Contingencies Fund (No. 2) Bill

Debate between Charlotte Nichols and Meg Hillier

Committee of the whole House & Committee stage
Thursday 11th March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Meg Hillier]

It gives me pleasure to rise to speak on the Bill and perhaps slay some of the misstatements that I have already heard in the short while I have been in the Chamber.

First, I should point out to the hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire (Anthony Browne) that value for money in respect of taxpayer spending is not a new-found interest for most of us on the Opposition Benches. I have spent 27 years being responsible for either spending taxpayers’ money wisely or scrutinising that spending. I am very aware, as are the shadow Chancellor and her team, that every pound of public money saved is a pound to spend on something else. We may disagree about what that something else might be, but scrutiny is really important.

Contingencies Fund Bills are interesting pieces of legislation. They are about as old as the Public Accounts Committee, which I chair, and are an important mechanism for making sure that the Government cannot just routinely spend over budget. It is fair to say that in this House we are very bad at scrutinising Government spending. That is not down to individual Members or the official Opposition; it is because the structures of this place do not allow us properly to discuss estimates, excess votes and so on. In fact, some time ago the OECD said that as early as the 18th century our scrutiny of finances in this place was “reduced to hollow ritual.”

The change in this legislation, which will allow the increase in contingency funding, has been rushed through. I do not deny that it is necessary to have additional contingency. The way it works normally is that if a Department overspends on its budget as granted, albeit inadequately, by this House, the matter then comes to the Public Accounts Committee and we have to examine whether the excess is justifiable and reasonable. Pretty much our only weapon is the ability to call in the officials who have made a mistake and get them to explain the issue in public, but then a Government majority can certainly agree the excess vote regardless.

In Ghana—Mr Evans, you might be interested to know this, and officials might be quaking as I say it—if an official overspends taxpayers’ money, they have to go to court, and if they take an appeal to court, they have to pay up front half of the money that has been wasted. Certainly, that would sharpen minds.

The point is that it is right that we have a Contingencies Fund Bill. I accept it is necessary, but I welcome new clause 1, because the mechanisms for oversight of this are very flimsy; they are reports on paper after the event. This is not about more bureaucracy. I see it as being about greater transparency. As Chair of the Public Accounts Committee, which has had an important constitutional position in this place for 160 years, I get passed information by Government—from Ministers and senior officials—about issues relating to the finances of Government, sometimes confidentially, and that is counted as the scrutiny of Parliament.

I believe there is a very important role for the constitutional position of the Public Accounts Committee and thereby the Chair, a role I am privileged to occupy at the moment—it is not about me, it is about the position—but that is not enough scrutiny. We are in the middle of a pandemic, and spending eye-watering sums of money—hundreds of billions of pounds—with the public sector and the private sector. It does not matter where the money goes, in this sense; it is about scrutinising that expenditure and making sure that Treasury Ministers, whom I would have thought would be aligned with me completely on this issue, are clear that we are not allowing Departments to overspend willy-nilly. Although the Treasury has its checks, it is important and vital that Parliament has its checks too and that we have sunlight on these issues in real time. This is important, and I would say that the new clause is really pretty anodyne. It is saying that we want better reporting to the House of what the Contingencies Fund Bill already allows to the Government.

The National Audit Office has been much quoted, and I do not have the exact phrase in front of me—forgive me, Mr Evans, but for once I paraphrase, which I really try not to do—but the NAO has looked in detail, as other Members have commented, at the Government’s approach to procurement, and this is its clear message. All these allegations are out there, but part of the reason for that is the lack of transparency and the lack of information being published in real time on some of these issues. We have seen, heard and talked about in this place the many contracts that were not published on time, and that undermines public and parliamentary trust in the process. Whether or not anything has gone wrong, it is undermining trust, and people start asking questions and laying down allegations whether or not they are true.

It is in Government’s interests, the taxpayer’s interests and Parliament’s interests to agree to this new clause. I am disappointed—I am embarrassed really—that those on the Treasury Bench can come forward with a change at such short notice and not have a meaningful discussion about what is a reasonable new clause to allow this place greater scrutiny over what are unprecedented amounts of spending in the middle of a pandemic. At a time like this, we need more transparency, not less. This is actually a minor change. It is not about bureaucracy; it is about accountability and transparency, and taxpayers deserve better.

[Charlotte Nichols (Warrington North) (Lab)]

Labour’s new clause seeks to make contingency spending more transparent and accountable to our Parliament and, through us, to the public—taking back control, if you will. It is right that Governments have the flexibility to act in an emergency such as this pandemic, but this greater latitude for Ministers should oblige them to be additionally vigilant about the value for money of the decisions that they make and the contracts that they sign. This has unfortunately not been the case. As we have heard from my hon. Friends, this year we have seen case after case of appalling mis-spending of taxpayer money, too often on procurement from Tory friends and donors—with, according to The Times in November, £1.5 billion to Tory-linked firms. Companies and individuals with no track record of producing the materials needed were given vast sums on a promise, and businesses in constituencies such as mine, with experience in manufacturing this sort of equipment, were denied on spurious grounds.

Some of the examples sound as though they come from an old episode of “Yes Minister”: £150 million of the £252 million of unusable face masks ordered from an investment firm advised by an adviser to the President of the Board of Trade; a £60 million contract to provide free laptops for disadvantaged pupils that delivered less than half of what was needed, leaving too many pupils in Warrington North without the tech they needed to learn; and £208 million to provide food boxes wholesale for people who were clinically sheltering, at a cost of £44 a box, when analysis showed that the content could have been bought for £26 from their local Tesco. There was the £133 million to a Tory donor, a private healthcare firm, to make testing kits that were withdrawn for safety reasons. Its contract was actually extended for another six months for a further £375 million, without any other companies being invited to bid. During this time, consultants have been employed on up to £7,000 a day, equivalent to £1.5 million a year, by a Government who believe that nurses and other NHS staff should not even receive a pay rise at least in line with inflation.

We understand that there was an urgency to get contracts in place for PPE in particular, but this was not just a case of suck it and see, as Ministers doubled down on their projects, such as the £37 billion on the outsourced test and trace programme—or test and waste, as it is increasingly known locally. The National Audit Office says that this incredible amount of money has been spent for no clear impact, while the skills and expertise of our local public health staff were spurned. Should we not be demanding better?

We understand that the Government had to act quickly to put contracts in place at the beginning of the pandemic, but we are now a full calendar year on from then. They should no longer be operating in crisis mode, but should be able to make clear, sensible and justifiable decisions. Since the Chancellor announced that he is to run the biggest deficit since the second world war, with public debt at over 100% of GDP, I think our constituents should expect us to be as open about our financial decisions as we can possibly be. It is not onerous to request that the Government make a monthly report on its contingencies expenditure, and improved transparency would help to halt bad decisions earlier, rather than waiting for spendthrift contracts to finally be revealed in court.

This is a reasonable and responsible new clause. A fiscally sound Government should not fear it or have any objection to it.