Bank of England and Financial Services Bill [HL]

Baroness Fookes Excerpts

Monday 9th November 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bichard (CB)]

My Lords, if I might be allowed a moment of personal explanation, I was advised earlier today by the clerks that the Addison rules of 1951, of which I have to admit I was not previously closely informed, might be argued to preclude someone who holds the position that I do of chair of the board of the National Audit Office from speaking on these issues or indeed from moving the amendment. I do not wish to put myself in the position of appearing in any way to act inappropriately or against the rules of the House so I readily, albeit reluctantly, agreed not to speak further in this debate. I hope, however, that the House will allow others who have supported the amendments that I tabled in good faith to move them.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Fookes) (Con)]

I take that as a kind of personal statement.

[Lord McFall of Alcluith]

My Lords, I shall move Amendment 14, which is in the group Amendments 14 to 18, concerning Clause 11 and the proposed audit arrangements for the Bank of England. As it stands, the Bill provides for the NAO to carry out value-for-money studies at the Bank, but it also imposes a number of constraints on this. First, before carrying out a study, the Comptroller and Auditor-General would have to consult the Court of Directors at the Bank. Secondly, if the court is of the opinion that an examination is concerned with the merits of the Bank’s general policy in pursuing the Bank’s objectives, then it can ultimately prevent the Comptroller from proceeding with an examination.

These provisions contrast sharply with the terms under which the NAO undertakes value-for-money studies in every other public body under the National Audit Act. That legislation gives the Comptroller and Auditor-General,

“complete discretion in the discharge of his functions … in determining whether to carry out any examination … and as to the manner in which any such examination is carried out”.

The National Audit Act prohibits the NAO from questioning the merits of policy objectives. As I will mention later, the NAO has never sought to cross that line. However, the Bill extends this prohibition to cover the Bank’s general policy in pursuing the Bank’s objectives, as well as giving the Bank an effective veto over which studies are undertaken.

That presents the NAO with several major problems. First, as the Comptroller and Auditor-General has said, it therefore gives an impression of greater accountability on the part of the Bank that is at odds with reality. Secondly, it undermines the independence of the NAO to decide what should be examined, and that independence is key to holding public bodies to account. Thirdly, if these provisions are agreed for the Bank, it will encourage others to challenge the independence of the office; perhaps every new body and many existing ones wish for the same ability to veto or limit the NAO’s work—to the great disadvantage of Parliament and the taxpayer, for both of which the NAO has long performed an invaluable function. This is not an issue, therefore, that can be limited to the particular circumstances of the Bank of England.

Why would anyone wish to impose these kinds of constraints on the NAO? Perhaps there is a concern that the Bank should not have its policy decisions examined. That would be entirely understandable, but the fact is that the NAO has had decades of experience of operating without questioning the merits of policy objectives. It has done so without any difficulty in the Ministry of Defence, including the security services, or indeed the Foreign Office, where it has recently been looking at how crises in Tunisia, Libya and Yemen have been handled. It is difficult to argue that if the NAO is capable of dealing satisfactorily with this level of sensitivity, it could not be trusted to steer clear of questioning policy objectives at the Bank.

I know it has been argued that there are no precedents for the equivalent of the NAO being involved with a national bank, but the Government Accountability Office in the US audits the Federal Reserve Board and the Federal Reserve Banks, with exceptions to the scope of their audits being made explicit, and including transactions for and with a foreign central bank; deliberations, decisions or actions on monetary policy matters; and transactions made under the direction of the Federal Markets Committee. The Comptroller and Auditor-General has made clear from the outset that he would be content it agree similar such exceptions in this country. These amendments seek in the case of Amendments 14 and 16 to bring the definition of “policy” into line with that used in the National Audit Act, Amendment 15 would delete the need for the Comptroller to consult the court before undertaking an examination, and Amendment 17 would remove the veto of the Bank’s Court of Directors over examinations.

Economic Leadership for Cities

Baroness Fookes Excerpts

Thursday 11th December 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

Oh, I have two more minutes.

I totally agree with that, and in fact, Greater Manchester was very clear that it did not want a layering-on of structure, so it has decided to go to the model of having an 11th leader until 2017, when it will elect a mayor, but it will still keep that core of 10 local authority leaders. The noble Lord also asked about the imposition of local structures. That is not true in the sense that, as I have said, it is a proposition to government; whether it is agreed or not will be the result of a dialogue between local authorities. Therefore nothing will be imposed upon anyone unless they want it.

The noble Baroness, Lady Armstrong, talked about being born in Sunderland. I was brought up in Hetton-le-Hole, so we have more in common than she thinks. You could not vote Tory there if you wanted to, because—well, they did not want to. The noble Baroness also talked about the size of the state and asked a crucial question about where we want it to lie. I think that trust has to be given by central government to local government. It is no small wonder that central government have taken what is probably the best and most worked-up proposition forward first. Hopefully, that will lead incrementally to such trust being built up between central and local government. The coalition are a Government who want to decentralise, not to create more state intervention—the noble Baroness clearly does not agree with me there. She talked about the back of a fag packet. This is not the back of a fag packet; it has taken years.

But I realise that my time really is up now. I thank all noble Lords, and I will write to anyone whom I have not answered fully.

[The Deputy Speaker (Baroness Fookes) (Con)]

My Lords, the time allowed for this debate has now elapsed, and I must put the Question that the Motion be agreed.

