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5.15 pm
Mr. Robert Maclennan (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross): I would like to begin by echoing the words of the new Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee, the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr. Davis), in paying tribute to the right hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Mr. Sheldon), whose distinguished 14-year-long chairmanship gave the Committee a degree of solidity and a reputation for assiduity in its supervision of the public expenditure of the previous Administration.
The Committee that the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden has the honour of chairing has acquired its reputation in no small part because of its traditional ability to reach consensus and produce unanimous reports; it is the Committee least scarred of any by cross-party tensions. I value that, and it must be the way in which the Committee continues in the future.
In wishing the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden all success in the discharge of his new job, I express a little wry internal amusement that someone who conducted himself in the Foreign Office--perhaps the least contentious Department--with a degree of combativeness that was not characteristic of Ministers in that Department may find the ambience of the PAC somewhat different, although no doubt challenging.
The right hon. Gentleman comes to his new job with the good wishes of all who serve with him, and I have been greatly encouraged by his opening remarks this afternoon. He homed in on the critical questions of policy: how the work of the Committee should be conducted; how it should be valued; and how the audit of public spending should be conducted. I particularly agree with his concluding remarks about access, a point repeatedly made by the previous Chairman and members of the Committee, on which I had the honour of serving for a number of years.
It is right that the National Audit Office should follow public money wherever it goes. That broad principle is one that I hope will inform the Government in their review of the work of quangos, initiated in a recent consultation paper. It must be right to start, as the Chairman of the Committee suggested, with the scrutiny of the spending of the executive non-departmental public bodies. However, I think that the Committee could go beyond that to look at some of the advisory bodies, which involve a considerable expenditure of public funds.
I am happy, too, that the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden referred to the oversight of expenditure on the upkeep of royal palaces. He made the point, in a wholly non-partisan and appropriate way, that it cannot but be in the interests of the sovereign to have public moneys voted for that purpose brought under the scrutiny of the House.
The question is often asked: how effective is the Public Accounts Committee? It is difficult to evaluate that, but the right hon. Gentleman has done so by making projections of possible savings. We can legitimately try to make such claims, although they are sometimes difficult to carry through.
Given the sheer number of reports undertaken by the Committee, it is a virtual certainty that all senior civil servants will fairly frequently be subject to its scrutiny. They and those close to them know that they will be treated fairly but with considerable probing. That, I believe, affects their view of their role as accounting officers; it is not a remote role, but one that exposes them directly to democratic accountability to the House.
It is sometimes asked, when a large phalanx of people troop in to the hearings behind the accounting officer, whether that is really necessary--whether it takes so many people to answer the questions. The answer is almost certainly no, but there is a certain educative effect on civil servants, which most people would consider extremely valuable. It makes them realise that, although under the Armstrong memorandum they have formerly been regarded as primarily--Lord Armstrong of Ilminster would have said solely, and I believe that he errs constitutionally in that--accountable to the Government of the day, they must also answer to the House of Commons on some important matters.
How does one construct a debate logically, sensibly and coherently around such a proliferation of interesting reports? It can be done thematically or by illustration, and the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden chose both approaches. I intend to duck out of those approaches and simply refer briefly to a few reports that raise points in which I am personally interested, not because I think that they are more important than the other reports, but because they caught my fancy and illustrate something of the way in which the Committee works.
The right hon. Gentleman referred to the second report, "Progress in Completing the New British Library". If he had not already quoted its conclusion at paragraph 68, I would have done so. The saga of mismanagement goes back a long way. The single most important lesson is that the Treasury should have insisted at a much earlier stage that the project be overseen by a single Government Department. The Department of National Heritage must take some of the blame for that.
The story of the mishaps became all too familiar, and I will not rehearse again the losses incurred. As is clear from the report and from the evidence given to the Committee, we have less than we bargained for as a result of the mismanagement: we have a library which is smaller than was envisaged and which will be full by 2003. That is a serious consequence for the country. As we have already spent so much money, the Government should now secure enough money to ensure that the new library operates effectively.
