Queen’s Speech

Lord Morse Excerpts

Monday 17th May 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Morse (CB) (Maiden Speech)]

I very much appreciate the opportunity to address your Lordships for the first time in this debate and follow the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock. I am very grateful for the welcoming and helpful attitude I have encountered on all sides, most particularly from the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, Convenor of the Cross Benches, and from his secretary, Kate Long, as well as the doorkeepers and all those who have helped guide my uncertain steps as I find my way around this place. Please keep going.

I am a Scottish chartered accountant. They are the humorous, interesting, original ones. After a career in public practice and three years at the Ministry of Defence as defence commercial director, I was Comptroller and Auditor-General and chief executive of the National Audit Office for 10 years. Since leaving the NAO, I have become chair of two London hospital trusts—Hillingdon and London North West. I am lost in admiration for how they both responded to the Covid crisis. I am very proud of them.

At the NAO, I was responsible for auditing central Government and published approximately 600 reports over 10 years, assessing the efficiency, effectiveness and value for money of Government’s use of public resources across a whole spectrum of public sector activity. The largest single area for these reports was the NHS, followed by major projects in transport and defence, and welfare and benefits. Many of the projects and programmes I examined I looked at more than once, and they still continue today—High Speed 2 and Crossrail being two notable examples in transport, and universal credit in welfare.

Let me briefly mention a few of the lessons I learned over 10 years, which I hope are relevant to this debate. In the context of major projects and programmes, including transport ones evidently, considerations of efficiency and effectiveness are often outweighed by the political agenda, which can demand eye-catching but often overoptimistic announcements about the costs, timescales and benefits of the project concerned. Unfortunately, the sugar high of publicity passes all too quickly and is replaced by reality and, quite often, years of highly visible and avoidable underperformance follow. In this context, the independence of the Civil Service in raising concerns about public value is of great importance. Civil servants need to be able to do their job without risking career damage.

In the area of welfare and benefits, the Government need to make sure they understand, from the ground up, the harsh realities of life for people with low or no income before legislating or making benefit rules which can affect those people’s lives so fundamentally.

Finally, I learned that, over time, Governments are judged not just by policies or announcements but by their perceived competence, evidenced by the results delivered to and experienced by the taxpayer and the citizen, who have, after all, underwritten the whole enterprise. It is worth while getting it right first time.

I look forward, in conclusion, to expanding my experience and knowledge in the service of your Lordships' House.