Motion agreed.

Civil Service: Training and Development

Baroness Fookes Excerpts

Monday 2nd July 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, the National School of Government provided extensive residential accommodation for extensive residential courses. The Civil Service and other providers are moving away from extensive residential courses to shorter ones, very often for one day each. It is intended that the different mix will be better met and more efficiently provided by a range of different providers.

[Baroness Fookes]

My Lords, are civil servants given any training in the precise workings of this place and, indeed, the other place? Sometimes, the impression is given that the ignorance is complete.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, certainly there are training courses for civil servants in how to work with Parliament, particularly for those going into private offices. I have met a number of civil servants who have been through such courses.

Remembrance Day

Baroness Fookes Excerpts

Thursday 10th November 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Fookes]

My Lords, my noble friend has spoken very eloquently of the plight of widows worldwide. My own focus, I confess, has been much narrower, as president of the War Widows’ Association of Great Britain, a post I am very proud and privileged to occupy.

This morning, I went to the opening of the Field of Remembrance outside Westminster Abbey. That brought home the poignancy of loss. All those plots organised by different organisations, with little crosses stuck in—each representing one lost life. I planted two crosses on behalf of two of my organisation’s members, too frail now in their 80s to come and do this themselves. It was a humbling experience.

During my time as president, I have heard innumerable stories of the difficulties that have faced the widows, who are very often extremely young with young children. They suffer all the emotional havoc that comes from losing a husband or a partner and all the difficulties of bringing up children on one’s own, probably with very little money. That was certainly the experience of many of the women in the Second World War to whom I have spoken.

We have to look long term. I agree that we cannot simply have a November remembrance service and then forget it the rest of the time. It is like those who go to church on Sunday then behave abominably for the next six days. We need to get away from that syndrome completely.

I served on the Commonwealth War Graves Commission for 10 years. Like others have mentioned, the sight of all those rows of graves is very intimidating, although they are beautifully kept. One of the great joys of serving on the Commission was seeing how it kept the standards going under all kinds of difficulties, such as modern wars, the encroachment of cities into the former countryside, earthquakes, floods—you name it, all kinds of things which would interfere with the good upkeep of this as a remembrance. The Commission does a wonderful job and it was a wonderful post which I greatly enjoyed occupying.

I thoroughly applaud one of the things it did during my time there. It started to put up plaques showing the historical context in which one was viewing the graves. That was important, as it explains to succeeding generations, for whom this is history, what the graves are doing there. To have some context, I think, is extremely important and fits in with all the other ways in which we can teach young people in succeeding generations about what occurred and how important it is to remember. So I applaud all those who try to make it alive and real for youngsters. I hope very much that the various bodies who are involved in charitable work in any way whatever try to take the message into schools, where people will perhaps understand more readily what is involved in war.

There are also those who are not of the armed services as such, but whom I think we ought to remember. I think of the merchant seamen who often risked their lives in the most appalling conditions to help save this country from starvation and to bring us munitions. Think of the nurses who were operating in terrible conditions with awful wounds to see to, and who themselves were under pressure. This very morning I was standing next to a lady representing nurses and midwives. It suddenly came home to me very much that we owe a great debt to all those who are not from the armed services as such, but whose work is absolutely invaluable in dealing with the whole war effort.

We of course have an immense responsibility, as others have indicated already, towards those who survive war but with great difficulty. I think particularly of those whose minds are shattered by war as well as their limbs. I believe that organisations such as Combat Stress do a great deal of work. We are also much more aware of the long-term difficulties that can be experienced. This is something that I hope the Government will take on board because the symptoms very often do not show themselves immediately. Therefore we need to look long term, as we do for physical injuries. Many people now survive who simply would not have done so but for very advanced medical techniques. I suspect this is a worry that we are going to have for 50 years and more. It is very easy to forget about once the main dangers are over so we need to have a long-term commitment, I think that this is extremely important.

For the last part of my contribution, I should like to consider a rather sore point, touched upon by the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Walker—the issue of the chief coroner. My noble friend the Minister will recall that when we were in opposition, we worked together in order to ensure that such a post existed. There is a certain irony, shall we say, in the present position. I want to believe that we can manage without him and that the kind of work that we expected him to do can be done by other people. But I have a very real worry that if his duties are distributed among others, then it will be nobody’s job. We need a person in this role. If we cannot have a chief coroner, which I would still like, then we need at least a person of repute and sufficient seniority to carry weight. I think that is extremely important and I urge that upon my noble friend. He will recall that one of the reasons why I and those involved in the services wanted this measure, was that military inquests are of a different order from normal inquests. They require a degree of sophistication and an understanding of military facts and ethos. That was developed slowly and painfully for the families of those who had died, but then we had a few coroners with that expertise. I did not want to see that lost, and that was the view of many others involved. Therefore it was felt essential to have a chief coroner with direct responsibility for the training of all coroners, particularly those needing expertise in military inquests.

I continue to think that that is the case. I am hoping for a crumb or two of comfort from my noble friend on this issue. I live in hopes. I think I see a shaking of the head in front of me. Oh, it is a nodding. I will wait eagerly to see what my noble friend says at the conclusion of this debate. I also thank my noble friend Lord Selkirk for giving us this wonderful opportunity to pay tribute, on behalf of the nation, for the wonderful service rendered by our Armed Forces.