House of Commons Hansard Debates for 28 Oct 1992

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Committee's report, particularly in respect of what I thought was the factual description of the indirect responsibility of the Scottish Office.

I want to mention the Committee's report on the privatisation of water. I well recall the questions that were asked by the right hon. Member for Swansea, West (Mr. Williams). As it was just before the election, I thought it right that he should be given considerable latitude, but simply to extrapolate the total value of the assets is not a sensible way of valuing a company. There are two different valuations of assets--the net book value, which was £8.7 billion in historic cost terms, and the value in current cost terms of £34.5 billion, which the right hon. Gentleman compared with the sales proceeds. Paragraph 29 of the report says :

"the accounting value of assets is not a reflection of the underlying value of a company and investors will base their value of a company on the expected stream of future dividends."

That is exactly what happened and, in the circumstances, the sale produced a reasonable deal for the taxpayer.

The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Stephen Dorrell) : Will my hon. Friend draw the attention of the House to the Committee's conclusion :

"we recognise that for the water companies to have been sold for a figure approaching the replacement cost of their assets, the price of water would have needed to be raised to a very high level"? We did not hear about that finding from the right hon. Member for Swansea, West (Mr. Williams).

Mr. Smith : Absolutely. The Committee said that the Department "had sold assets worth £34.5 billion at current values for net proceeds of £3.6 billion. The Department explained that they were not selling assets, which had no marketable value, but an industry which had an income flow which had a value on the open market." I entirely agree with my hon. Friend the Financial Secretary. The right hon. Member for Swansea, West suggested that it did not matter whether the water industry was in the public or private sector, because if it were in the public sector, it would still be able to borrow. Of course it could do so but, if it did, it would find itself--because that borrowing is in addition to the public sector borrowing requirement--in competition with all the other Departments that are lining up at the door of the Treasury, no doubt at this moment, pleading their case for increased public expenditure. The virtue of transferring the water authorities to the private sector--this will apply equally to Scotland--is that they are able to go to the market for their increased borrowing. In the end, somebody must pay, either the taxpayer or the customer--the right hon. Gentleman conceded that. There are limited resources available in the public sector, whereas if the companies go to the market, as they have, they are able to obtain the substantial amounts of capital that they need to make environmental improvements and to invest. I want, finally, to mention the process of audit in the public sector, the role of the National Audit Office and the role of the Public Accounts Committee, because in my five years as a member of the Committee a number of improvements were made. I shall give the House one example of those improvements. Five years ago, the Treasury minutes tended not to be very specific. They did not necessarily deal with every recommendation of the Committee. Now, the Treasury minutes set out the

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recommendations of the Committee and the Government's response. That is an important part of the process.

There is a natural tendency for the Committee to focus on past events and I make no complaint about that, because it is inevitable. However, there has sometimes been a tendency to concentrate on ascribing blame to people and trying to attach responsibility to individuals. Although that is important, it is not the most important element. The most important element, and the object of the whole exercise, should surely be to learn lessons for the future and to ensure that they are fully understood and implemented. In that respect, there is some room for improvement.

I understand that one reason why it sometimes takes a long time for a National Audit Office report to be published is that the NAO people have to obtain the agreement of a Department on the contents of the report--by that, I mean the facts. It is not acceptable for an accounting officer to come to the PAC and dispute the facts. Those facts must be agreed between the NAO and the Department before the report is published. Clearly, that is to the advantage of the Committee.

The difficulty is that reports tend to be a mixture of fact and judgment. I suppose in theory it is possible to split those two aspects, but in practice that is difficult. Nevertheless, I believe that it would be an improvement if there were some separation between the facts--the history of a matter--and the conclusions reached, especially the NAO's recommendations for future change. Those recommendations should be set out more clearly, and the PAC should focus more clearly upon them in drawing up its recommendations. That would be one way of ensuring that the Government were not let off the hook in implementing the recommendations.

