ACTION BY COMMISSION ON REPORTS BY CONTROLLER OF AUDIT

HC Deb 22 October 1973 vol 861 cc889-91

Lords Amendment: No. 21, in page 56, line 5, leave out from beginning to "the" in line 10 and insert: (3) Subject to subsection (4) below, if after consideration of the matters referred to in subsection (2) above the Commission find that any item of expenditure is contrary to law, or that there has been a failure to bring into account any sum which ought to have been brought into account, or that any loss or deficiency has been incurred or caused as mentioned in section 102(2)(a) of this Act, or that a local authority have not taken steps to remedy such a matter as is referred to in section 102(2)(b) of this Act, the Commission shall send the special report together with their findings to the Secretary of State and may recommend him to make an order—

1. (a) requiring any person whom they find responsible for incurring or authorising that expenditure, or for that failure, or for that loss or deficiency, as the case maybe, to pay to the local authority concerned an amount not exceeding the amount of the said expenditure, or of the said sum, or of the said loss or deficiency; or, as the case may be,
2. (b) directing the authority to make such rectification of their accounts as appears to the Commission to be necessary.

(4)".

Mr. Younger

I beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said amendment.

Mr. Deputy Speaker

With this amendment we are taking the following Lords Amendments:

No. 22, in Clause 104, page 57, line 1, leave out from beginning to "acted" in line 32 and insert: (1) Where recommendations are made to the Secretary of State under section 103(3) of this Act the Secretary of State may make an order giving effect to any recommendation, with or without modifications, or may decline to make such an order. (2) The Secretary of State shall not make an order under subsection (1) above requiring a person to pay an amount to a local authority if the Secretary of State is satisfied that that person". No. 22A, in page 57, line 40, leave out "paragraph (a) of".

No. 23, in page 58, leave out lines 2 to 5 and insert subsection (1) above requiring a person to pay an amount to a local authority, forthwith cause a copy of that order to be sent— (a) to that person;". No. 24, in page 58, line 9, leave out "paragraph (a) of".

No. 25, in page 58, line 20, leave out "under paragraph (b) of "and insert" "in an order under".

No. 25A, in Clause 105, page 59, line 2, leave out "or of any direction given to them".

No. 66, in Clause 230, page 142, line 12, leave out "(a)".

Mr. Younger

I well appreciate what my hon. Friend the Member for Perth and East Perthshire (Mr. MacArthur) has said, and I should like to meet the wishes of the House in this matter. Perhaps I may formally move some of the amendments and if any hon. Member, on either side of the House, who wishes to get more information will indicate that fact, I shall be glad to fill it out. I therefore invite the House to agree to this group of amendments.

Mr. Ross

I do not think that we will disagree with the Lords on these amendments. At the same time, we may well have to ask for explanations. I am sure that the hon. Member for Perth and East Perthshire (Mr. MacArthur), who suggested that we should proceed rather more hurriedly and more informally in our consideration, would be the first to appreciate how long it will take us to go through the booklet of amendments if the Government did their job of explaining to the House of Commons exactly what the amendments did. I do not see why the Government should get out of the obligations and the consequences of doing things properly. If it were a normal occasion, we would probably have asked a long time ago that the proceedings should be adjourned and we might have had more time on these matters.

Many of these things are worthy of elucidation and may well be worthy of debate. We have been fairly generous in the debate on a fair number of these matters, but the Government cannot expect too much of us bearing in mind that we did not even have the opportunity until this morning of seeing the full list of amendments and far less of relating them to the Bill. It is asking a bit much that we should simply shut our eyes and let the Government have their way.

I am sure that the Under-Secretary has been up all the weekend practising his speeches and going over his brief to ensure that he was word perfect. Why should the world and the nation be denied the prose of these potent perorations he has been preparing? We want to get some of these things on the record; it may be important that we should. As far as possible we shall certainly not impede progress, but we would not be doing our job for our constituents if we blindly accepted that everything should go through without comment.

Question put and agreed to.

Subsequent Lords amendments agreed to.