House of Commons Hansard Debates for 18 Oct 1990

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"We note that, although only some 1 million households have black and white televisions 1.8 million monochrome licences were issued last year."

That fact caught my attention and I am sure that of other hon. Members. What conclusions are we to draw from it? The Public Accounts Committee drew the obvious conclusion. When I read through that report I was reminded of the debate that we had earlier about the road fund licence and its collection. It said that the penalty for non-payment is less severe than paying the licence fee. We have been told that events have not moved on since the Public Accounts Committee last considered the matter. We seem to be getting stuck. I hope that the Committee will not come forward in the next Parliament, or three years into it, and tell us that it is worried about the level of licence evasion and regards it as unacceptable.

There must be a response to these licence issues, whether it be the road fund licence or the BBC's television licence, that goes further than letting the problem drift and noting that it is still a problem in two or three years' time. The problem is not unrelated to the problems in Northern Ireland, where the level of evasion is substantially higher than it is in other parts of the United Kingdom.

The most important report before us is the Public Accounts Committee's sixth report on the sale of Rover Group plc to British Aerospace plc. Both the hon. Member for Uxbridge (Mr. Shersby) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Ashton-under-Lyne said that this is an interim report which poses questions ; it does not reach definitive conclusions about them. I fully accept that the Public Accounts Committee has more work to do. Nevertheless, they are powerful questions and to some extent almost lead to their own conclusions. Good and plausible answers will have to be given to them. The hon. Member for Uxbridge did his best to provide them in his speech.

The questions that my right hon. Friend the Member for Ashton-under-Lyne, the Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee, rightly raised were : why not accept competition in order to obtain the best price? There is a departmental response to that question, although how convincing the Committee finds it will be a matter for further consideration. The Department needs to justify its policy of exclusivity.

My right hon. Friend also asked what evidence there was that the public option would be damaging and why the other offers were not followed up in a closed competition. The Department said that competitive tendering involves risk. That is not the line that Conservative Governments usually adopt. Normally we are told that competitive tendering is good and that it should be embraced rather than thoroughly avoided, as it was in this case.

A number of other questions were asked. Since the Department did not have the benefit of competition to determine a fair price, the Committee asked why it did not carry out an evaluation of all the assets of the company. That was a fair question, and there was a response to it. The Public Accounts Committee will have to consider carefully precisely what assessment to make of that response. A number of other questions fall into the same category. The Public Accounts Committee asked the Department why it was prepared to accept a settlement that the European Commission showed it was possible to improve. It asked the Department why it had based all its negotiations on profit forecasts at the lower end of the

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Rover Group's profit forecasts when the company was forecasting a range of profits in 1988 of between £37.5 million and £65 million. The Committee also asked about the Rover Group's stakes in nine associated companies.

A question that in particular caught my eye was the one which was put to the chairman of Barings. He was asked to explain the disparity between his company's evaluation of Istel at £8 million to £10 million and the fact that it was disposed of shortly after the sale for £39 million.

The Committee also asked the Department why it had not sold off the surplus land that was not connected with making motor cars before the Rover Group was put up for sale. The Department told the PAC that, at the time of the sale, there was only one such site--Bathgate--and that that remained the case. In subsequent written evidence, the Department confirmed that it had been aware of moves to close down a further three sites in time.

The Department told the PAC that it did not carry out an evaluation of the Rover Group's shares in these companies early in 1988 when British Aerospace made its initial offer for the company. The Department was unable to put a precise figure on the value to British Aerospace of the Rover Group's tax benefits--a significant issue. My right hon. Friend also referred to the fact that, in the case of the sale of the Rover Group, no provision was made for the Government to claw back from British Aerospace within a prescribed period some part of any unforeseen financial benefits accruing from the sale of surplus sites or shareholdings, or the use of tax benefits. The hon Member for Uxbridge referred to the date for final payment. He seemed to take that particularly seriously, and I share his view. The Public Accounts Committee asked the Department why it had not been announced publicly. The replies that the Department is giving to that and other questions relating to our relationship with the European Community do not show our country in a very good light. The Public Accounts Committee inquired why details of the additional £38 million were not reported to the European Commission. The Department replied that it thought it better not to draw attention to them at the time, since it did not want to take the risk of reopening the deal.

