Alignment (Clear Line of Sight) Project

Debate between Lord Tyrie and Edward Leigh

Monday 5th July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Andrew Tyrie (Chichester) (Con)]

The hon. Member for Harrow West (Mr Thomas) strayed rather a long way out of the line of sight of the line of sight project, if I may say so. His points about the importance of the Office for Budget Responsibility are well made and well taken, and that is something that I hope my Committee will consider and something that I am not yet convinced we have achieved. However, I think that that is a debate for another day.

These proposals will significantly improve parliamentary scrutiny of spending. The previous Labour Government deserve a lot of credit for having put this work in train, just as the coalition Government deserve some credit for acting on what they inherited. I also want to pay tribute to the Liaison Committee and its staff and, in particular, to the work of the Treasury Sub-Committee under the chairmanship of my hon. Friend the Member for Sevenoaks (Michael Fallon). He put in a great deal of hard work on all this, some of which is now bearing fruit. I understand that he intends to catch your eye in a moment, Mr Deputy Speaker, and he will no doubt make these points in more detail. However, in the 2007 report he expressed a number of concerns, and two main concerns in particular. One was about the timetabling of publications and the other was about the treatment of income lines in the estimates. On the first, the Government have proposed to publish their departmental reports and accounts by mid-June of each year and to publish the main estimates earlier. That is a step forward. On income streams, the Government’s original proposal—this has been mentioned—was that the House of Commons would vote only on the net estimate. That would have been a step back from the current arrangements whereby Parliament at least votes on both the gross and net figures.

The Treasury Sub-Committee, when considering this matter, acknowledged that with alignment it would not be possible for Parliament to maintain controls over gross totals, but it argued strongly that adequate information should none the less be provided. That is the point that my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Mr Leigh) made a moment ago.

On the question of income streams, I think that the Government’s latest plans are a great step forward. Let me explain why. If I get this wrong, the Minister can intervene and tell me. As I understand it, under his proposals any income used by Departments to support spending must be of a type specifically approved by Parliament. That is the first key point, of which there are four. The second is that tax receipts cannot be used as income by Departments to boost spending. In other words, the tax receipts must still go to the Treasury in the normal way. The third is that information on estimated income will still be presented to Parliament and the fourth is that Departments will still be required to explain variations between planned income and actual income at the year end. The Minister has not intervened on me yet, so I have high hopes that I have got that right. If I have, the Government have gone a long way towards satisfying the concerns of the Sub-Committee’s report of the previous Parliament.

This is a complex area with a lot of unknowns still as we develop these changes. We must be realistic about what is achievable and we must be clear that there was no golden age when Government estimates were routinely rejected or reduced. The House of Commons abandoned any attempt to debate estimates in that sort of detail not in the post-war era, as many people suppose, but sometime in the 19th century.

I am also clear that great care needs to be taken before pressing for dramatic increases in powers for Parliament in this area as they can have unforeseen consequences. It is certainly worth considering, for example, ensuring that supplementary estimates are approved by the relevant Sub-Committee, but I am wary of anything that could create the conditions for the growth of a pork barrel style of politics in Britain through the back door. I have been an advocate of stronger Select Committees for many years and we have a lot to learn from our counterparts in Congress, but I do not think that we have much to learn by importing pork barrel politics.

[Mr Leigh]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Mr Tyrie]

If my hon. Friend will forgive me, I am near the end of my remarks and I would rather get to the end because I have discovered—surprisingly on this subject—that quite a few people want to speak.

We will have to see whether the proposals provide better opportunities for the Select Committees that shadow spending Departments and we will soon see whether they can start to scrutinise better the spending decisions taken by them. We will have to wait to find out whether these Committees take up those opportunities—that includes the Treasury Committee, which also monitors spending Departments.

I warmly welcome these proposals from the Government. We now need to monitor them carefully.