Public Accounts Committee

Stella Creasy Excerpts

Thursday 16th December 2010 Commons Chamber

[Dr Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)]

I am delighted to contribute to this debate as a new Member of the House and a new member of the PAC. We have seen the breadth of experience within the Committee and some formidable Members have addressed the House already. It is incredibly daunting to join them. I pay tribute to the Chair and her work in making newer members of the Committee feel very welcome, although we must do our homework.

I stood for election to this important Committee because Parliament has three key roles. First, our role is representation—we speak on behalf of the people who voted us in. I am conscious that when I speak, I do so not as myself but as the representative for Walthamstow. Secondly, we are here to make laws as the legislature. We all came into politics not just to change governance, but to change lives, which we do through passing laws. Finally and crucially, our third role is oversight and scrutiny. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Stirling (Mrs McGuire) alluded to, sometimes that is not seen as glamorous as the other two roles I mentioned, but I disagree, because oversight and scrutiny is crucial. The best oversight and scrutiny is about whether politicians can achieve the things that they say they want, and why they cannot do so if that is the case, and considering other ways of doing things. Oversight and scrutiny speak to a recognition that Governments should not just start projects or policies—the public expect them to be able to finish them too. Essentially, implementation is as important as ideology in politics.

Clearly, good governance requires all three of those functions to be enacted effectively, and each depends on the others for success. Without an effective system of scrutiny and oversight, wise words and good intentions will falter on the wheel of day-to-day delivery and the messy complexity of how change occurs.

I therefore ask hon. Members to support the motion, because it relates to the PAC’s performance of those functions within the House. The PAC is very different from Select Committees that look at the desirability of policy because it looks at policy effectiveness and implementation. That is why I take great pleasure in being a member of the Select Committee that Baron Hennessy of Nympsfield described as

“the queen of select committees”.

I take pleasure in quoting him not least because I represent him, which is a nice way of referring back to the first function of Parliament that I mentioned. The Westminster model is seen across the world as the gold standard of accountability on questions of effectiveness and value for money—other countries have subsequently followed that proud historical tradition.

I stood for election to the Committee not least because of my experience in local government and the value of scrutiny in the delivery of policy. I have been on the Committee only since November, but I have thoroughly enjoyed the experience so far, because we take seriously our job of safeguarding public money. I understand now why Baron Hennessey argues that the PAC exerts a cleansing effect on all Departments, because each week we thoroughly challenge witnesses—some more than others, perhaps—on the basis of the evidence before us. We take seriously the lesson that John F. Kennedy once taught: from his experience in government, when things are non-controversial and beautifully co-ordinated, there is not much going on.

The wide range of topics I have covered in my short time on the Committee bears that out—from our work on the community care grant to the major Ministry of Defence projects and the employment of consultants. I have learned more about hard shoulders on motorways and the nature of the M25 than I ever thought I wanted to know. However, all our work reflects the Committee’s crucial role in holding Governments to account over how they deliver on their promises to the public. The hon. Member for South Norfolk (Mr Bacon) expressed that honourably in his detailed examination of farming policy. That, too, reflects the breadth of our work.

Our Committee is an exercise not in teaching new or seasoned MPs about the topics of the day, but in understanding the concept of delivery and how to make it work. It is also about the crucial and honourable role that civil servants play in government. My right hon. Friend the Member for Stirling admirably set out some of the challenges in how the civil service and the Government work together. However, the work does not stop with meetings, and that is what the motion reflects and why I want to pay tribute to the Clerks and the National Audit Office for the work they do to support our Committee. I have found their reports incredibly useful. Our role is about the process of change and how it is followed through. That is the cleansing work in action.

The Committee’s meetings and follow-up work form a circle of scrutiny that is critical to how Governments act, which is why it is vital that our work does not disappear into a dusty report or an uncomfortable meeting in Committee Room 15—however cold or hot it may be. The motion is about ensuring that the cycle of scrutiny and oversight matches our legislative and representative functions in Parliament. Ministers need to be held accountable, if there are problems with their Departments in following up on the Committee’s recommendations, and it is right that we have a motion about the power to bring them to the House if necessary, so that all Members can be involved in the discussion and understand what is happening on the ground with those policies.