Anything that gives our Common Market partners misgivings about the way in which we conduct public administration is to be deplored. I seem to remember saying this to the hon. Member for Uxbridge last year, but, while I do not want to pre-empt the eventual findings of the Public Accounts Committee, there is clearly enormous cause for concern. I look forward with considerable interest to the outcome. On the question of land sales and the valuation of assets, I must say that the Department could have been warned by the previous inquiry that the Public Accounts Committee carried out, into the sale, again to British Aerospace, of the royal ordnance factories. In its 13th report, the Committee concluded :

"Nevertheless, we consider that the Department might have been in a better position to evaluate the bids received if they had : (a) carried out a further revaluation as at about December 1986 ; (b) invited bids for the Company both with and without a clawback provision ; (c) obtained an estimate of potential development values, particularly for Waltham Abbey and Enfield".

It is bad enough for the issues to appear in the sale of the Royal Ordnance factories. To have those aspects reappear in a further privatisation exercise will take a great deal of defending before the Committee.

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In an effort to get the word "Lamontable" into the English language--it is a worthy cause, which I am sure has the wholehearted support of the House--I turn to the 31st report of the Public Accounts Committee, to which my right hon. Friend the Member for Swansea, West (Mr. Williams) referred. As he said, it is not simply a matter of inconvenience to road users when they find that the road or bridge on which they are travelling is taken up for maintenance. There are enormous costs for industry, not least the cost of lorry drivers who are on fixed time and are being delayed. As my right hon. Friend said, the whole thing is unnecessary. As he pointed out, the Treasury minute dealing with premature corrosion is almost Sir Humphrey Appleby "Yes Minister" stuff.

One of the advantages of having had to respond for the Opposition every year for four years is that I was able to consider the report alongside an earlier report on the maintenance and construction of motorways. The Department of Transport will have to take seriously the conclusions of the Public Accounts Committee's reports. In paragraph 2(iii), the Public Accounts Committee says :

"We are concerned that since there has been little systematic investigation of the causes and costs of premature maintenance, the Department may not be in a position to take full account of unforeseen repairs and premature main -tenance in their cost benefit analysis or in setting standards for road construction."

That is extraordinarily serious. We heard something similar to that when we were considering the motorway programme. I hope that that is taken seriously in both the Department of Transport and the Treasury. It surely represents public expenditure that should have been made to avoid substantially greater sums of public expenditure later. Similarly, my right hon. Friend the Member for Swansea, West referred to the report on financial problems at universities, and my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Mr. Davis) made an important point when he said that this report echoes an earlier report and referred to the gap between May 1988 and February 1990. It is not sufficient to know what is going wrong ; we must address it and put it right. The tributes that were paid to those who are currently struggling with the problems at University college, Cardiff, were justified. Efforts are being made to respond to the specific problems that the report outlined.

A report that struck a chord with me because it related to an earlier report was the one on the Metropolitan police estate. Two years ago, one of the most horrific Public Accounts Committee reports that I have seen was produced on the financing of the Metropolitan police. The current report complements that earlier investigation. The Public Accounts Committee said :

"We consider that the poor condition of the Metropolitan Police's operational estate is unacceptable, and that this almost certainly hinders efficiency and effectiveness."

That comment was made at a time when public concern about crime was rising substantially, as is crime itself.

The report continues :

"We are not satisfied that even within the funds available, effective management of the estate has been given the care and attention it clearly requires We endorse the Metropolitan Police's acceptance of the fact that, though cutting back on maintenance seems an immediate, easy option, it is in the long term a damaging and expensive one."

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That is a message that I try to convey to the Department of Transport ; it is certainly right in this context.

The report continues :

"We are concerned that the Metropolitan Police have over the years built up an extensive land bank of valuable sites without having determined a clear strategy and timetable for bringing them into use."

The Government's response to that and further points made in the report is to accept most of the Public Accounts Committee's findings and say that all will be put right when money is available. Money will have to be made available, or substantially higher sums will have to be made available later. Again, a little public expenditure that is forgone now will cost the public purse much more later.

Mr. Shersby : The report of the Metropolitan police estate was of considerable interest--I declare my interest as parliamentary adviser to the Police Federation. It has resulted in several sites that were held by the Metropolitan police estate either being developed for the purpose for which they were originally intended or being disposed of as part of a disposal programme. There are too many rundown police stations in London that need urgent attention, and money realised as a result of sales can be used for that purpose.

It might amuse the hon. Gentleman that, on one famous occasion, two members of staff were standing in the window of the National Audit Office. One said to the other, "I wonder who owns that site across the road." They decided to find out and discovered that it was owned by the Metropolitan police and that it was being used as a car park. The hon. Gentleman will be glad to know that it will be redeveloped as the new Gerald road police station, the purpose for which it was originally intended.

