CROWN AGENTS (Hansard, 1 December 1977)

§ The Minister of State for Overseas Development (Mrs. Judith Hart)
With permission, Mr. Speaker, I wish to make a statement about the Crown Agents.
I am today publishing the report of the committee which I appointed in 1975, under the chairmanship of His Honour Judge Fay, to inquire into the circumstances which led to the Crown Agents requesting financial assistance from the Government. These terms of reference involved the committee in detailed examination of events which were complex and spread over a period of years. I am most grateful to Judge Fay and his two colleagues for the impressive way in which they carried out this heavy task. Their report is of the greatest value and the Government and the Crown Agents accept the report as a fair and searching investigation into the facts.
Simultaneously, I have published a statement giving the Government's reactions to this report. Annexed to the statement is the report of the earlier inquiry into the Crown Agents under the chairmanship of Sir Matthew Stevenson. This report is relevant to the events described in the Fay Report, and is quoted in that report. The Government have therefore decided, with the agreement of Sir Matthew Stevenson and his colleagues, that it is now right to publish the earlier report. I have, of course, consulted the right hon. Member for Bridlington (Mr. Wood) and the Opposition on this matter.
Hon. Members will no doubt be studying all these documents, and I do not want to go over the ground again now. But the House will expect me to mention the salient points. First, the Fay Report shows that a serious state of affairs was allowed to develop over the years up to 1974. As a result, the Crown Agents incurred losses which are likely to prove to be over £200 million. As the Government statement says, we accept the report's conclusion that there were serious shortcomings on the part of the Crown Agents, and that Departments and other outside agencies contributed to the failure to prevent losses.
These losses have led the Government to emphasise on several occasions that they stand behind the Crown Agents.
730 A Government grant of £85 million was made in December 1974, and we shall be ready to put proposals to Parliament as and when further assistance is necessary. As a result, the Crown Agents' overseas principals need not fear that any part of the funds that they entrusted to the Crown Agents will be lost.
I must stress that the Crown Agents' traditional functions played no part in causing these heavy losses, nor have they been harmed by those losses. The losses arose solely from an unwise decision to operate as financiers on own-account", to use the words in paragraph 422 of the Fay Report. That course of action has now been decisively reversed. The Government statement summarises the corrective action that my predecessors and I have taken since 1974 in respect of defects in the relations between the Crown Agents and Departments which the report identifies as major factors in the disasters.
There was uncertainty over the Crown Agents' status and relationship to the Government. These have been defined. The Government were receiving wholly inadequate information on the Crown Agents' affairs. New arrangements now ensure that we get full and regular reports. Whereas there was insufficient control or direction by Ministers, clear directives now exist, and I am consulted by the Crown Agents on all major policy decisions. I am therefore confident that nothing like the events described in the report could ever happen again. I lay great stress on this, because the Crown Agents' future in providing valuable services to their principals depends on it.
However, we cannot leave past events there. The question of responsibility for what went wrong needs more specific investigation than the Fay Committee was able to give it. The Prime Minister is therefore setting up a Committee of Inquiry under the Chairmanship of Sir Carl Aarvold with the following terms of reference: In the light of the Report of the Fay Committee to assess the nature and gravity of any neglect or breach of duty by individuals which may have occurred in the Crown Agents, the Ministry of Overseas Development, the Treasury, the Bank of England and the Exchequer and Audit Department. That inquiry will mark the end of a sorry chapter in the Crown Agents' long 731 and otherwise distinguished history. Looking to the future, I am confident that under their present Board the Crown Agents can maintain and develop their traditional services soundly and successfully, to the benefit of all their principals.