I endorse what the hon. Member for Hodge Hill said about the work of the National Audit Office. Over the 10 years since the National Audit Act 1983, the work has been transformed out of all recognition. The 900 staff to whom the hon. Gentleman referred do a fine job, but there is never any room for complacency, and we should examine ways in which the system could be further improved.

In that context, I mention a report published recently by Certified Trust, part of the Chartered Association of Certified Accountants. The report, which was written by Andrew Likierman and Alison Taylor is about Government departmental reports. That valuable study examines both the departmental reports published over the past two years and the uses to which those reports were put by Select Committees.

A couple of years ago, before the reports before us were published, when the PAC was asked for its view it said, not surprisingly, that such reports should be like an annual report--a report to Parliament by the Department accounting for the way in which it had spent the sum of money voted by Parliament. The PAC said that in that context it would be appropriate to include the appropriation accounts in the report. There are tiny difficulties in doing that and it has not happened. Perhaps that does not matter, but clearly there is a slight dilemma over what the role of the reports should be.

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The question is whether the reports should be backward-looking or forward-looking. Should they be an account by Departments of what they have achieved over the past year, how they have measured up to their aims and objectives and whether they have met their performance targets? On the other hand, such reports are now in effect what used to be the public expenditure White Paper, so they set out the Department's public spending plans for the forthcoming year. The role of the Treasury in all that raises an important and interesting question, especially about the extent to which the Treasury should influence the reports. If the Treasury had no influence over them, there would be no consistency from one report to another.

Mr. Sheldon : I referred to Andrew Likierman and the valuable report which he produced, and I also said that it was the role of the Select Committees to undertake a proper examination of those matters as, indeed, it was their proper duty to undertake an examination of the public expenditure White Paper. The fact is that that has been done only to a very limited extent. I teased the Committees, as I have often done, by saying that, if they were happy with expenditure on the issues that concerned them, they should say so. They should say that there is nothing to object to in what the Government have in mind. That is such a ludicrous proposition that it makes it clear that the Committees are failing in some of the important tasks that they should undertake. We must take such matters into account, too.

Mr. Smith : I am delighted to hear the right hon. Gentleman say that. When we consider the basic purpose of the departmental Select Committees, our starting point should be the reports. The great advantage of such reports over the traditional public expenditure White Paper is that Departments are now required to set out clearly their aims and objectives, the resources committed to pursuing them and performance indicators to measure how far those objectives have been achieved. I agree with the right hon. Member for

Ashton-under-Lyne that every Select Committee should take evidence on the reports from the permanent secretary--and from customers and clients of the Department, too, to establish whether they are getting a good deal.

I understand that unfortunately, this year, because of the intervention of the general election, many of the 1992 reports which were published six months ago have not been examined by the Select Committees. I hope that that will be put right, or if not, I hope that next year the reports will be examined by the relevant Select Committee. Some Committees have a good record, but one or two, which are mentioned in the report, have never considered the spending plans of their Departments. I believe that it is important that they do so. Such consideration is complementary to the work of the PAC. The PAC performs an invaluable service, but it is not in a position to examine public expenditure overall. It is clear from the debate that Parliament has a vital role to play.

8.7 pm

Mr. Thomas McAvoy (Glasgow, Rutherglen) : Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for giving me the opportunity to participate in the debate ; I have been

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waiting for about four hours to do so. My speech will not be over-long, but I shall not rush, either, because I have some points to make.

I am delighted to associate myself with what has been said about the work of the members of the Public Accounts Committee, especially my right hon. Friend the Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Mr. Sheldon). I disagree somewhat with my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Cathcart (Mr. Maxton), who said that the Committee somehow let the Scottish officials off the hook. From what I read, it appeared that the officials got the third degree from some of the members of the Committee.

The hon. Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Smith) mentioned the length of service of my right hon. Friend the Member for Ashton-under-Lyne as chairman of the PAC. It is ironic that the Tory party vice-chairman should congratulate my right hon. Friend on the length of his service, because a similar length of service is not possible for Conservative members of Select Committees. No doubt the hon. Member for Beaconsfield was a supporter of the vindictive removal of the hon. Member for Macclesfield (Mr. Winterton) from the Select Committee on Health on the spurious basis that he had served for longer than two periods.