Mr. Brown : That is pleasing news. It is particularly pleasing that proceeds from the sale of those sites can be used to improve police stations or to develop other police stations. That is an obvious answer to the problem, but it is not one that obtains throughout public administration, as any councillor could tell the hon. Gentleman.

As it is "after eight", I shall briefly consider the report on the Royal Mint. I was much taken by this report because I originally thought that the idea was pretty daft. The report tells us : "In 1987 the Mint launched the Britannia gold coin, which they expected to make a major contribution to their sales and profits. However, they significantly overestimated the demand for it and, despite advertising and promotion expenditure of over £3.5 million, it produced a profit of only £100,000 on sales of £63-64 million in 1987-88. We therefore asked the Mint why they had embarked on this enterprise."

That seems a fair question. The answer is in the following paragraph :

"We were told that it was a Ministerial decision taken in the early part of 1987".

In other words, this was some daft idea of the former Chancellor of the Exchequer, the right hon. Member for Blaby (Mr. Lawson). It might have had a better chance of success if the right hon. Gentleman had not gone on to slap VAT on gold coins and if there had not been a fall in the price of gold which reduced the bullion market overnight. These are the people to whom we entrust the management of the economy !

Mr. Robert Sheldon : Since then, it has become clear that the statement that we received from the Department concerned was in error about VAT. VAT had changed some years before.

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Mr. Brown : That spoils what was otherwise quite a good shot. Never mind, the principle remains true--the idea was daft. Better care should be taken in weighing up the commercial prospects of these ventures before embarking on them, regardless of when VAT was imposed.

The last report to which I want to refer is of particular sadness to me. In the last Parliament, I served my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Aberavon (Mr. Morris) as his deputy in the Labour party's legal affairs team. That duty brought me to serve on the Committee on the Prosecution of Offences Bill which set up the Crown prosecution service. The Financial Secretary to the Treasury will perhaps remember all that fairly well. I think that he was involved at some stage, although I cannot remember whether he was on the Committee.

The Crown prosecution service was set up in a bipartisan spirit. It was approved by both sides of the House. We all made speeches wishing it and the Bill well. Although there were questions we wanted to ask and points we wanted to explore with the Government, the Bill's passage was not unduly obstructed. However, the Opposition were worried about rates of pay for solicitors who were to work in the service. We felt that the Government had underestimated the costs of staffing and were underfunding the service. We expressed particular concern about the way in which the relationship between chief police officers and the Crown prosecution service would develop. All those points have been picked up by the Public Accounts Committee. It saddens me that aspects that we thought would go wrong have gone wrong. The report states :

"We are disturbed at the very high cost of employing agent lawyers, especially where their performance has been less satisfactory". We hoped that staff of the Crown prosecution service would be wholly in-house and that it would not be necessary to employ agent lawyers, except in special circumstances.

The report continues :

"We were concerned to learn that, despite the steps taken to establish effective liaison between the Crown Prosecution Service and the police, consultation and feedback were still being hindered by inadequate communication and, in the view of the Crown Prosecution Service, the late delivery of files from the police."

It was always important for the functioning of the new Crown prosecution service that the service and the police helped each other and understood the new relationship that was supposed to exist between the two. Clearly, that has not worked out as well as the Government and the Opposition hoped.

The Public Accounts Committee continues :

"We are disturbed at the large proportion of discontinued cases which were not dropped until the court hearing."

The cost of that must be substantial. Clearly, it is up to the Crown prosecution service, to the police and to the court authorities to co- operate to ensure that there is a substantial reduction of such cases. I wholeheartedly endorse that recommendation by the Committee, which also says :

"We were disappointed to learn that the Crown Prosecution Service had failed to secure the improved standard of case preparation it was expected to achieve over previous prosecution arrangements."

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Perhaps the most serious and worrying point in the report is when the Committee says that the estimates have proved to be far too low. It says :

"Nevertheless, we are concerned that the estimates proved to be far too low and that the Service appears to be costing almost twice as much as the previous prosecution arrangements, with a staff requirement practically double the size originally envisaged. In these circumstances we find it surprising that, more than two and a half years after becoming operational, the service has not fully met the initial objectives set by the Government mainly because it still did not have enough staff."

The Public Accounts Committee is exploring a worrying point there. The duty of replying on such matters in the House falls to the Attorney-General, although, of course, the Crown prosecution service is still administered from the Lord Chancellor's Department. I hope that heed is taken of the report. The whole House wishes the Crown prosecution service well, but we want our wishes to be put into effect and not undermined, as seems to be happening.

