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Public Accounts

I agree with the hon. Gentleman. The tax credit system has been combined with the dreaded efficiency savings, which have led to the closure of offices in Manchester and Bristol, and the concentration of services in Birmingham. Grimsby has lost the ability to conduct face-to-face meetings. The CSA is another case in point. It tried to provide face-to-face meetings through regional facilities, which quickly failed. A particular problem with the tax credits is that MPs have a hotline, and direct access, but the public do not. People want the system to be explained to them, so what they can apply for is explained to them and what they cannot apply for is justified. That cannot be combined with efficiency savings that reduce the staffing levels of HMRC offices up and down the country. The same problem happens with jobseeker’s allowance. People want face-to-face advice, but increasingly they have to obtain advice through the internet or on the telephone. That is not an adequate approach to dealing with a sector of society that does not have the greatest understanding of the system—I do not, and they certainly do not—and how to work it. In all these instances, the failure to think through how to implement the Government’s good intentions more effectively is a major weakness. The Chairman dealt with the issue of defence procurement effectively, and we have had effective control over that area. The major problem in that respect is that we have entered into commitments in Afghanistan and Iraq—in my view, we should not have entered into them—without the means to fulfil them. The result has been an enormous increase in spending, including last-minute increases, and unsatisfactory performance. The basic problem is that we are trying to fight a war that is over—the cold war—with weapons of high-technology, aircraft carriers that need frigates mustered all around to protect them and nuclear submarines. Those are weapons from a cold war era that is over. We now face continuous bushfire wars scattered around the globe, for which we need not high-technology equipment, but simple, straightforward and reliable equipment and a power to intervene rapidly. I shall not go into that further—I just wanted to mention it—but it is part of the weakness of failure to think through what we are doing. I am not criticising the Government’s good intentions—as I said, I, myself, am overflowing with them—but I am questioning their practicability and the Government’s failure to think through the problems. Another of our difficulties is that we are deal with everything posthumously. We are trying to close the stable doors after the horse has bolted; we are dealing not with the people who caused the problem, but with their successors, who naturally come along, profess every good intention and promise that it will not happen again. They go away and, in the main, implement our reports, but if we cannot get the perpetrators, it is a very unsatisfactory way to proceed. We got them once on an issue concerning the Rural Payments Agency, and it was very illuminating, but we did that only after exceptional effort. It should be part of our routine that we are able to speak to the people directly responsible for the problems. We need a power to ensure that our recommendations are implemented—in other words, we should be able to audit them after a year to see whether they have been implemented. We also need wider access to bodies. As the Chairman of the Committee said, it is ludicrous that we cannot cover a major spender such as the BBC, which would be less criticised for being over-grandiose and imperialistic in its ambitions to run everything if it gave the assurance that it would be effectively audited by the Committee and the NAO. That would guarantee that BBC spending was efficient, effective and welcome. I think also of the Financial Services Authority, the Bank of England and the civil list. I do not particularly want to remove the glitter that surrounds the civil list—I have lost my earlier enthusiasm there—but Buckingham palace, in its attempt to explain to us exactly what was involved in the maintenance and repairs at the palace, missed a good opportunity: we were invited along, but not given any food, which did not produce the best and most welcoming mood. I did not go for that very reason. If we were not to be fed, I did not want to know, although perhaps that was selfish on my part. As an ambitious over-eater, going to the palace would have satisfied my social-climbing ambitions, but not my culinary ambitions. We should certainly cover the civil list, but I say that with no great enthusiasm. The Committee also needs a bigger staff. The NAO has a big staff; its work is welcome and important, and its staff are very good—I am constantly impressed with them. However, we need a Committee staff to fill in the gaps between the NAO reports and our inquiries. Those are often media gaps: what has the debate centred on since the NAO reported, which quite often happens a few months before we deal with a given matter? What is the measure of public opinion? What have the media been saying about the issue? What has Private Eye—often a valuable source of information—been saying? What has happened in the Departments concerned since the report? Addressing those issues would allow us to make more effective and trenchant inquiries. However, with those reservations—and, I am afraid, a somewhat excessive contribution, justifying my desertion of Grimsby’s needs to be here tonight—let me say that, for me, this has been six months of real pleasure, interest and effort, in one of the best jobs on the best Committee serving the House.