My Lords, this amendment returns to an issue that was flagged up by more than one noble Lord at Second Reading—the question of mission creep.
One of the problems of local democracy is the perception that there is very little for the elector to influence beyond which party happens to rule the roost. The process of localism—and indeed the fruits of the Government’s initiatives on this—must surely be to redress this balance. That means having current, live and important issues, including matters of expenditure, at stake in local elections. I will return to this subject in respect of Clause 39, so I will leave it for the moment.
If the role of the National Audit Office is allowed to expand, as would be possible under this Bill, the question that the Local Government Association has asked—indeed, this amendment comes with its imprimatur—is: what is left for the voter to determine? Democracy and democratic accountability are clearly in point here.
The Local Government Association’s second question is: what is there to prevent the National Audit Office effectively replicating the investigative adventurism— my words, not those of the Local Government Association—of the Audit Commission? On our first day in Committee, the Minister said that a recreation of the Audit Commission by the back door is to be avoided and I entirely understand that. Just so, the recreation of its functions by an expansion of the National Audit Office is equally to be guarded against.
Amendment 18ZA would restrict the role of the National Audit Office to prevent this mission creep and the potential erosion of the proper function and role of local democracy. Its scrutiny would therefore apply to expenditure, principally that from central government. I will speak also to Amendment 18ZB, but on the detail of Amendment 18ZA I can see that the Minister may feel that this is too wide a get-out clause. However, if he could indicate whether the principle might be acceptable, I dare say that we could talk about the detail of the wording and how we can deal with that as the Bill proceeds.
Amendment 18ZB has been tabled, of course, to prevent mission creep, to which I have referred. It seems that the Bill effectively risks reintroducing some of the intrusive and costly activities that the abolition of the Audit Commission was supposed to have removed. Looking at the overall geometry, as the LGA would put it, the role of the National Audit Office would be restricted to evaluating expenditure that has a majority of its funding from the central government grant. It goes on to say that the NAO should be precluded from replicating the activities of the Audit Commission under its previous assessment and inspection regime.
I will leave it there. I dare say that the noble Lord, Lord Tope, may have some comments to make, as will other noble Lords. I beg to move.