I want again to express our wholehearted gratitude to the Committee for the substantial time that it has put into examining these matters on our behalf. I reiterate our thanks to the Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee for his leadership, and for the sense of direction and of unity of purpose with which he provides his fellow Committee members.

9.31 pm

The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Francis Maude) : I join all those who have paid tribute to the right hon. Member for Ashton-under- Lyne (Mr. Sheldon) for the distinguished chairmanship that he has brought to the Committee over the past seven years. Several members of the Public Accounts Committee and others have said that the role of the Committee may never have been more important. I have no doubt that that owes a great deal to the objective and determined way in which the right hon. Gentleman conducts his business. The whole House owes him a debt of gratitude for the work that he leads in that way.

The right hon. Gentleman referred to the high turnover of members of the Public Accounts Committee--especially of Opposition Members--and the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne, East (Mr. Brown) referred to the high turnover of Financial Secretaries. He seems to have accounted for three so far in the course of the four debates in which he has taken part. I look forward to taking part in a great many more of these debates as Financial Secretary. I enjoyed this debate because it demonstrated how seriously the members of the Public Accounts Committee take their work and it emphasised the importance of that work.

There is one former member of the Public Accounts Committee whose absence tonight is conspicuous and tragic. I refer, of course, to our friend Ian Gow. I was proud to count him a friend and a colleague. He leaves a gap in our hearts that can never be filled.

My hon. Friends the Members for Scarborough (Sir M. Shaw) and for Rutland and Melton (Mr. Latham) predicted--I do not know whether gloomily or otherwise--that this debate may be their valedictory occasion as members of the Public Accounts Committee speaking in such a debate. The House owes both of them a debt of gratitude for their work. They have been distinguished members of the Committee and have brought to it great

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clarity of mind and expertise. I know that the Committee will miss that. I was going to say, "we". I believe that I am now a member of the Public Accounts Committee. I hope that I may be forgiven for not yet having appeared at a sitting as I became a member of it only on Tuesday of this week. I believe that I have a respectable alibi. All Ministers, particularly Treasury Ministers, are conscious of the need to ensure propriety and value for money in the spending of taxpayers' money. The Public Accounts Committee has an exceptionally important role to play in both those areas. In the area of propriety and regularity, it is rightly concerned to ensure that the funds that the House votes to the Executive are spent only for the purposes that the House has authorised and are properly accounted for.

On value for money, it has been a major objective of the Government since they came to power to improve the economy, efficiency and effectiveness of public spending. In that respect also, the Government and the Public Accounts Committee have common objectives. The financial management initiative launched in 1982 is a continuing programme to promote efficiency and value for money by placing responsibility as far as possible at the level where operations and activities are managed and delivered. It therefore seeks to provide managers with a framework of objectives of output and performance measures, cost information, training and expert advice. Within that framework, managers are responsible for making the best use of resources and achieving the greatest value for money.

The right hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne referred in particular to six reports and I shall deal first with Northern Ireland and the nursery and the microfilming contract. All who have spoken recognise that the Housing Executive carries out a substantial and successful housing programme, sometimes in exceptionally difficult circumstances. But the Committee's criticisms were clear and stark and have been accepted. Remedial steps have been taken to ensure that nothing similar happens in future. The right hon. Gentleman said that it was unusual for the Committee to express its astonishment. I concede that astonishment registers high on the Committee's Richter scale. If I may say so, the words were not misused. The Government accept that there were important lessons to be learnt from that episode and I assure the House and the Committee that they have been learnt.

The second report referred to by the right hon. Gentleman related to the financial problems at universities, particularly at University college, Cardiff. The circumstances that led to the Department of Education and Science's intervention in the affairs of University college, Cardiff, were exceptional. Mismanagement by senior college staff put the institution in severe financial difficulties with an increasingly great deficit. As the Committee's first report acknowledged, when the Department had incontrovertible evidence in late 1985 of those exceptional circumstances from the then University Grants Committee, decisive action to remedy that was instigated. It became clear that the only route to effective survival was the merger, which I understand had been long mooted with the University of Wales Institute of Science and

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Technology. That merger took place in 1989. It was supported by some extra funds, but subject to stringent conditions, to ensure a fresh start. Of the £11 million new funds, £4.4 million was in the form of a repayable grant to be repaid by the new institution using its best endeavours to sell surplus assets and by the recovery of certain other sums. The new institution has made a good start from difficult origins. To date, some £1 million of that £4.4 million loan has been repaid to the Exchequer.

