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Public Accounts

If the hon. Gentleman is an expert on that snake oil, I am sure he will not be backward in coming forward to point out any sleight of hand in any of the responses that I have managed to produce for him. I shall be more than happy to talk to him about that in due course. The hon. Gentleman also raised some interesting points about the culture of the civil service, the way in which promotions are usually acquired, and the weaknesses that he feels that that inflicts on the ability to deliver on major projects. I like to think that the culture is changing, especially as a result of the strengthening of the power of the Office of Government Commerce and the increasing seriousness with which project delivery and change programmes are viewed, in the civil service in general and politically—with both a small and a large ““p””. The hon. Gentleman, however, clearly has his own observations to make about the effect that has been produced by that culture and that approach, as he has spent the last six years reading the reports that land on the Public Accounts Committee desk. The hon. Member for Ludlow (Mr. Dunne) made an interesting speech. He mentioned the Committee's 32nd report, on the right of access to open countryside, and DEFRA's problems with its budgets. In such circumstances, the Treasury would not see it as its role to decide on DEFRA's behalf which budgets should be top-sliced. If there are unfunded pressures in a Department, the usual approach is to leave the Department to deal with them unless or until a claim is made on the reserve. Only then will the Treasury become involved in the nitty-gritty of deciding whether the claim is justified. It certainly would not want to become involved in telling a Department how to deal with unfunded pressures within its own internal financial envelope. If any changes had come about as a result of that, DEFRA would have decided how to deal with them. Clearly, as the hon. Gentleman pointed out, the allocation of funds to Natural England had a direct effect on arrangements for access to the countryside.