My Lords, I support my noble friend Lady Chapman’s Amendment 11 in particular, as well as others such as Amendment 15.
On value for money, I would like the Grand Committee to imagine the circumstances in 2026 when there is a massive row about something that ARIA has done, the chair of the Public Accounts Committee holds an evidence session and the National Audit Office is brought in, as it would be, to look at what went wrong. I am drawn to refer to this potential future situation because of advice that the NAO itself gave to the Select Committee in the House of Commons when it was first considering what, by the way, the Government then called ARPA.
I shall refer briefly to some of the areas that the National Audit Office says it would consider when it comes to considering the value for money in an organisation like ARIA. Its briefing says:
“Based on our experience, we would normally look for … a clear statement of the ultimate policy objectives – readily understandable to those charged with running the organisation and to those holding the organisation to account … a statement of what success will look like into the future – short, medium and longer term – which is particularly important for programmes where ultimate success may take years to realise … a roadmap which sets out the steps to deliver success along with a realistic assessment of the resources required and their timing – our work frequently points to a risk of optimism bias at the start of new programmes … a clear agreed sense of how risk should be managed, including the organisation’s and sponsoring department’s appetite to tolerate failure in pursuit of the objectives; and … an agreed approach to considering progress towards meeting the objectives.”
My point in raising this is to ask the Minister whether he will make some comment in his reply on the role of the National Audit Office in the running of ARIA and whether indeed it is expected to produce a value-for-money report.