Government Resources and Accounts Act 2000 (Audit of Public Bodies) Order 2017

Lord Jones Excerpts

Wednesday 29th November 2017 Grand Committee

[Lord Jones (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his exposition. I shall be very brief. Ebbsfleet Development Corporation figures largely in the draft order. Can he say in some detail what it is, what it does, who leads it and what is its budget?

[Lord Tunnicliffe (Lab)]

My Lords, I am sorry to be a bit picky, but I hope that the Minister has not moved the order; I hope that what he has in fact moved is that the Grand Committee do consider the order. The order itself, whatever his Treasury-produced paper says, will be taken on the Floor of the House after consideration by the Committee. I note the Minister nodding in agreement. I hope that his authors will get that little bit right in future.

I thank the Minister for introducing the order to the Committee this afternoon. The order provides for certain public bodies to be audited by the Comptroller and Auditor-General. In addition, the scope of audit is removed from the Comptroller and Auditor-General for a number of public bodies and companies that are no longer in operation, no longer exist or no longer meet the criteria for public sector audit. It is on the whole concept of criteria that I wish to ask one or two questions.

First, does the primary legislation that established these bodies have Henry VIII clauses that allow the changes to be made by delegated legislation? Secondly, with reference to those bodies being omitted from the scope of National Audit Office audit, why are they being omitted and against what criteria? Will the Minister outline the criteria to the Committee? Thirdly, why are the specific eight bodies being added, under what criteria are they being added and why are the Government adding them at this specific moment? Lastly, what other bodies are either waiting to or likely to be added to the list of bodies to be audited by the National Audit Office? Is there a question about the quality of the bodies waiting to be added?

Although I understand that the order is largely procedural, I would welcome a response from the Minister on those questions to give greater clarity to those who are affected by the order about why they are affected. In very simple terms, the Minister gave us an overall view that it was to add consistency, but I should have thought that that consistency must be against a general view of what should or should not be audited by the National Audit Office.