Examination of Witness (Questions 26 -
41)
TUESDAY 23 JUNE 1998
MR PETER
LUFF, MP
Chairman
26. If we can now welcome Peter Luff, Chairman
of the Agriculture Committee, and Nick Walker the Clerk to that
Committee. Can I say to Mr Luff and to Mr Walker apologies for
keeping you waiting about a quarter of an hour. I thought we were
going to get even further behind but we have managed perhaps to
restrain ourselves just a little. This is an important inquiry.
You yourself, Mr Luff, have pretty firm views on this and if I
may start really by referring to your letter to this Committee
because you said that there was a general view in your committee
that a strengthened role for departmentally-related select committees
in examination of the Government's expenditure would be desirable.
Can you begin therefore by telling us how you and your Committee
think that the present role of committees in scrutinising government
expenditure might be improved upon.
(Mr Luff) Mr Winterton, thank you very
much and perhaps before I answer the question could I say that
I agree with almost everything Mr George said except his remarks
about the Welsh Affairs Select Committee and the Agriculture Committee.
I served on the Welsh Affairs Committee in the last Parliament
and enjoyed every moment and your wife served with great distinction,
as I recall it, on the Agriculture Committee in the last Parliament
and I do not think we recognise ourselves as outer darkness in
any sense. Mr Winterton, the historic control by this House of
expenditure is one of its most important functions and it has
fallen into almost total decay. It exists in theory but in practice
it is a complete fiction. We have virtually no control over the
expenditure of the executive. We see on our committee select committees
as perhaps the most obvious but by no means the only means of
improving that position. One can think of a variety of other solutions
to address it but we are there and it seems appropriate that we
should do the job. We think we can do that by making committee
work on expenditure more procedurally and practically relevant
to the House. That will inevitably, as your earlier witnesses
have said, demand greater resources for the select committees.
I think that is common ground and not even in dispute. It will
also need reform of Estimates procedure. We have heard suggestions
of how that should come about from previous witnesses. What is
crucial is the nature of the motions before the House. I would
also say the amount of time available for debates on Estimates
is woefully inadequate at present. I would caution this committee
perhaps against a grand design encompassing all select committees.
Maybe it should be for individual select committees to find their
own way through this with the general expectation they improve
their scrutiny of the expenditure but I think our first and most
important step could be to make expenditure more comprehensible
to our colleagues in the House. I have here the Ministry of Agriculture
and Intervention Board Departmental Report for 1998 on which we
recently took evidence and will be reporting I hope in the not-too-distant
future. It is quite a document to get through even for members
of the select committee never mind members of the House and a
report that helps them understand what it actually means will
be a real step forward.
Chairman: Thank you very much. David Drew?
Mr Drew
27. Thank you Chairman. We have touched on in
the previous two sessions, although not directly, the freedom
of committees to set their own agenda and there seems to be in
the responses we have some variance between what different chairmen
are saying to us. I would just be interested in your views on
what really should be required of select committees given that,
to give you an example, one Chairman is more or less saying we
are worried about looking at it at all because a nil return could
be construed as being carte blanche to the department in
question, while others are saying we really do want to look at
this and be told that we must look at this as an absolute priority.
(Mr Luff) I cannot see how a Committee could really
return a nil return and maintain its credibility. It will in practice
have to say something substantive to retain credibility in the
House in my view. It should not be too difficult to look at the
main Estimates and the annual departmental report. I hope most
committees do that already. We certainly do and have done since
their inception. But I think also we must not forget that the
word "expenditure" comes first in the terms of reference
of select committees in the Standing Orders of the House. We have
to look at the expenditure, administration and policy of the department
so expenditure should be our highest priority. I am concerned
about some aspects of what is suggested. I have a particular concern
because the Agriculture Committee is currently being expected
to split itself in two to help scrutinise a draft Bill on the
Foods Standards Agency. There is a suggestion from the Modernisation
Committee that we should play a greater role in the scrutiny of
European legislation and if you add to that a greater role for
scrutiny of expenditure there clearly is quite a problem building
up in sheer workload for the Agriculture Department in then being
able to look at the policy issues which frankly, in terms of the
public's perception of the role of select committees, can be the
most important. We must not squeeze out those policy issues. Our
report on B6 today will have acquired a certain amount of interest
and we could have lost that inquiry had this workload come on
us without substantially increased resources. I think my main
concern about setting our own agenda is this suggestion that we
should report within a month. You see if we get the departmental
report, the Estimates, we might want to take evidence on them
from a variety of people, seek advice on them, call the permanent
secretary and the minister in to give evidence, possibly call
others in to give evidence on them as well. We need not restrict
ourselves to officials from the department and the minister. Then
we have to consider what they have said, discuss it with our advisors,
produce a draft report, discuss the draft report, change the draft
report, produce the final report. Doing that all in a month is
going to be very very difficult I think and I would say that perhaps
two months would be a more reasonable period to set for that process.
