Lord Myners
Main Page: Lord Myners (Crossbench - Life peer)
Lord Taylor of Holbeach
My Lords, Philip Green was appointed by the Prime Minister on 13 August to review spending inefficiencies across all departments, not specifically HMRC, but of course HMRC is included in the sort of areas of government that he might be looking at. There is no question of Sir Philip Green having access to personal tax information or data. The view of the Government is that he is the right man for the job.
Lord Myners
My Lords, I have had some past dealings with Sir Philip Green. When I was chairman of Marks & Spencer, Sir Philip, or possibly his wife, Lady Tina, in conjunction with Goldman Sachs’ offshore fund’s bid for M&S, told the Guardian that he would like to give my head “a good (expletive) kicking”—clearly the right man to conduct such a review. I was intrigued as to how he would carry out this review, so I sent a freedom of information request to the Treasury. It replied on 28 February that it had no records of Sir Philip Green’s involvement in an expenditure review, and said, “Why don’t you try the Cabinet Office?”. On 4 October the Cabinet Office said that it had no records of this review. Will the Minister confirm that when the review is published on Monday it will be subject to full NAO review and 12-monthly reviews thereafter, as we did with previous spending reviews when we were in government?
Lord Taylor of Holbeach
I cannot assure the noble Lord that it will be published on Monday. The subject and the content of the review to be published are matters for Sir Philip Green himself. The review will of course be subject to proper scrutiny by both the Government and Parliament. The report will go to the Cabinet Office, where the Minister for that office deals with efficiencies across government. It will also go to the Treasury, where Danny Alexander is responsible for the framework of the spending review. I think all noble Lords appreciate the need for efficiency in government and I hope this review has their support.