§ Mr. Luce
As the Minister implied, her statement and the three public reports are not only of great importance but are extremely complex. She and the House will readily understand that it would be difficult to give a detailed reaction to them now. Nevertheless, it is surely important to get the matter into perspective without minimising the gravity of mistakes made over the last few years.
I should like to reinforce what the Minister said about the growing success of the traditional services of the Crown Agents, which have expanded in range during the last two or three years. It is well known that the Crown Agents provide a good service to under-developed countries and serve over 100 Governments and 200 public authorities. It is right that much of the credit for this success should go to the present chairman, Mr. John Cuckney, and his management team. I therefore suggest that a sharp distinction should be made between the success of the traditional services of the Crown Agents and the sad story that has arisen from the decision that the Crown Agents made in the 1960s to operate as financiers on their own account.
These so-called own account activities have been—as the Fay Report said—a saga of incompetence and inaction. It arose largely from the failure of the Crown Agents to adjust to their modem rôle and conditions. The Crown Agents are not properly accountable in the sense that a statutory authority is accountable in terms of financing and its way of carrying out business. I understand that the Government view is that this requires legislation to put it right. I do not want to make any commitment on that for my side of the House, because many of us have a distaste for legislation. Will the Minister say whether it is the Government view that there is a need for legislation?
I wish to ask a question about the use of taxpayers' money. The statement indicated that the accumulated losses of the Crown Agents were more than £200 million. How long does the Minister 732 expect that it will take the Crown Agents to carry out a complete disinvestment policy in secondary banking and in property? Has the £85 million grant been fully utilised? Can the Minister say more specifically whether further taxpayers' funds may be required to eliminate the deficit and whether, in future, those funds will be recoverable in loan form?
The Minister made a point about the establishment of a committee of inquiry. That is a major decision. Will procedures enable full safeguards to be provided for individuals against whom allegations may be made? Will the Committee be held in public? This is a matter of great importance to the individuals concerned because it appears that it will be an administrative rather than a judicial committee.
I should finally like to ask the Minister, in view of the great importance of her statement today, to pass on to the Leader of the House our view that there should be a debate on these matters as early as possible.

§ Mrs. Hart
I am grateful for what the Opposition spokesman has said about the importance of the traditional rôle of the Crown Agents and for his full recognition that this rôle has been increasing in its value to other countries—not only to the richer developing countries but to some of the poorer ones. I am most grateful for that because probably the whole House would want it to be made clear that in looking at the disaster of these own-account activities of the Crown Agents we are aware of—and here I endorse entirely what the hon. Gentleman said—the success of the board under Mr. Cuckney. We now have enormous confidence in him and his board.
We believe that legislation is needed. As can be seen from the statement, we now have a set of directives and working arrangements that are totally accepted. However, they are not actually enshrined in legislation and we believe that they should be. We want to legislate as soon as possible, but until then we are content that we have the arrangements in a secure enough form to make everything work with full accountability.
As for how long it is likely to take for the Crown Agents to disengage from some of their disastrous own-account 733 activities—with some of which they are still involved—there is a full account in the Fay Report on that. However, I know that the Opposition spokesman and hon. Members have not had time to read it because we had to publish the report as a Return to the Commons and therefore there has been no opportunity for the report to be studied since 2.30 p.m.
Answering the hon. Gentleman, the length of time required varies. In respect of the Australian involvement it will take some time, and it is right that it should, because a better result may be forthcoming because of that. The time needed varies according to the investments.
As for the grants, there is an £85 million grant and a £50 million Bank of England standby. The £85 million is now intact and has not been drawn upon, but we have no doubt that eventually it will be needed. Certainly, if any further money were needed we should come to Parliament for permission to use further taxpayers' money, but it is difficult to know now what the situation will be.
The Committee will be an informal one, sitting in private. There have been similar inquiries in the past.

§ Mr. McNamara
Rubbish.

§ Mrs. Hart
The Fay Committee was asked to look into the events leading up to this enormous catastrophe of the Crown Agents. It was not asked to consider what steps the Government might or should take in relation to particular individuals involved in the Crown Agents, or in any of the Departments involved. This inquiry will be concerned with those matters. It has a dual nature. There are some people who will need to have their credentials cleared, to have their innocence established, and there are others against whom it may be that this inquiry will say that some form of disciplinary action might have to be taken. This needs to be inquired into. That is why the Government came to the view that this should take place.
The inquiry will sit in private. Anyone attending it will have the right to take with him either a legal adviser or any other person he wishes. It is not a formal inquiry under the 1921 Act. We shall see how best to deal with its conclusions when we receive them.

§ Sir G. de Freitas
Will my right hon. Friend remember that some of us who, in the course of public duty abroad and since, have regularly advised the developing countries to use the Crown Agents, will look for even greater affirmation by Ministers of the guarantees and services which these developing countries can expect to find in the Crown Agents in future?

§ Mrs. Hart
I entirely agree with my right hon. Friend. When I visit developing countries who have not hitherto used the services of the Crown Agents I find that they are ready to do so and that the Crown Agents' reputation among their overseas principals stands extremely high.

§ Mr. du Cann
While congratulating the right hon. Lady on the decision to publish these documents and to continue her inquiries, may I ask her to be good enough to bear in mind the point of view, which I think is finding increasing acceptance in this House that the remedy to these matters lies not in a succession of inquiries but rather in establishing in this House a better form of control of expenditure? Is she aware, concerning the Exchequer and Audit Department, that the whole House has total confidence in its ability as an audit department—

§ Mr. English
After this!

