of various sorts, but which are in reality carrying out public functions. That is the whole point of the discussion of contracting out. I think that the Chairman was referring to issues relating to non-departmental bodies, in respect of which the National Audit Act lays down clear guidelines on the Comptroller and Auditor General's powers. I understand that there is no power of the kind that the hon. Member for Luton, North is suggesting in the existing legislation. The point is that there should not be anything in the way in which we set up our audit arrangements that biases the entire system in favour of contracting out. Similarly, there should be no bias against contracting out. It seems to me—and I think the amendment raises this point—that an immensely effective audit system involving great powers, which successfully terrorises public officials into compliance with their duties but does not apply to private organisations that carry out state functions under contracting-out arrangements, effectively gives those organisations a huge advantage over the state.