§ 2.46 p.m.
§ Lord ORR-EWINGMy Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
§ The Question was as follows:
§ To ask Her Majesty's Government what arrangements are currently in operation for public financial scrutiny of the work of the Property Services Agency.
§ Baroness STEDMANMy Lords: apart from normal Parliamentary procedures, expenditure by the Agency is shown annually in the published Supply Estimates and Appropriation Accounts and in the relevant Chapter of the White Paper on Public Expenditure. The results of the Agency's supplies operations from 1st April 1976 will be shown separately in 818 published trading accounts. All the Agency's records are open to examination by the staff of the Comptroller and Auditor General and from time to time aspects of its work are examined by the Committee of Public Accounts and by the Expenditure Committee and commented upon in their published reports.
§ Lord ORR-EWINGMy Lords, would the noble Baroness not feel, now the Property Services Agency (which perhaps to many Members of your Lordships' House is better known as the Ministry of Works) has a turnover of £750 million in every year, that this would warrant an annual account publishing details of how this expenditure has occurred? Is it not a fact that nearly 3 million square feet—with apologies to the Metrication Board, but that is the published figure—are leased outside London each year by this Agency? Is not there room here for the open government which we were promised in the Manifesto of 1974 and a few more facts being known to the public?
§ Baroness STEDMANMy Lords, the facts are available, if noble Lords will look for them, in the publications to which I have referred. The net cost incurred by the Property Services Agency is in providing accommodation and associated services for the Armed Forces, for specialised civil programmes, like the courts and prisons, and for providing offices for the civil servants. The expenditure there, as the noble Lord said, is £778 million in the 1976–77 Estimates, and that estimate depends entirely upon the whole Government's need for accommodation. So far as the rent is concerned, the Property Services Agency has to rent large areas of space, particularly in London, because it is not able to finance the building of new offices on the scale which would meet the demand for accommodation from Government Departments. They do not pay more than the market price, and the reason why the PSA rent bill is rising fast—and it is expected to be about £97 million in 1976–77—is that we still possess many old leases of property at very low rents, and these are continually falling due for renewal at much higher current rents.
§ Lord HEWLETTMy Lords, how do Her Majesty's Government reconcile such a response when there is under construc 819 tion, I am led to believe, no less than £54 million worth of office building in England and £7.3 million current rent and an occupation of 881,000 square feet of offices in London? Surely with such expenditure detailed accounts should be available for all to examine in the spirit of the open government that we have been promised?
§ Baroness STEDMANMy Lords, details are available in the Estimates and Appropriation Accounts, in the White Paper on Public Expenditure, and the Department is subject to examination by the staff of the Comptroller and Auditor General.
Lord BRUCE of DONINGTONMy Lords, is my noble friend aware that the work of the Comptroller and Auditor General and his staff is of the highest professional quality and compares very favourably with some standards of which recently the House has been made aware in the private sector? Is my noble friend also aware that the Public Accounts Committee in another place exercise very effective supervision over the activities of the Government Departments concerned?
§ Baroness STEDMANYes, my Lords: to both questions.
§ Baroness EMMET of AMBERLEYMy Lords, might I put this supplementary question to the noble Baroness: Is not this title of "Property Services Agency" really rather absurd, because nobody knows what it means? I did not know myself when I heard the Question, and I think it would be helpful to the public in general, who are paying these enormous sums, if the Agency were given a more intelligible title. "Office of Works", for example, is much more understandable than "Property Services Agency".
§ Baroness STEDMANI take the point made by the noble Baroness. I explained in answer to the first supplementary that most of the cost they have to meet arises from providing accommodation for the associated services and the Armed Forces, and for civil matters such as courts, prisons and so on. I will take note of what the noble Baroness has said about the name, and will draw her remarks to the attention of my right honourable friend.