The PAC's fifth report is about "The Condition of Scottish Housing". Paragraph 3(ii) of the introduction and summary of conclusions and recommendations says :

"We consider that the Department need better information on the condition of housing in Scotland".

That has been mentioned by more than one hon. Member. I support what my hon. Friend the Member for Cathcart said about the fact that councils and a whole range of organisations in Scotland pressed Scottish Office Ministers for many years to conduct a survey. The Scottish Office point blank refused to do so. The hidden agenda was that the Scottish Office did not want the full extent of Scotland's needs to be exposed to public scrutiny, because that would put pressure on Scottish Office Ministers to supply the resources to meet those needs.

It is ironic that paragraph 3(iv) says :

"We are glad to note the Department's decision to launch a national house condition survey and their intention to conduct further such surveys every five years".

We welcome the conversion of Scottish Office Ministers in particular the Under-Secretary of State for Scotland, the hon. Member for Edinburgh, West (Lord James Douglas-Hamilton)--although during the time that it has taken to convince them, there has been suffering throughout Scotland.

My hon. Friend the Member for Cathcart mentioned the fact that the report says that the Department's role is indirect in relation to the support--or, rather, the non-support--of Scottish housing. The report says that the Department exercises

"influence and control over the housing sector by a variety of means".

It exercises complete control in its function of limiting net capital expenditure by local authorities. It dictates the agenda of the district councils which are the housing authorities in Scotland. In one respect, I disagree with my hon. Friend the Member for Cathcart about the conversion of Scottish Office officials. One of the main purposes of a national housing survey would be to try to tackle the curse of dampness in council housing in Scotland. At paragraph

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109 on page 11 of the report, Mr. Michael Latham, the former hon. Member for Rutland and Melton, is reported as follows :

"I have worked in the building industry for 25 years and these points here are well known in the industry. Why is there such a large number of units in Scotland, I suspect many of them relatively new units, built in the last 20-25 years which are subject to damp penetration?"

Here is someone who has knowledge of the building industry making a point about bad design in Scotland causing problems of damp penetration.

At paragraph 113, Mr. Latham asks the officials :

"Are the local authorities coming to you in Scotland saying, Listen, we have a terrible problem of damp penetration of council houses in the west of Scotland which have been built in the last 20-25 years. We must have more resources to tackle this'? Do they ask you that?"

Dr. McCrone replied :

"Yes, they do and we take that into account in determining the housing allocations ; that is one of the main factors which we consider."

Yet that allocation has fallen in every single year since the Conservative Government came to office.

On page 14 of the report, my right hon. Friend the Member for Swansea, West (Mr. Williams) makes that point--and we are certainly grateful for the support of Welsh Members on this matter. My right hon. Friend said :

"With the worst weather conditions anywhere in Europe, with evidence that shows that housing was deteriorating more rapidly than similarly aged housing in England, we actually have a reduction of about £2.4 billion in central funding towards the expenditure of the local authority."

Between 1979 and 1989, the Government deducted from central Government support to housing authorities capital receipts from the sale of council housing. When they were asked where the money would otherwise have come from, they replied that it would have come from the Secretary of State's block allocation.

Council housing in Scotland--in particular, the west of Scotland--has terrible problems of damp penetration. The Government constantly criticise councils for the number of void properties that they have, failing to take into account the fact that many of those properties are void because they suffer from dampness and the councils do not have the resources to tackle the problem, cure the dampness and put the houses back in the pool for letting. Greenhill court in Rutherglen--a systems-built block with flat roofs, built in the 1970s--has had nothing but problems with dampness and rain penetration since day one, yet under the capital allocation of Glasgow district council, the tenants have no chance of getting anything done to the block.

To its credit, Scottish Homes showed an interest at one stage, but that plan fell through, and while Scottish Homes is under pressure with its capital programme, there is no way that it can tackle the problems of Greenhill court. We are talking about expenditure and support coming from central Government to local government. The people in Greenhill court in my constituency are in a similar position to people throughout Scotland : there does not seem to be any hope of the Government's supporting them and coming across with the resources to tackle their housing problem.

