Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Martin Vickers and Edward Leigh(10 years, 9 months ago)
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Sir Edward Leigh
I suspect that the National Audit Office would be very loth to be dragged into the debate on the future of Scotland. Clearly, if Scotland broke away, there would have to be completely different audit arrangements for the Financial Conduct Authority, which the House currently audits. Independence would indeed have implications for the National Audit Office.
Martin Vickers (Cleethorpes) (Con)
5. What support the NAO gives to Select Committees and how the effectiveness of such support is monitored.
Sir Edward Leigh
In addition to the support it provides to the Public Accounts Committee, the NAO supports Select Committees with informal briefings, advice on selecting and designing inquiries, new research and evidence gathering in support of a Committee’s interest or inquiry, and in providing experts on short-term attachments. On monitoring the effectiveness of that support, the NAO monitors the Government’s responses to PAC reports to ensure that individual Departments have accepted and implemented PAC recommendations.
Martin Vickers
The NAO provides valuable help and support for the PAC and Select Committees. Importantly, it is independent of Government. Is my hon. Friend satisfied that it has adequate resources to carry out its work?
Sir Edward Leigh
I am satisfied that the NAO has adequate resources, but the Commission has already imposed a 15% cut to its budget in real terms. If further cuts are demanded, the House will have to consider whether the NAO will be able to continue its excellent work to support the Committees of the House, including the Public Accounts Committee.
General matters
Debate between Martin Vickers and Edward Leigh(12 years, 11 months ago)
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Martin Vickers (Cleethorpes) (Con)
On the face of it, my constituency might seem well served by transport as it has an international airport, the largest dock complex in the country and 10 railway stations, including one that serves two farms and an ancient ruin, and was used by 13 passengers in 2010. But the road network needs a little improvement. The main road into the constituency is the A180, but the A160 off to Immingham dock—which, as I said, is the largest dock complex in the country—is in urgent need of an upgrade.
The last message I had from the Department for Transport said that the upgrade was included in 12 future schemes that should receive development funds, and that a decision would be taken by the end of the year. So time is running out and this is my last opportunity to lobby Ministers about the importance of the A160. Not only does it serve the existing Immingham dock, but it will serve one of the two new enterprise zones in the area, so it is clearly of vital importance.
I welcome the Government’s recent decisions to grant those enterprise zones that status, and we also gained from the announcement that the Immingham bypass would at long last go ahead, as well as the halving of the Humber bridge tolls. May I also draw Ministers’ attention to the urgent need for a direct rail service from the constituency to London? About a year ago I met Alliance Rail, which is keen to do this, and it told me that its plans were still in the system. But the byzantine procedures that they have to go through for the opportunity to run a rail service are complex beyond belief. If we are to go ahead with High Speed 2 and develop our rail network, we must put together a system that reaches decisions rather more quickly. If the Victorians had been locked into the present system, our trains would still be pulled by Stephenson’s Rocket, and the network would not have expanded as it did. There is no incentive for rail companies to provide extra services.
That is typified by the service that runs on Saturdays only from Cleethorpes to Brigg, Kirton in Lindsey and Gainsborough, and then on to Sheffield. We have a good service to Sheffield via Doncaster, but I am eager for people from Gainsborough—I can see my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Mr Leigh) in his place—to be able to use that service to take their families for a day out in Cleethorpes, where they can enjoy Pleasure Island and see the attractions that the “Cleethorpes in bloom” committee has organised.