Budgetary evidence that has become available since the report's publication shows that the Government have cut the library's grant in aid by £1.7 million from their own planning figures, which is worrying given the plague of technical problems that has afflicted the building. The story of the project has been of people not knowing when to cancel aspects of the development and admit that money has been wasted, or not taking the decision to bite the bullet and build it as it should be.
I hope that the use of the four acres of land to the north of the site to enable the library to expand, to deal with the problems of space and access to electronic media, will be authorised, and that the necessary money will be made available. It is not satisfactory if the library cannot be run effectively and cannot continue to buy books internationally and conserve those that it has. There is already a backlog of items awaiting conservation that will not grow any smaller if the grant in aid is cut.
I candidly admit that I have gone beyond the Committee's recommendations, but that we should be in this position today is due to the inefficiencies--to put it as moderately as one can--in the expenditure of the vast sums of money already dedicated to the project.
Like the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden, I alighted on the 20th report, "Payments to the National Lottery Distribution Fund", which was published on 17 March 1997. The Committee noted that the director general of Oflot had been unable to levy a fine on Camelot, despite a serious breach of its licence agreement.
In the Treasury minute of July 1997, the Government agreed with the Committee's point and said that they would consider the necessary legislative change. We anticipate that legislation will be introduced before Christmas and I hope that it will deal fully with that point.
The Committee expressed concern that the National Audit Office
In its 17th report, "Health of the Nation: a Progress Report", published on 15 March 1997, the Committee expressed concern that
The Treasury minute response to our report referred to a national survey on mental health that was undertaken three years ago, for which much is claimed. No doubt that historical survey is of value, but it appears to lack a continuing collection of current statistical information about severe mental illness on an agreed national basis. The minute referred to a current pilot study which it is hoped will be completed by the autumn of next year, with implementation, if the study is deemed satisfactory, one or two years later. That does not support the view that the allocation of resources to mental health today rests on a firmly based evaluation of need. As mental illness apparently accounts for about 14 per cent. of national health service in-patient costs, 23 per cent. of pharmaceutical expenditure and 14 per cent. of certificated absence from work, it is astonishing how little effort has been made, or is being made, on the incidence and definition of severe mental illness and the needs of those suffering from it.
The Treasury minute, rather than simply accepting our Committee's call for a working definition of severe mental illness, apparently encourages what it calls
My interest in this issue is not merely academic. Mental illness not only has an impact on the purse of society but can cause acute distress to sufferers and their families and can sometimes result in anti-social behaviour. In certain sectors of the community, as the Committee found, specific therapeutic interventions may be necessary. We noted the need for measures to prevent deliberate self-harm among farmers and among women of Asian descent--two groups on which we heard evidence about the high levels of suicide.
Perhaps the Committee's use of the words "working definition" of severe mental illness allowed the Department to interpret our concerns as being the problems of clinicians and carers. Their problems of diagnosis are not made difficult by a lack of statistics; their problems flow from inadequate or unsuitable resources for treatment, which in turn flow from failures to measure need. It is extremely important that such a survey is carried out and that severe mental illness is defined so that proper allocation of resources can be made in future.
"were only able to satisfy themselves that all payments recorded as due to the Distribution Fund had been made punctually and in full. They were not able to express an opinion on whether the sums recorded as due were correct."
Again, I agree wholly with the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden about the nature of audit and that the Committee and the National Audit Office should have the power of direct access that was denied in this case.
"a working definition of severe mental illness has not yet been agreed, and at the length of time it is taking to gather data on the incidence and severity of mental illness."
That may be thought a narrow point, but it has attracted a not entirely satisfactory response in the Treasury minute. I do not expect the Minister to allude to it, because it is a matter for the Department of Health. I confess that the point flows from a certain lack of tautness of expression in the Committee's original recommendation.
"the development of appropriate local definitions, taking into account the diverse nature of services and local population's needs."
I candidly confess that I do not understand the point that the Department is making. The measurement of medical need cannot, surely, depend on the availability of particular medical services.
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