§ Mr. du Cann
—but that what is needed is to provide this House with a better investigative tool, to which end that Department should be greatly strengthened?

§ Mrs. Hart
The right hon. Gentleman will recall that I was sufficiently anxious about the accountability to this House of the Crown Agents as to seek to give evidence to his Select Committee. My offer was not accepted because it was traditional to receive evidence only from civil servants and not Ministers. I accept that. This question of public accountability is the kernel of the whole situation. One of the problems was that before we took steps to remedy the relationships between the Crown Agents, the Ministry of Overseas Development and Parliament, the accounts of the Crown Agents were not laid before Parliament. Had they been laid before Parliament, something would have happened more rapidly, and there would 735 have been greater knowledge of what was happening. This is the crux of the matter.

§ Mr. George Cunningham
Will my right hon. Friend accept congratulations on her personal perseverance in bringing this sorry tale to a full exposure? Is she aware that one sentence in this admirable report, in paragraph 327, reads oddly because it says that no one could have known in November 1973 that the skies were about to open and the deluge to fall, although that was the very month in which the former Conservative Minister responsible was told publicly in the House of Commons that there was a scandal here which was waiting to blow?
Is my right hon. Friend also aware that, although this report has exposed a large number of culprits in the story, there is one culprit which does not get blamed in the report, and that is the House of Commons? Does she recall that the House of Commons had a Committee which initiated an investigation of the Crown Agents, with great difficulty, as a result of my right hon. Friend's action and mine with the assistance of the Conservative Member for Norfolk, North-West (Mr. Brocklebank-Fowler) in December 1973? Yet that same Committee, in May 1974, when it could have done tremendous work, decided quite irresponsibly to suspend its investigations.

§ Mrs. Hart
I can confirm what my hon. Friend says, up to the point of May 1974, when I was no longer serving in the Department. I well remember the efforts some of us made in the preceding period to have a full investigation made by the Select Committee on Overseas Development. I confirm that entirely. I am grateful to my hon. Friend for what he has said about my rôle in the matter. There is one other aspect with which I know he will agree since he was one of the hon. Members who played, with great distinction, a part in the exposé of the Crown Agents which led to the setting up of the Fay Committee. In the Committee's report there is talk of a catastrophe and it is said, talking of the time when the Crown Agents had extended themselves in their "own account" activities to the point of capacity, It had been a time of euphoria in the fringe banking and property speculation world. 736 Land investment, land speculation, was a fashionable speculation at the time but in a different economic climate it was to prove a major embarrassment. Of course it is this which basically led to the catastrophe.

§ Mr. Edward Gardner
If the Minister considers, as she apparently does, that it is necessary and desirable that the financial functions and operations of the Crown Agents should continue and be preserved, may I ask her to say what steps she is now prepared to take to deal with the defects and anomalies which are so well identified and commented upon in this report?

§ Mrs. Hart
When the hon. and learned Gentleman has the time to read the Government statement he will see appended to it—and it takes up quite a lot of space—all of the statements that have been made to the House of Commons on the subject of the Crown Agents over the past two years. The hon. and learned Member may be interested to know that during the period 1909 to 1973 only 18 parliamentary Questions were asked in this House on the subject of the Crown Agents. That gives the background flavour of the concern of the House and the responsibility of the Crown Agents to it.
The hon. and learned Member will also find appended one of the statements which I think was made in July 1974 in which I gave a directive to the Crown Agents to disengage from property. He will find other statements that make it clear that, despite the fact that we have not yet got legislation, remedial action has been taken. I am quite convinced that in the relationship between the Crown Agents and myself and Parliament we have now got the correct accountability which ensures that this kind of thing can never happen again.

§ Mr. Skinner
Will my right hon. Friend confirm that this is one of the biggest Establishment scandals of all times and that this gang who ran the outfit known as the Crown Agents made the train robbers look like petty thieves? Is it not high time that my right hon. Friend came to the conclusion—unlike the one she has given us today—that she ought to get these guilty people into court instead of setting up another secret committee in which the elitist group can get together 737 again for a considerable period of time in the hope that many of the guilty people will disappear?
Will my right hon. Friend answer the other question which I have put to her many times before and which relates to the Crown Agents? When are the Government to tackle William Stern, who had £40 million worth of Crown Agents' money, taxpayers' money? When will they make sure that he is put into bankruptcy, as he should be, like other people who fall into disrepute in the way that he has?