I do not think there should be an obligation on the committees
to report on Supplementary Estimates. I think there we should
be allowed to make a judgment. Clearly Supplementary Estimates
coming before the Agriculture Committee on, for example, BSE would
have demanded a closer scrutiny but other Supplementary Estimates
probably would not. I think there should be an obligation to look
at the main estimates but we should be given longer than you are
currently proposing in this Committee, longer than a month.
Mr Stunell
28. In your letter, Mr Luff, you set out the
kinds of role you thought the NAO could provide which might avoid
politicisation. Can you sketch that in a bit more fully for us
and what you see as the way of retaining independence.
(Mr Luff) The NAO is the most obvious source of expertise.
It is already helping another committee understand government
accounts. I do not think for a minute it is the only source of
advice. We have just had the Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee
make some alternative suggestions which I found very attractive.
Certainly my Committee took the view that the NAO was an obvious
source. One member of the committee has suggested that another
source of advice could be retired accounting officers, gamekeepers
turned poachers, which is quite an attractive idea. They know
certainly where the skeletons are buried if anyone does. So I
am not suggesting the NAO is the only source of advice but it
is an obvious one. I do not really see any great difficulty in
the politicisation of the NAO. Their job is to help the committee
understand what the accounts mean, just as they help the PAC understand
the reality lying behind the figures they are presented with.
If this Committee took the view the NAO was not the best source,
I do not think that would cause a big problem for our Committee,
but I do think it is important we get the technical expertise
to understand the reports accurately. At present, with excellent
help from my clerk, Mr Walker, we are able quite regularly to
unearth problems in MAFF's Estimates as it is, although relatively
smallscale. We have one in the current departmental report we
have unearthed. The sum total of small errors can be quite considerable,
so I am most anxious we should have more resources if we are to
do this job well.
Chairman
29. Does Mr Walker want to add anything, bearing
in mind you have mentioned him, Mr Luff?
(Mr Walker) Obviously the error my Chairman is referring
to is not on the scale of the Chevaline programme referred to
by Mr George earlier, it is a relatively small matter. It was
only through written supplementary evidence to the oral evidence
session at which the permanent secretary of MAFF gave evidence,
that the Committee discovered this error.
Mr Darvill
30. On the point of interference of the work
of select committees, do you see a danger that increased select
committee influence over the Estimates might lead to Government
interference in the work of select committees?
(Mr Luff) I am glad to say I can speak from my experience
of my Committee. We have admirably independent members—that
has probably damned all the Committee in the eyes of the Labour
whips—and I think, frankly, that this suggestion is a counsel
of despair. We deal with many sensitive issues the whole time.
The report on B6 which I have referred today is but one of them.
I have seen no evidence of interference and I think we should
have the courage to stand up for ourselves and, frankly, we know
a Government with a majority in the House is always going to be
able to whip its way through in the end anyhow, so it should be
able to withstand the scrutiny of a select committee. I think
the members of that committee, if they are worth their salt on
that committee, should be able to stand up to any interference
that might be attempted. I see it as a theoretical but not a practical
problem.
31. The point being made is whether that increased
influence might lead to more interference.
(Mr Luff) If it does, we will have to resist it. It
is as simple as that. We will have to have the courage of our
convictions.
Chairman
32. What about the interference of the usual
channels in respect of the appointment of Members of this House
to select committees? Have you any memory of an occasion in this
House where, because a committee was increasingly influential,
the whips sought to interfere in the appointment of individuals
to the committee?