Since the education reforms, monitoring has been undertaken by the Universities Funding Council and there have been several key changes. The lines of accountability have been clarified. The UFC has its own accounting officer and its relations with the universities are governed by financial memoranda. Universities are required to provide appropriate financial monitoring data and, in any case, now have a standard format for their accounts. The UFC has strengthened its financial expertise, including the establishment of an internal audit unit, to scrutinise all of those. In the unlikely event of another institution beginning to suffer the same kind of mismanagement, the UFC should be able to detect that quickly and act appropriately. However, under the Education Reform Act 1988, its powers of intervention are not unfettered. Parliament insisted that proper allowance should be made for the autonomy of universities. I want now to consider the sixth interim report on the sale of Rover Group to British Aerospace. I have no doubt that the Government acted wholly in the national interest by conducting that sale. I also have no doubt that it was carried out in a correct, defensible and justifiable way.

The sale fulfilled our objective of privatising the company within the lifetime of the current Parliament. It was our aim to relieve the taxpayer of the liability represented by the Varley-Marshall-Joseph assurances, which at the end of March 1988 were estimated at £1.6 billion and which were set to increase substantially. It was our aim to achieve that sale on the best possible terms and to achieve a clean break that would protect from further risk the taxpayer who had, it is worth remembering, already contributed some £2.9 billion to Rover Group.

We also aimed to achieve privatisation without exposing Rover Group to the uncertainty to which it had proved so vulnerable in the past. All our objectives have been achieved and, most importantly, Rover Group is now flourishing in the private sector. It has committed £500 million of new capital investment. Its new range of models has been highly successful and, with the introduction of three-shift working at Longbridge, record productivity levels have been attained. The contrast with British Leyland's miserable and depressing history in the public sector could hardly be sharper.

Mr. Terry Davis : Is not it true that Rover Group was already making substantial profits when it was publicly owned?

Mr. Maude : It was making a very modest operating profit, but that took no account of the wider financial circumstances, which were still pretty dire.

The right hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne referred particularly to price and exclusivity. It is worth pointing out that Rover Group was sold for £150 million and one of the conditions of sale was the implementation

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of the corporate plan involving £1.6 billion of new capital investment and the undertaking that no further public assistance would be given to the group.

Exclusive negotiating rights were therefore granted to British Aerospace and the reason for that exclusivity was perfectly clear. Competitive bidding would almost certainly have given rise to political controversy which, we must remember, had previously been extremely damaging to the commercial prospects of Rover Group. It would have undermined the realisable value of the business and put the broader objectives seriously at risk. The European Commission decided that £150 million was a reasonable purchase price for the company and that the granting of exclusive negotiating rights to British Aerospace had been justified. I have no doubt that the terms of sale represented the best that could realistically have been achieved.

When talking about clawback, the right hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne made a good point. He said that there is a difference between public and private money. I cannot remember his precise words, but I shall check on them because they expressed a good deal of truth. Broadly speaking, he said that one should not take risks with public money and that is precisely the point about the exclusivity. He went on to say, I think, that one should not take risks even if that means that one might receive slightly less as a result. That is the whole point about the exclusivity. We had been through the unhappy episode of a possible sale to Ford and General Motors, with all the uncertainty and the political controversy, which, if I may say so, was prompted to a large extent by Opposition Members, and which had caused serious damage to British Leyland as the group was then known. It was perfectly justifiable, in the interests of the taxpayer and of the company, to avoid such controversy being renewed.

Over recent years, the PAC has taken a close interest in the privatisation of royal ordnance factories. We welcome that interest. It is right that, when public companies are privatised, the Committee should consider whether a fair return has been obtained for the taxpayer. I particularly welcome the Committee's 13th report. Its considered conclusions about the sale provide a welcome corrective to the more sensational claims that appeared in the media.

The company was sold as a going concern after a wide-ranging and open bidding competition. We are confident that the price that we received was a true reflection of its market value. Not one of the major commercial companies involved in the bidding thought it worth paying more than that for the company with all its assets and liabilities.

I now refer to the 16th report on financial management in the national health service. Like management as a whole in the NHS, financial management is now focused on implementing the recent reforms. The Committee's observations about financial management in the NHS have been at the forefront of planning for the reformed NHS. The reforms will demand sharply improved financial management. That requirement has been a feature of all aspects of their

implementation. An upgraded system of financial planning and monitoring is being put in place, supported by a substantial investment of time and effort in staff training.