§ Mrs. Hart
My hon. Friend knows, because I answered a question from him a little while ago in relation to Mr. William Stern, that there are full details of all his involvements in the Fay Committee Report. The Crown Agents have taken the formal steps necessary prior to the institution of legal proceedings that could ultimately lead to a bankruptcy petition against William Stern. The Crown Agents have gone as far as they appropriately can at the moment. There is no doubt about the concern everyone has about furthering these proceedings, if that is what is ultimately decided.
As to the rest of what my hon. Friend says, the Director of Public Prosecutions has studied the Fay Report, the supplementary report and the report which is mentioned in paragraph 73. Proceedings are being taken against one person. On the question of exchange control offences, these are still under investigation, and everything that can possibly be done in this context by the Director of Public Prosecutions is being done. Of course, some of the people who worked for the Crown Agents are no longer within that body—

§ Mr. Skinner
That makes no difference.

§ Mrs. Hart
—and they are not thought to be liable to criminal proceedings. There are, however, possibilities for civil proceedings in some cases. Everything that should be done in terms of the law is being done.

§ Sir M. Havers
I invite the Minister of State to reconsider the form of inquiry. The choice of chairman is admirable, but the Royal Commission on Tribunals of Inquiry, the Salmon Report, stated that 738 this sort of inquiry could lead to many injustices. A whole number of departmental officers and officials are referred to in the terms of reference, and what worries me is that with this type of inquiry, rumour breeds on rumour, the whole thing is done in secret, and those called before the inquiry do not know what it is all about. One ends up with the difficulty that there will be a real risk of injustice. I ask the Government to reconsider the type of inquiry that is to be set up.

§ Mrs. Hart
The right hon. and learned Gentleman will recognise that this has been the subject of the most careful consideration by the Government. There were various possible ways of inquiring further into whatever arises from the Fay Report in terms of individuals. It was only after the most careful consideration, and with full consultation with my right hon. Friends the Attorney-General and the Lord Chancellor and the Civil Service Department, that in the end, by balancing the pros and cons of different forms of inquiry, we came to the conclusion that this was the best form of inquiry.
We felt it was important that it should be in private, partly because some of the individuals concerned will want to establish that their rôle in the matter does not call for any condemnation whatever. The publicity attached to a public inquiry could lead to people against whom one would not wish to level any criticism being brought through this process. On the other hand, where there might be a possibility of neglect or omission of duty we thought it was best that the proceedings should be in private. There will be two other members of the inquiry, neither of whom will be civil servants.

§ Mr. Skinner
Put me on it.

§ Mrs. Hart
We have to leave it in that way. Every possibility was most carefully considered.

§ Mr. English
This report is surely conclusive proof, if such were necessary, of two conclusions of the Expenditure Committee on the Civil Service. First, there is no one in the Civil Service who is responsible for its efficiency as a whole, and, secondly, the report proves that the present system of public audit is out of date. Paragraph 127 of the report states, 739 for example, that there were many occasions when the auditors did not notice that some money had got lost. I ask my right hon. Friend to say in the severest terms—in private, at least—that our recommendations on audit and efficiency should be replied to, on the lines that something undoubtedly needs to be done in relation to the Government as a whole, not merely the Crown Agents or her Department.

§ Mrs. Hart
My best answer to my hon. Friend is to say that I have been very interested in his report and some of the conclusions that his Committee reached. I do not think that I can go beyond that. I shall not say that I have the report at my bedside every night, but almost.

§ Mr. Hordern
I, too, congratulate the new chairman of the Crown Agents on his excellent efforts in staunching what was a very serious situation. I ask the Minister of State to bear in mind the provisions of Department of Trade reports on business activities, and some of the dissatisfaction that has been expressed at the nature of those reports. Will the Minister of State ensure that the evidence that is brought before the Aarvold Committee is produced before the individuals who are asked to give evidence, and that they should be allowed to comment on it before the findings of that Committee are published?

§ Mrs. Hart
I am certain that that would be the way to conduct this inquiry. That would be the way to proceed on natural justice. I thank the hon. Gentleman for his tribute to Mr. Cuckney, who has been going into the position since the beginning of October 1974. Before he could put things right he had the job of discovering what had gone wrong.