There are examples of where these problems of accountability lie. According to recent research, about 60% of the Committee’s recommendations have been accepted and about 30% partially accepted. That is comparable with other systems. However, there is an issue for us to consider, because it is not any one Department that has been challenging in terms of following up those recommendations. We need to reconsider our ability to follow up those issues and tell Departments and Ministers what is happening. The Committee Chair set out admirably some of the challenges we face over the patchy delivery of value for money and the pace of change in implementing recommendations.

When recommendations are followed up, there can be great benefits for the Government and ultimately the public in the delivery of policy. In particular, I am impressed by the work done on obesity. The Committee played a role in bringing together a holistic view of how the Government were looking at the cost to the taxpayer of not addressing obesity. That work is key. Also, the Committee’s rigorous and persistent scrutiny in relation to the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority has finally enabled change to happen.

The hon. Member for South Norfolk also alluded to the work on health and stroke care. That is another example of where the process of overview and scrutiny has made a real difference to the quality of service that people in this country receive. We also had a debate this week about the major MOD projects. Clearly, that is a controversial subject, and yesterday, we took some very difficult testimony. Notwithstanding the examples that we looked at yesterday, this rigorous scrutiny of how those projects are delivered, and the fact that the NAO, together with our Committee, has continued to apply pressure, is testament to the work that we do. Some 13 out of the 15 projects we are looking at are now being delivered better. That is a result of our work with the Government. That is why I think that our Committee reflects what is best called constructive criticism made real. However, we need more powers to ensure that that happens.

From my few months on the Committee, I can vouch for the fact that we have been equally helpful to both the last and the current Government. That is why the Government should not fear the motion, but welcome it, especially given some of the major changes to delivery that they are talking about making, particularly in terms of localism. My right hon. Friend the Member for Stirling admirably set out some of the challenges involved in having new actors delivering things through the public purse and perhaps even being responsible for commissioning services. It is all the more important that Parliament should have a clear role in asking, on behalf of the public, whether we are getting value for money, and whether we are able to deliver the things that we talk about in this House and that we as representatives, making laws, want to see happen.

It is also important to note what studies of other public accounts committees have looked at. The hon. Member for Southport (Dr Pugh) gave some examples of that. For instance, 75% of public accounts committees that were surveyed by the World Bank agreed that it was crucial to their effectiveness to have the power to follow up reports and to check the implementation of their recommendations. The World Bank also calls for powers for public accounts committees across the world to be strengthened. It is therefore important for us to recognise—as perhaps representing, as it were, the gold standard of public accounts committees—that we could lead the way on that, through today’s motion and the proposals that have been put forward. That is why the House should support the proposals, because this debate is not just about the positive impact of overview and scrutiny of public policy; it is also about ensuring that the work that we do benefits the people of this country. Indeed, I am also incredibly mindful of that representative aspect to this debate. We have a responsibility to the House and to the people whom we represent.

I do not intend to speak for too long, as I know that many other new Members also want to contribute. I hope that I can persuade the Government to accept the motion. In the words of Thomas Jefferson:

“Whenever the people are well informed, they can be trusted with their own government; that whenever things get so far wrong as to attract their notice, they may be relied on to set them to rights.”

I hope that the House will see the Public Accounts Committee as part of that process of setting things to rights, and that the power that we are seeking today becomes part of ensuring that policy is delivered in the way that we want it to be delivered. If that alone is not encouragement enough, I would also ask the Minister to reflect on the words of an anonymous source who said:

“Admit your errors before someone else exaggerates them.”

I hope that the Minister will see the reports that we produce as a fair reflection of the work of Government and the challenges ahead, and that, in the spirit of constructive criticism, he will support the motion today.