(Mr Luff) And the invention of new conventions, as
far as I recall, Mr Chairman! I pay tribute to your chairmanship
of the Health Committee in answering that question! You are quite
right, there is that evidence, but it caused a good deal of embarrassment
and concern to the Government at the time and I think we must
make sure that the House expresses disapproval of any kind of
gerrymandering of a particularly independently-minded committee.
33. Tell me, why didn't they?
(Mr Luff) Well, Mr Winterton, I cannot answer that
question.
34. I think it really follows up very much the
question that Keith Darvill put to you, is there not a great danger—and
Mr Illsley unfortunately has gone—that if the select committees
do what the House has charged them to do, and very much acted
along the lines that Mr George and Mr David Davis have encouraged
select committees to do, that the executive of the day may well
seek to interfere in order to reduce the effectiveness? How do
you think the House at the end of the day can guard against that
sort of development?
(Mr Luff) I do not see an obvious answer to that question,
except to say that to lose one chairman is a misfortune but to
lose two is something rather more serious, and to lose three or
four for exercising independence would become quite a big issue
outside this House. So I think there would be a de facto
check on the executive and it would be a matter for the House
to assert itself in the face of an over-mighty executive, which
is a challenge it has not faced up to in the past, I freely acknowledge.
Mr Davey
35. You reported in your letter to us that your
Committee has already been quite heavily involved in discussions
with departments as regards the introduction of resource accounting,
and that the department intended to consult with you on the presentation
of relevant information in the departmental reports. Can you tell
us how those consultations are going? Do you believe that an improved
departmental annual report could do away with the need for separate
Estimates?
(Mr Luff) I think it is a little bit of an exaggeration
to say we have been heavily involved, but we have received assurances
about the department in consultations we have had with it about
the introduction of resource accounting and budgeting. I asked
the permanent secretary myself when he came before us on 5th May
how the development of resource accounting and budgeting was going,
he gave us an indication of the timescale for publication, which
was June or July, and he gave us an indication that he would let
us see a copy of the draft of the resource accounting budget.
So we have got a very good relationship with MAFF. To describe
us as "heavily involved" is probably a slight exaggeration.
When we get their dry-run resource accounts we will look at them
and consider what we should do with them. We have not yet considered
as a Committee how to consider those dry-run accounts. I have
not the slightest idea what they are going to look like apart
from anything else. When we see what they look like the Committee
will want to take a view as to what we are going to do with them.
We are grateful to MAFF for their openness in the way they have
dealt with us on this issue.
Mr Darvill
36. Turning to the abolition of the annual spending
round, Mr Luff, what effect do you think that the announcement
by the Chancellor of Exchequer of the end of the annual spending
round will have on examination of the annual Estimates by select
committees?
(Mr Luff) It is difficult to say at this stage. We
are not entirely sure but presumably the House is still going
to be required to approve the Estimates on an annual basis so
the need for continued scrutiny exists and, as Mr Davis was saying
earlier, there is a strong case for improving the powers of committees
to encouragement virement within the individual department's Estimates
and that would seem to me to become a more important feature of
any new system. Frankly, we do not know what it will mean. We
have got to gaze into our crystal balls and work it out for ourselves
and members of this Committee are as well placed as I am to make
those guesses.
Chairman
37. A final question from me. The Chairman of
the Trade and Industry Committee wrote: "The likelihood is
that most detailed examination of expenditure is unlikely to produce
matter suitable to debate, as opposed to a lengthy process of
analysis, dialogue and resolution." How would you respond
to that question? Is the short time-scale available to committees
for this work enough to make it worthwhile? Is there scope for
extending it? Can you think of any other ways of encouraging select
committees to examine the Estimates and departmental annual reports?
(Mr Luff) I think they will be a bit discouraged to
have a month to do it in and will not be able to do it justice.
I go back to my earlier point and I think that is very important.
