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Public Accounts

I cannot accept that accusation from my hon. Friend, although I accept most of his accusations against other organisations. We agree fairly substantially about them. In a sense, the NAO was too soft in the early stages about the private finance initiative, but it then gradually began to get tougher as it got to grips with the issue. In demanding that the savings from the selling on of PFI debt be paid back to the public sector, it has shown that it has more teeth and is able to deal with the issue. Perhaps it was a little too welcoming at first, but it now has the situation under control. This is a learning experience for all—for the NAO as well as for us. I therefore acquit the NAO of my hon. Friend's accusation. Its reports are very cautious and one has to understand their language and read through them. Sir John Bourn tends to hint at things rather than come out extravagantly and say, ““These people are making a terrible mistake. It's an absolute disaster!”” Instead, we have a mild response in the report, but that is inevitable. We are working in that kind of atmosphere, and it is up to us as politicians to put the political punch into it and start laying the blame and throwing the accusations around. It is not up to the NAO. Let us not be critical of it. I am critical, however, of the unwillingness of civil servants to stand up and say, ““This won't work,”” or, ““It can only be made to work with a lot more extra spending.”” The rural payments were a classic instance of that. Ministers, with support from the farmers, went for the most complicated system. It was a system that nobody else used, and I do not know why we went for it. By that time I had come off the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, but my hon. Friend the Member for North-West Leicestershire (David Taylor) might be able to tell us the answer. Politicians went for the most complex system, and it was pushed through at a time when the Rural Payments Agency was getting rid of staff who had close contact with the farming industry and knew the people in their area. Those staff were being fired, but subsequently had to be brought back, because the agency could do not do the job. Fortunately, the agency's head eventually appeared before the Committee and gave quite a good account of himself, although I still think he was wrong. He sent monthly reports to Ministers saying, ““We're on course and things are on line to start the payments.”” Then he began to put more weasel words in and said that the agency was not quite ready. Then, finally, the total disaster emerged. However, he did not, at the start, say to Ministers, ““We can't do it with these staffing levels; we can't do it and get rid of these people; we can't do it on the basis of the regional structure that we have.”” He did not say that, but he should have done. The Chairman of the Committee said that making such comments would have been career-limiting—and so it would. But presiding over disaster is even more career-limiting, and it is necessary to point that out. I have criticised civil servants by saying that they do not have the commercial skills to negotiate better deals on PFIs, and that is certainly true at local government and hospital level. There is a Treasury team to advise them and put backbone into them, but it cannot do everything and go all over the country.