§ Mr. John Mendelson
Is it not extraordinary that with the exception of the question from my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, South and Finsbury (Mr. Cunningham) the questions that have been put to my right hon. Friend are almost entirely questions which, after the scandalous revelations by my right hon. Friend, have been concentrating on how people can be protected, what procedures might be adopted to see that nobody should be revealed to have committed the wrongs that they have com- 740 milted? Is it not my right hon. Friend's first duty to say here and now what she is going to need more money for? She said in her statement that the Government may have to ask for more taxpayers' money at a time when the country finds it impossible to meet the claims of firemen and others who need money urgently.
Will my right hon. Friend herself, or through the Leader of the House, give an assurance that a debate will take place before the Christmas Recess, in which the Government, without waiting for a further committee and years of inquiry, can give their full revelations, beyond the published report, of their own attitude towards culpability, whether those revelations are later justified by the report or not?

§ Mrs. Hart
My right hon. Friend the Leader of the House is sitting next to me, and I am sure that he is taking full note of the desire of hon. Members that there should be a debate on this matter fairly soon. I am equally certain that it is impossible for the House to consider the matter in depth today, because people need a chance to study the documents. My hon. Friend will find that some of the questions he has raised about the precise way in which the figure of £200 million was arrived at are set out in a good deal of detail in the Fay Report.
Not all of the money has yet been drawn down, but we have to take account of the fact that there is a deficit of £200 million, and therefore it might be necessary to draw down £85 million, and, indeed, it might be necessary to draw down more. It rather depends on the degree to which the Crown Agents are able to disengage themselves at a reasonable pace and with success from some of the commitments they entered into. This point is indeterminable at the moment.

Several Hon. Members
rose—

§ Mr. Speaker
Order. May I appeal to the House? I will do my best to call those hon. Members who have been standing throughout. It would be unfair to the House if questions and answers were very long.

§ Mr. Kershaw
Sometimes when a business goes into receivership it is necessary or desirable to carry on for a time in 741 order to realise the assets in the best way. Will the right hon. Lady give an assurance that that will be done in this case for the best business reasons and not in order to meet some parliamentary timetable which would otherwise be desirable?

§ Mrs. Hart
That applies to the disengagement from the Australian investment. That is why disengagement may take some little time.

§ Mr. Spearing
My right hon. Friend and I were both members of the Select Committee on Overseas Development in autumn 1974. Does she recall the part played by my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, South and Finsbury (Mr. Cunningham) in initiating that inquiry? How much of the information then elicited is in the Fay Report? Has she any comments on that evidence and its future use?

§ Mrs. Hart
I do recall that period and, as I have said, the tremendous rôle played by my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, South and Finsbury (Mr. Cunningham) in this matter. My hon. Friend the Member for Newham, South (Mr. Spearing) will find most of the evidence he has referred to in the Fay Report. It is an extremely detailed report. Every word has to be read—there is no stuffing. It is all valuable material.

§ Mr. Ronald Bell
While the function of the Crown Agents in the world is extremely important and is rightly buttressed by assurance from Her Majesty's Government, will the right hon. Lady realise that the loss of £200 million of public money is not something that can be disposed of by a statement at 3.30 p.m. and a private inquiry?
Will the right hon. Lady also give consideration to the fact that it began to look as if the private inquiry was going to be mainly concerned with culpability? While that is interesting, do we not need to know how the Crown Agents are to be conducted more successfully in the future? I realise that she cannot give details, but will she, if she can, in the broadest outline, give us an idea whether the Crown Agents are to make financial and investment decisions themselves in future and have the staff to do it, or whether they will rely on commercial 742 banks? How will this be done in a way which will not result in another £200 million of our money being lost?

§ Mrs. Hart
I am not in the least trying to dispose of a loss of £200 million by a statement after Question Time. That is the last thing in the world that I would want to do. My own reports, the Fay Committee's Report, and the fact that they are before the House are evidence of that. This is one of the most serious betrayals of public accountability of which the House can have been aware in many years. If the hon. and learned Gentleman familiarises himself with the statements I have already made, and those made by my predecessors, he will see the way in which matters are now on a better footing. Perhaps he can question me again when he has had an opportunity to read these statements.

§ Mr. McNamara
Is my right hon. Friend aware that we all admire the rôole that she and my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, South and Finsbury (Mr. Cunningham) have played in this matter? That being so, is she further aware that we cannot understand why this new inquiry has to be in private? Is there to be fresh evidence to that inquiry which was not provided to the other inquiries? Why is there need for people to be put under a cloud of suspicion for the rest of their lives because they have been called to a private inquiry? That suspicion arises even if people are cleared, because there is always suspicion about why someone was called before such an inquiry in the first place. Are we to have any published reports from the Aarvold Committee? Is not this procedure a denial of open government? Has not enough dirt been shovelled over the years on this issue? Why should we have another establishment cover-up?