Let me refer to the 16th report of the PAC on the control and monitoring of pollution and the review of the pollution inspectorate. On page vi, the report states :

"We note with interest the Inspectorate's approach of requiring industry to take a proactive role and exercise greater self regulation in pollution control, whilst continuing to

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recognise the particular difficulties that may be faced by small businesses struggling to meet the higher demands of integrated pollution control."

That is a reasonable statement to make.

The Rutherglen part of my constituency contains the site of a former chemical works set up in the 1830s or 1840s--White's chemical works--which continued to operate until 1970, some 140 years later. There is no doubt that it created local employment : my grandfather, my father, my brother, several uncles and a whole stack of cousins worked there. It produced chromium. I was brought up only 200 or 300 yards from that place.

It is amazing how people's perceptions of what is acceptable change. A matter of 150 yd from the chromium works, the burns and streams ran all sorts of different colours because of the chemical discharge from the factory. Nobody thought anything of it. If that happened now, everyone would be up in arms, trying to get something done about it. We could have done with this inspectorates-type approach in Rutherglen between 1830 and 1970. A result of that company's existence was the indiscriminate dumping of toxic chromium waste throughout large areas of Cambuslang, Rutherglen and south Glasgow. The company simply sent out its lorries and dumped the chromium waste anywhere that it could. We are now discovering it on sites adjacent to schools, playing fields, housing schemes and the spectators' area of a local junior football stadium. A nursing home in Rutherglen has been found to have been built on a site where White's dumped toxic chromium waste. It is a big problem in my constituency.

People are even more frightened and confused because the medical world cannot seem to get its act together and come up with a definitive answer to people's fears. The dangerous chromium, we are told, is hexavelent chromium. But another school of thought says that that dangerous chromium is unsafe only to those working with it in unprotected conditions, while a third school of thought says that it is dangerous outside--on the sites that I mentioned, for example--only if the wind disturbs the top layer and spreads the dust over the surrounding area. Nevertheless, there is a seemingly high incidence of cancer-related illnesses in the Cambuslang and Rutherglen area. It is worth remembering that, 25 to 30 years ago, workers were being told to work with asbestos dust, and that there was nothing wrong with it, whereas we now know the problems that it causes. Hexavelent chromium is in the same category.

White's, which changed its name, first to British Chrome and Chemicals and then to Albright and Wilson, left Rutherglen in 1970. For 140 years, it used the community, making its profits out of the area. It has left us with a potential toxic waste time bomb. I am not one for scaremongering, and one must always listen to experts and get their advice--although I do not have complete faith in the experts--but the fact remains that people fear the consequences of that industrial waste. I have been asking the local district council to pursue the legal liabilities of the former companies and demand that they contribute to cleaning up that waste.

Mr. David Marshall (Glasgow, Shettleston) : I congratulate my hon. Friend on the job that he has done in dealing with this problem for the past two years. Does

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he agree that, in addition to his constituency, the problem is a matter of great concern in Carmyle in my constituency, immediately adjoining his constituency, and in the east end of the city of Glasgow ? Does he agree further that the devastation that was caused by the de-industrialisation of the city cannot be tackled adequately by the district council unless the Scottish Office gives additional adequate resources to deal with that worrying and serious problem ?

Mr. McAvoy : I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that intervention. I can certainly confirm that the problem exists in Carmyle and other parts of east Glasgow. The lorries went as far as they could to dump the waste.

I was about to refer to resources because, at the end of the day, that is what this matter is about. There are various points of view. There is the expert view that one can cover up the hexavelent chromium and another view that it should be transported out of the area. The problem is where it is to be dumped. Whatever response is required, it needs money.

