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Public Accounts

With the leave of the House, perhaps I could say a few words of thanks to the Minister for her kind personal words and for her tribute to the Committee, on which she served. I also thank those who have taken part in the debate. There have not been a huge quantity of Members present, but we have made up in quality what we lacked in quantity. All their comments were interesting. I shall not repeat them—they have been summed up very well—but I shall offer some personal reflections. I do not want to go back over the CDC in any great detail. We know that it has made itself more efficient, but I say to the hon. Member for South-East Cornwall (Mr. Breed) that some of the salaries in some parts of the public sector—close to £1 million—are frankly obscene and not called for. My personal view, for what it is worth, is that nobody in the public sector should earn more than the Prime Minister. People in the public sector receive many other compensations and I do not think that we need such enormous salaries. The hon. Gentleman mentioned Northern Rock. Our report was interesting—I am not going to get into the politics of whether it was right to nationalise—and I hope that if ever such a situation arises again, officials will look at it, because many lessons can be learned about timely action. I thank the hon. Member for Great Grimsby (Mr. Mitchell), who kept our debate going with great verve. We are grateful for his forensic examination in our Committee. Again, I will not go through all his comments, but he mentioned the Rural Payments Agency—we are to have another hearing on that agency on Monday. The key point is that the English system was just far too complex compared with the Scottish, Welsh, Northern Irish and continental systems. That goes back to what the Minister said in her concluding remarks on our generic report about making Whitehall more efficient, reducing complexity and planning carefully. We really have to cut through the complexity if we are ever to deal with what is going wrong in the RPA. As usual, my hon. Friend the Member for South Norfolk (Mr. Bacon) gave us a masterclass on the NHS computer system. He is the House’s expert on it. Again, if we are to make any progress on the system, we must cut through many of the knots that are binding hospitals to a failed concept and allow them to break free; otherwise, we may go on sinking good money after bad. I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Hammersmith and Fulham (Mr. Hands) for what he said. He mentioned the major projects report. The truth is that the MOD is trying to do too much. Without getting into the wider politics of it, we will probably have to cut the number of Trident submarines. These programmes are constantly being shifted sideways and some very difficult decisions will have to be made after the general election. Lastly, I thank the Minister for what she said. She made a very important announcement today when she said that we would extend full audit by the Comptroller and Auditor General to the FSA. She also hinted that the Treasury has a much more open mind about the BBC and the Bank of England. We have scored an important victory today—one down, two more to go—and we will carry on working. I am grateful to all those who have taken part in the debate. In the past six months there has been so much publicity about what Members of Parliament have cost the taxpayer, but some Committees and some Members provide a good deal for the taxpayer. Saving £4 billion over eight years is not to be sniffed at. I am proud of what we have achieved and I wish the Committee and my successor every success for the future. Question put and agreed to. Resolved,"That this House takes note of the 1st to the 6th, the 8th to the 11th, the 13th to the 23rd and the 31st Reports of the Committee of Public Accounts of Session 2008-09, and of the Treasury Minutes on these Reports (Cm 7568, 7622 and 7636)."