§ Mrs. Hart
It would have been the easiest thing for the Government to say, "We will not have a further inquiry." We took the view that that would tend to be a cover-up. We therefore decided that there must be a further inquiry. Then we had to consider exactly what kind it should be. It was largely to protect innocent individuals that we decided that it should be in private. My hon. Friend will recall, from his familiarity with earlier inquiries which were public, that there is no doubt that the moment someone is called before a public inquiry 743 there is a certain aura—the name is there. If he is an innocent individual, that is not right. That is why we took the view that this inquiry should be in private.

§ Mr. Body
Is the right hon. Lady in a position to give an unqualified assurance to the House that any employee of the Crown Agents, either past or present, will not have proceedings brought, or any promise that no proceedings will be brought, against him until further inquiries are over?

§ Mrs. Hart
All proceedings that are possible have already been taken or are the subject of investigation by the Director of Public Prosecutions. I say to hon. Members that it is no good taking the analogy of a court in this matter. When they have read the Fay Report in detail, they will see that there are possibly individuals, possibly Departments—not totally specified in the report—some of whom may prove to have conducted themselves admirably and some of whom may not have done. One cannot say that one should bring someone before a public inquiry when one is not charging him. The Committee of Inquiry will make further proceedings on the matter sub judice, as the existing charges brought by the Director of Public Prosecutions are already.

§ Mr. Litterick
Paragraph 389 of the Fay Report tells us simply and clearly that much of the reason for this disaster lay in what it calls "incompetence". Can my right hon. Friend tell us how many Crown servants have been sacked for this incompetence? If there were any, on what terms were they sacked? If none has been sacked, why not?

§ Mrs. Hart
The main answer to that is that those who might have been sacked have already left the employment of the Crown Agents.

§ Mr. Crouch
Is the right hon. Lady aware that what will disturb the public so much in this whole affair is that the Crown Agents were able to get away so far, to the extent of £200 million? Is she also aware that the public must also be very concerned about the fact that there was a misunderstanding in the past, before her time in office, on the part of the Crown Agents, a Government agency, that it was effectively accountable to Parliament? Will the right hon. Lady 744 say that the Committee of Inquiry will be looking beyond just this particular case of the Crown Agents as an agency and will be looking into the situation of other agencies and bodies which are now Government agencies and bodies, which should be made much more effectively accountable to Parliament in future?

§ Mrs. Hart
On the hon. Gentleman's first point, the difficulty has been in part —not wholly—the constitutional relationship and the lack of definition in that. The Crown Agents, as Fay described them, were an emanation of the Crown and there was no responsibility to Parliament and no responsibility to the Minister. That has been remedied. We shall legislate to make certain that that is written down.
On the hon. Gentleman's second point, the answer is "Yes". I am glad that the hon. Gentleman asked the question. As soon as the Fay Report was received, the Treasury considered this matter, in consultation with the Civil Service Department, very urgently indeed. The object was not to establish whether any other public sector organisation had incurred massive liabilities to third parties. There is no reason to believe that any other public bodies are in that position. What it seems essential to consider is whether there are bodies which ought, perhaps, to be subject to tighter monitoring and controls and to make sure that there is no looseness or lack of clarity in the relationship which could allow the non-accountability of the Crown Agents to appear in any other sphere.

§ Mr. Greville Janner
Does my right hon. Friend not agree that the position of the Crown Agents is anomalous in many respects? Can she assure the House that if the Crown Agents cease to be an emanation of the Crown, the Crown Agents as such will be liable to prosecution, as are all other bodies that are not in that position, and not merely the individuals who have acted for it?
Will my right hon. Friend also assure the House that this body will be under the political control of the House so that no longer shall we have the situation that the Crown Agents supply goods to the armed forces of General Amin saying that they are not responsible to the House at all because they are a private body serving 745 their customers, and when we ask for details about whom they are serving and why, they say that it is confidential and none of the business of the House?

§ Mrs. Hart
My hon. and learned Friend will want to study what I have said on an earlier occasion about the precise method by which we hope to legislate on the Crown Agents. Indeed, it was my predecessor who made it quite clear. My hon. and learned Friend will find there that the line of responsibility is laid out absolutely clearly.
On the second point, I rather think that, as my hon. and learned Friend knows, there are other problems involved in the particular point that he has raised, and I do not think that he would wish me today to go into that very fully.