I think they will feel discouraged if there is not a reasonable
chance of the House debating the matter afterwards. I think it
is very important that we should secure an understanding that
there will be more debates on Estimates. Estimates Days are not
Estimates Days at present, they are excuses for debates on a wide
range of subjects. Without betraying a confidence on the Liaison
Committee, I have seen one or two bids for Estimates Day debates
and they bear little relation to expenditure. It is very important
that Estimates Days debates bear a closer relationship to the
reports the select committees then produce. It is important that
they come forward on motions that are amendable, substantive motions
that are thought about by the House and not taken on the nod at
the end of a day's debates.
38. There has been some talk, Mr Luff, of this
House through the Modernisation Committee proposing that there
might be a second Chamber, a "Main Committee" for the
debate particularly of departmental select committee reports and
other relatively non-controversial business. Do you believe that
such a Chamber might be helpful in giving a higher profile to
select committees and their reports many of which currently under
our present system, as you have indicated, are not debated?
(Mr Luff) Inherently it is an attractive idea. I heard
Mr George suggesting something very similar to that in his evidence
to you. I suppose the concern I have is although there are probably
too many Members of Parliament there are still only 659 of us
to go round. At the end of the last Parliament I found myself
serving on two select committees and being PPS to two Ministers.
There is a lot of pressure and competition for our time. It is
all very well postulating new structures and new committees but
you have to put members on them as well. There is a limit to the
amount of time we all have to give to this process while serving
our constituents and doing our continuing duty in the Chamber.
It is a nice idea but I would want to see a careful analysis of
whether you can find the people to put into it to make the system
work.
39. I again appreciate your response,
but you would not be appointed to the second Chamber. The second
Chamber or the "Main Committee" would be on a par with
the Chamber of the House and any Member of the House, as Mr Stunell
would know, he sits on the Modernisation Select Committee with
me and he might like to elaborate a bit further, would have the
opportunity of going to the "Main Committee" or the
second Chamber for debates on select committee reports. When this
committee or this chamber would sit is a matter for discussion,
but it is a way of giving the House an opportunity to debate select
committee reports and perhaps Estimates in greater detail than
is currently possible. Is it something you think your Committee
would support if it gave the House a greater opportunity, because
only one Member in the Chamber can speak at any one time and if
there is another chamber clearly rather more people could participate
in debates in Parliament.
(Mr Luff) I can see the attractions of it, certainly.
It seems quite a neat solution. It is an entirely new idea to
me, I have not heard this idea before, and I would not dare to
speak for members of my Committee, not having heard of it before.
I suppose I have a concern in that the historic power of the House
of Commons has derived from its right to vote expenditure to the
monarch and it seems we might be sidelining that historic power
in some way and turning the House of Commons itself into even
more Mr Stunell
40. We can obviously get into the detail of
this but in broad terms would you see it as a defect of the present
system that your Committee labours away on reports and they just
sit on the shelf with no effective legislative response?
(Mr Luff) Absolutely, I agree with that. I think that
goes to the nub of the problem, not just on the Estimates issues
but on all the policy issues we consider too. It would be a very
good thing indeed to see more of the select committee reports
debated than are at present, but I would not want attention to
move away from the House of Commons, which is the historic cockpit
in which we conduct our debates, and I have a nervousness about
taking issues away from the main floor of the House. I would have
thought we could try to persuade the business managers through
the usual channels that we should pass a little less legislation
and find a little more time for scrutiny, scrutiny of executive
decisions and budgets rather than just passing new Acts of Parliament.
Mr Illsley
41. You have just mentioned that you would like
to see further time to have select committee reports debated and
scrutinised, at the same time we are talking about looking in
more detail at Estimates and expenditure. Is this not the nub
of the problem, that Parliament has historically given up the
scrutiny of expenditure to consider select committee reports and
issues and now we are looking at redressing that balance?
(Mr Luff) I think that is an entirely fair analysis.
I think we have wrongly allowed ourselves to be distracted from
that crucial task and I welcome the fact this Committee is looking
at improving our scrutiny in this area.
Chairman: That is a perfect point at which to
end. I thank you, Mr Luff and your clerk, Nick Walker, for coming
to give evidence and for being so patient. Thank you very much
indeed. I finish with the same comment I made to the other two
witnesses, if you have any other information or memoranda you
would like to send us on this subject, we would be very pleased
to receive it. Once again, thank you very much.
|