A principal objective of the new systems is to provide the means to ensure that health authorities keep in financial balance in the new competitive environment. An NHS that has its finances in balance will not seek to fund its activities at the expense of creditors. The monitoring of

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efficiency savings is part of the financial monitoring package. An objective of the reforms is to achieve better value for money. Continued pursuit and achievement of efficiency savings will play an important part in securing that goal.

Good financial management in the NHS requires the commitment of all managers from the management executive down, a clear expression from the top of the priority of such financial management, translation of that commitment and priority into systems that will support management in that task, and the recruitment, retention and training of suitable staff to operate the systems.

Mr. Michael Morris : My hon. Friend will be aware that in the recommendations is the poignant point that the health service has previously been a bad payer, particularly in relation to small businesses. May we have an assurance that, in respect of the Treasury, in the difficult financial climate at the moment, when a level playing field is supposed to be achieved, it will not be to the disadvantage of suppliers to the health service?

Mr. Maude : We should certainly expect it not to be such a problem in future.

I now refer to the value of the land and concern about whether the NHS knew of the value of its estate. One of the reforms to be introduced from April next year is capital charges intended to make the NHS take account of the value of its capital assets. As part of the preparation for the introduction of capital charges, all district health authorities have had to draw up asset registers recording the value of their land and other capital assets. The land has been valued by district valuers.

I now refer to the last report--the 31st report--on road and bridge construction. I first deal with the Chairman's point about delay in the most recent Treasury minute. It was laid before the House, and copies were provided for members of the Committee on Monday of this week, on the first day after the recess. As a newcomer, I understand that it is the long- standing practice not to issue Treasury minutes responding to Committee reports during the recess. I am sorry if the rather earlier timing of the debate after the recess has caused a difficulty.

There was criticism of maintenance being carried out earlier than forecast at the time of construction. There are three important general points to make about this premature maintenance. Premature maintenance costs are very small in relation to the cost of construction, and simply spending more money on the construction does not necessarily avoid premature maintenance.

Civil engineering, of course, inevitably involves risks. The bulk of premature maintenance referred to in the report was caused by factors that were unforseeable or uncertain at the time of construction. We do not knowingly or avoidably build defective roads and bridges.

A certain amount of action was taken in any event before the PAC report was published. Standards, specifications, materials and techniques were kept under constant review and improvements were regularly introduced when justified. A good deal of action has been taken since the publication of the report, including the introduction of an improved computerised reporting system for all defects and all premature maintenance, concentrating on the few cases where there is substantial evidence of significant failure, by consulting engineers or contractors to obtain all costs that are legally recoverable.

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An independent consultant was appointed to carry out a wide-ranging review of the means of redress of poor supervision and workmanship, including the use of sanctions.

Certainly problems have arisen after constructing some sections of modern trunk roads and bridges, but many of the problems identified by the Committee will not recur. We must not overlook the fact that maintenance of many roads and bridges is completely trouble-free. Government constantly strive to secure better value from the huge current investment in the roads programme. To meet the demands of modern traffic flows, we work at the frontier of engineering knowledge. New materials and techniques normally still offer significant net benefits, even after allowing for premature maintenance.

This has been a useful debate in focusing attention on the valuable work of the PAC. I should like to pay a final tribute to the work of the Committee and to that of the Comptroller and Auditor General and to the National Audit Office for its essential support. I thank all members of the Committee who have spoken in the debate and the two gallant hon. Members who are not members of the Committee but who have also made valuable speeches.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House takes note of the 34th to 41st Reports of the Committee of Public Accounts of Session 1988-89, of the 1st to 32nd Reports of Session 1989-90, and of the Treasury Minutes and Northern Ireland Department of Finance and Personnel Memoranda on those Reports (Cm. 963, 964, 1057, 1101, 1150, 1235 and 1247) with particular reference to the following Reports :

1988-89

Thirty-sixth, Further matters relating to Northern Ireland ; 1989-90

First, Financial problems at universities ;

Sixth, Sale of Rover Group to British Aerospace plc ;

Thirteenth, Ministry of Defence : Further

examination of the Sale of Royal Ordnance

plc ;

Sixteenth, Financial Management in the National Health Service ; Thirty- first, Quality control of road and bridge construction.

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Mecca Tunnel Disaster

Motion made, and Question proposed , That this House do now adjourn.-- [Mr. Kirkhope.]

9.52 pm

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