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Sovereign Grant Bill

I am delighted that the hon. Gentleman has made that point. He is making the precise point I want to make, although we come from different directions, of course. That is the danger. As so often happens in the House of Commons, we are rushing at things and there are many unforeseen consequences; it would have been preferable to consider the Bill more closely and for longer. The point that the hon. Gentleman has made will be made in the Public Accounts Committee and such subjects will be dragged into the public debate. Why do I think that is dangerous? Let me make it clear that I am not against the move in any way. I welcome it and I am grateful that the Chancellor had a private word to brief me on this before he made his announcement. I am grateful for what he is doing, which is in response to the constant campaign that we members of the PAC have waged for many years to have greater transparency. No present or previous member of the PAC and nobody in Parliament doubts that we want more transparency about the public duties, the official travel, the official expenses and so on. That is modern, transparent and right. The difficulty is where we draw the line. I am worried that the PAC and the Comptroller and Auditor General will gradually be dragged into the debate on precisely the sort of point that the hon. Member for Newport West (Paul Flynn) has made. How will the system work? The CAG will effectively be able to look at everything, but a defence is built into clause 13. The clause states:"““Any reference to the support of Her Majesty's official duties includes the maintenance of Royal Palaces and related land.””" That is fair enough. Subsection (9) states:"““Any reference to the Royal Household if limited to that Household so far as it is concerned with the support of Her Majesty's official duties.””" The clause also states:"““Any reference to the use of resources is to their expenditure, consumption or reduction in value.””" I suspect that subsection (9) was included to try to prevent the whole debate from widening to cover the private travel, private expenses and private servants of the royal family. Why is there a danger?