Clearly, Glasgow district council and Strathclyde regional council do not have the sums available to tackle that problem. To be fair to the Under- Secretary of State for Scotland, the hon. Member for Eastwood (Mr. Stewart), he came to the constituency, looked at the situation and managed to come up with about £70,000 to try to make the site safe, but the overall problem is still to be addressed. Resources are still to be made available to the local council. I can rely on the support of my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Shettleston (Mr. Marshall) and Scottish Members of all persuasions to try to persuade the Government that the people of the surrounding areas should not pay the price of 140 years of industrial exploitation.

8.21 pm

Mr. Rhodri Morgan (Cardiff, West) : I shall refer to some of the points that have been raised mostly by Opposition Members, as the debate has generally been much better attended by the Opposition. I was glad to hear the contribution of my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Mr. Davis) because--

Mr. Nicholas Brown (Newcastle upon Tyne, East) : Perhaps my hon. Friend will observe that there is nobody sitting on the Conservative Back Benches.

Mr. Morgan : My hon. Friend is right, but when I started my sentence there was one Conservative Member present, and he has just re-emerged to make what I said true again.

My hon. Friend the Member for Hodge Hill at least managed to divert attention away from shenanigans in Welsh non-departmental public bodies and indicated that shenanigans are also going on in west midlands public bodies. It is not a matter of feeling proud about that ; it is a matter of showing that the system is still failing and that, as soon as the Public Accounts Committee manages to shut a stable door in Wales, another one opens in the west midlands and another team of horses escapes. It is possible that, at the next PAC meeting, that stable door will be shut after those horses are stolen in the west midlands as well. That reinforces the need for a Public Accounts Committee and for an effective control mechanism, even if it always does its work after the wastage has taken place, after the mis-spend has taken place, after the value for money has

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not been achieved, and after the regularity standards that we as hon. Members representing our taxpayers have a right to expect have not been followed.

I wish to raise some points which will extend the scope of debate beyond Wales because we have given Welsh public bodies a fair old going over because they received a fair old going over in the reports. Some of the points that have been raised have universal United Kingdom significance. I have been very interested to see how the National Audit Office does its work. I am not a member of the Public Accounts Committee, but I have an economic brief and a general economic interest, but it strikes me that the National Audit Office has a difficult job, and it is probably getting more difficult all the time because of the increasing number of public bodies and the diverse way in which they are expected to be audited.

Public bodies divide themselves into three categories. Fortunately, the third category is very small. There are public

bodies--quangos--which are audited, nice, plain and simple, by the National Audit Office on behalf of Parliament. They can bring matters straight to the attention of the Public Accounts Committee if they want to. There is a significant and rapidly increasing number of public bodies which are not audited by the NAO but which have private auditors in respect of which the NAO Comptroller and Auditor General--the personal title that we tend to use on such matters--has a reserve power of audit, as well as the Peat Marwicks, the Ernst Youngs and so on.

The NAO can act over and above the private auditor. The private auditor can call the comptroller's attention to what the private auditor is unhappy about, and then of course the comptroller can draw the PAC's attention to it. That is a rapidly increasing class of quango--privately audited, but with reserve powers to the Comptroller and Auditor General.

There is a third category of Government quango in respect of which the Comptroller and Auditor General does not have that reserve power. Therefore, there is a very weak form, if any form, of parliamentary accountability. Some of those bodies are very small and have insignificant budgets so that lack of accountability probably does not matter, but one or two of them are quite big. The one that interests me is the Cardiff Bay development corporation, which is certainly the big daddy of those quangos which do not have either the primary duty of auditor laid on the Comptroller and Auditor General or even that reserve, long-stop power to read the books and records and have matters drawn to their attention by the private auditor so that they can bring them to the attention of the PAC.

Cardiff Bay development corporation has an annual budget of £33 million, which possibly will rise sharply if the Bill that we discussed last night completes its stages in another place and comes back to this House at some point in the spring of next year. If the corporation were to get permission to spend a great deal more money on civil engineering works, the famous barrage that we discussed last night, it would be in an even more unique position than it is now because it would have the power to spend perhaps £50 million or £60 million a year, and still without very much parliamentary accountability.

