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Sovereign Grant Bill

As I said, part of the motivation behind our amendments to the clauses that deal with the role of the NAO is precisely to ensure that the value-for-money question is at the centre of the NAO's thinking and the PAC's reports to this House. I am happy with the Chancellor's view that it should be for the PAC and the NAO to decide when to do those reports, but they clearly cannot have a report looking at value for money without looking at all aspects, and that includes all expenditure that is financed by the taxpayer, and the use of reserves. For Parliament, that is the right mechanism. I understand that not everyone in the House will agree with those proposals, which is why it is important to get on to that debate. Sadly, my hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover (Mr Skinner) is not here, but in the last debate I referred to the fact that he voted against these reforms when they were last debated in substance in this House in 1971 and mentioned his barracking of Norman St John-Stevas from a sedentary position. I have since checked my hon. Friend's subsequent contributions. In recent years, he has questioned Chancellors and Prime Ministers regularly in this House, doing so most recently in the July 2000 debate on the renewal of the civil list. His best contribution came when he described the £7.9 million civil list settlement to Her Majesty as"““a pretty big winter heating allowance…If the Prime Minister really wants to save money, the answer is to kill two birds with one stone by shipping them off to the millennium dome, where they can have a zone apiece.””—[Official Report, 4 July 2000; Vol. 353, c. 164-5.]" That option is not now available to the Chancellor of the Exchequer and it is not one that would find any support from Members on the Labour Benches. Strong views have always been expressed here, and in the 1971 debates considerably stronger views were put by Members on the Opposition Front Bench than anything that has been said in this debate, where we have sought to help the Chancellor to deliver the intention of his reforms. That is the motivation behind our amendments. It is important to say that we are debating a significant reform; it is the biggest reform of the royal finances since the accession of King George III in 1760. I read through the Hansard record of the contributions made in recent decades by my hon. Friend, so I thought that I should read the pre-Hansard record of the debate and resolution in this House on 25 November 1760, when the then Government set out clearly their view that the use of the revenues of the Crown Estate was for Parliament to determine. [Interruption.] I do not know whether the hon. Member for North East Somerset recalls that particular debate. In the recent House of Commons Library note on these matters provided to Members, the clear view of the experts in this House was:"““The Crown Estate is not the personal property of the Monarch. It cannot be sold by the Monarch, nor do any profits from it go to the sovereign.””" I think that that is the position as things stand. It was also the argument made on 25 November 1760 by the then Chancellor of the Exchequer, Henry Bilson Legge—probably a relative of the hon. Gentleman—who said that it was for Parliament to determine the use of these revenues and that they should do so in a manner"““as may best conduce to the utility and satisfaction of the public.””" In return, at the end of that debate the House resolved that"““there be granted to his Majesty, during his life, such a revenue””" as would"““support of his Majesty's household, and of the honour and dignity of the crown””." That was how the House of Commons resolved that issue on that day. For 250 years, the Crown Estate has been at the disposal of this Parliament but, as then so today, it is the responsibility of Parliament to ensure that a fair and proper balance is struck between the interests of the taxpaying public and the needs and dignity of the royal household. As we enter the second decade of the 21st century, that is our task, not just today, but in the months and years to come.