§ Mr. Bryan Gould (Dagenham)On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. You may recall that last Wednesday the Secretary of State for the Environment answered a private notice question from my hon. Friend the Member for Hammersmith (Mr. Soley) about a leaked letter which referred to a dowry being offered to ease the privatisation of the Property Services Agency. In his reply, the Secretary of State said that the reference to the dowry meant
nothing other than the redundancy pay that we wish to protect".—[Official Report, 10 July 1991; Vol. 194, c. 950.]Many people at the time thought that that answer lacked plausibility. Today's issue of the magazine New Builder reports authoritatively that Coopers and Lybrand Deloitte, which are advising the Government on the privatisation, had warned them that the PSA will have a negative value of at least £50 million and perhaps £100 million and that a dowry in excess of any basic redundancy costs would be required. The report states:The claim contradicts the statement by Environment Secretary Michael Heseltine last week to the House of Commons that any cash dowry, for PSA services would seek to cover the cost of redundancies only.The matter is of considerable importance, not just because of the 19,000 jobs at stake, but because any talk of a dowry, or, to put it in other terms, a sweetener, runs the risk of breaking European Community rules and providing a re-run of the Rover scandal.The Secretary of State for the Environment must surely have been aware of the advice tendered by his professional advisers. He should now come to the House and make a statement and a full apology. What can you do, Mr. Deputy Speaker, to protect the House from being misled on matters of such importance?
§ Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Paul Dean)The hon. Gentleman will realise that that is not really a matter for the Chair. No doubt he will wish to raise it in other ways; and I am sure that those on the Government Front Bench will have heard what he said.
§ Mr. Bob Cryer (Bradford, South)Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. As you know, money that is authorised for expenditure by Ministers must be covered by a money resolution in this House. To my recollection, no money resolution covering that kind of sweetener, bribe or dowry has been authorised. As you know, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I take an interest in money resolutions. It is therefore a matter of considerable concern and of accountability to the House if those promises are made which amount to expenditure by a Minister when authority for that has not been given by the House. Can you ensure that that point is examined?
§ Mr. Deputy SpeakerI realise that the hon. Gentleman is a specialist on money resolutions. However, we are not considering a money resolution at the moment. I am sure that he will use his well-known ingenuity to raise the matter on another occasion.