It is possible to say that the corporation has the other kind of parliamentary accountability and that the Comptroller and Auditor General can do the value-for-money audit, but then that can be done to all public bodies, anyway. We are talking about the prorietary duty

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which at the moment cannot be done. At least that is how I interpret the report on public bodies and of course the famous Treasury note which was issued on Thursday. That Treasury minute was in response to the now notorious Development Board for Rural Wales's access payments to the retiring chief executive, a saga which has been referred to half a dozen times already and will no doubt be referred to by the Financial Secretary.

It was very interesting to read through all the papers to the final page, then to the final page of the final paper, and then the final paragraph of the final paper to find out what the Treasury's proposals are on how to shut the stable door after the team of horses has been stolen in the case of the Development Board for Rural Wales. It is worth while to draw the attention of the House to paragraph 161 of Command Paper 2074--the Treasury minute on the first of the 11 reports from the Public Accounts Committee.

The final paragraph deals with the PAC's consultation, after the Development Board for Rural Wales's chief executive's retirement fiasco. The conclusion was :

"it is most important that the Comptroller and Auditor General is able to identify control weaknesses of this type and bring them directly to the attention of Parliament as he did in this case." We can certainly say that again, particularly after what my hon. Friend the Member for Hodge Hill said about the follow-on saga in the west midlands.

What was the Government's reply? I am glad that the Financial Secretary will hear this. They said :

"in the case of executive non-departmental public bodies" in other words, quangos--

"where he"--

the Comptroller and Auditor General--

"is not the auditor, the Government believes that the C & AG should have rights of access to the body's papers and records so that he may bring to Parliament's attention, whenever he considers it appropriate, any material departures from the requirements of regularity and propriety."

We can certainly say that again.

The paper continues :

"The rights are frequently provided by statute."

That is the category denoted under the letter Y in "Public Bodies 1991". The provision of those rights by statute is the long-stop power of the Comptroller and Auditor General to audit the quango, even though it is privately audited. The paper continues : "Sponsor departments will seek to secure such rights in cases where they do not exist at present."

That was last week. The Treasury said that it would provide the right to audit in examples where the right does not exist at present.

I have gone through "Public Bodies 1991". It is a copious volume which is available to everyone in Parliament. It is about 100 pages long. It lists every Government quango. There are three significant bodies which the Comptroller and Auditor General does not have the reserve right to audit, let alone the primary ability to do so. The first and largest body is Cardiff Bay development corporation. That is the one which bothers me, because the Government seek to give it enhanced powers and massively to increase its resources.

The second body is the Commonwealth Development Corporation. I presume that it comes under the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. Considerable reference has already been made tonight to that Department's slapdash attitude to accountability.

The third body is, rather sadly, a new one. The Laganside development corporation is the Belfast

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equivalent of the Cardiff Bay development corporation. At least so far it has a small budget of £6 million a year. The Comptroller and Auditor General has no duty of audit or reserve right of supplementary audit of the regularity and propriety of that body, forgetting for the moment the value-for-money audits which the Comptroller and Auditor General can initiate. Such audits are paid for by Parliament's vote, not the vote of the quango. They are not part of the annual expenses of that quango.

We expect the Financial Secretary to tell us how the sponsor Departments-- the Welsh Office, the Northern Ireland Office and the Foreign Office-- intend to remedy a problem which the Government have allowed to creep in, how soon they intend to do so, and in what way. Will it be done by an amendment to the statute, an exchange of letters, or what? The parliamentary accountability of the three quangos that I have mentioned has been reduced and the National Audit Office is not the primary auditor of others, although obviously it has a reserve right to audit them.

I hope that the Financial Secretary will deal with the three quangos to which I referred. He will have general support from the House if he proposes some fairly rapid-fire action to amend the statutes. I also hope that he will give an undertaking that if the Government set up any more quangos they will build into the statute provision that the Comptroller and Auditor General has either the primary or at least the reserve right of access.

The examples that I have described serve to reinforce Parliament's belief that continuous vigilance is needed to detect mis-spending by Government quangos. We still have that problem in Britain. Our voters expect us to watch out for examples of mis-spending.

My worries extend to bodies which are quangos in all but name but are not listed in "Public Bodies 1991". Unfortunately, it is up to not Parliament but the Government to decide what is a quango and what is not. For example, what is a training and enterprise council? Is it a quango? TECs use taxpayers' money and not much else, but the Government say that they are not quangos. The Government say that TECs work on contract, are private companies limited by guarantee and that the Secretary of State does not appoint the chairman or woman, so TECs are not quangos. Therefore, TECs are not listed in "Public Bodies 1991" and we cannot find out what their auditing arrangements are.

Training and enterprise councils are brand new. There are 82 of them in England and Wales and eight or nine local enterprise companies in Scotland. What are the auditing arrangements for them? How does the Comptroller and Auditor General discover potential mis-spending? How does Parliament find out about it? How do we find out whether the auditing arrangements are adequate to make the information available to the Public Accounts Committee or directly to the House?

What are the Government ashamed of? Why do not they include the TECs and LECs in "Public Bodies 1991"? Those bodies are 100 per cent. dependent on taxpayers' money so they should be in that book so that any member of the public can read it and know how much the chairman is paid, who the auditor is, and how to obtain an annual report. I could then find out how my taxpayers' money is spent on those new bodies.

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NHS trusts are not listed in "Public Bodies 1991". There is a long list of NHS bodies, but the trusts are not included. We have been told through leaks in a newspaper today to expect a large wave of trust hospitals in Wales. At present we have only one trust. It is a pseudo health authority opt-out. So far in Wales, no hospital has opted out. Therefore, there is not a great problem at present, but shortly there will be.

We do not know the auditing arrangements for trust hospitals. They are obscure. The Government do not want to put trust hospitals into "Public Bodies 1991". This time their excuse is different. It is not that the Secretary of State does not appoint the chairman or woman--the excuse that the Government used for the TECs. The chairman or woman of the trust is appointed by the Secretary of State. Only last Thursday, in the debate on the health of the nation, the Secretary of State for Health was proud enough to say :

"The trusts are unequivocally accountable to me, as Secretary of State, and there are effective mechanisms for monitoring their work."--[ Official Report, 22 October 1992 ; Vol. 212, c. 595.] If she is so proud that she appoints the chairs of all these trusts, why is she so ashamed of their structure that she does not include them in "Public Bodies 1991" or, presumably, "Public Bodies 1992"? How are Members of Parliament and ordinary taxpayers supposed to find out information if the Government hide the new bodies from the standard work which the Cabinet Office issues every year, which is supposed to be a compendium of public information on bodies which spend the money of taxpayers and no one else? Occasionally, 2 or 3 per cent. of the budget may be from receipts, so their budgets are not all taxpayers' money, but overwhelmingly the bodies spend public money.

Are grant-maintained schools quangos? In the eyes of the Government, they are not : one will not find them in "Public Bodies 1991". There is a dangerous continuous erosion of parliamentary accountability through the audit work of the Comptroller and Auditor General and the accessibility of accounts to the Public Accounts Committee or any Member of Parliament. Something is going on, and Opposition Members are extremely worried about it. Such changes make it far more difficult for the fiddles and shenanigans that have been mentioned tonight to be detected. Some of the examples have been through the mill of the Public Accounts Committee. Some are so far merely Comptroller and Auditor General reports which will no doubt come along later.

It is always a race against time when as parliamentarians we seek to ensure that money is spent properly and that the proper backsides are kicked when we find examples of money not being spent properly. The continuing desire of the Government to privatise the responsibility to audit and distance us from it by evolving new, funny-money forms of public body to spend taxpayers' money is worrying. We nevertheless have to vote the money. We have to face our constituents and be able to say, "Yes, we are sure that the money is spent responsibly, even though sometimes we do not like the way in which it is spent." Whatever one's party, one has to face one's constituents and say that Parliament fulfils its traditional job, which goes back 1,000 years, of checking how the Executive spend the money that they raise from the taxpayer.

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