Local Audit (Public Access to Documents) Bill — House of Commons, 2017-03-24
Topic: Health
David Nuttall (Conservative, Centre-right): May I start by paying tribute not only to the promoter of the Bill, my hon. Friend the Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Wendy Morton), but also to my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope), because the whole House owes him a debt of gratitude for the forensic way in which he has analysed this Bill and brought such a wide array of amendments for the House to consider this morning? It seems to me that if this Bill had been subject to my hon. Friend’s level of scrutiny in its earlier stages and been examined in the detail he has demonstrated this morning, perhaps we would not be in the position that we find ourselves in now I cannot make any prediction as to the length of time for which I will need to address the House, but I will deal succinctly with the amendments before us. I wish to advance to the House the reasons for my amendment and explain why it is important that it is accepted. I have adopted a slightly different approach from that of my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch. He has adopted a more scatter-gun approach—that is a description, not a criticism—whereas I have concentrated my fire on just one amendment, and I will guide the House through why I think it is critical that it is accepted I want to pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Aldridge-Brownhills. As the House will be aware, she has rightly already achieved a degree of expertise in private Member’s Bills. In her first session in Parliament, she steered on to the statute book a private Member’s Bill dealing with Great Ormond Street hospital, and everyone is grateful to her for that. She has also demonstrated her expertise in the way in which this Bill has been progressed so far: it was piloted through Second Reading in about 80 minutes and, as was mentioned earlier, it went through Committee in just 11 minutes. My hon. Friend no doubt felt very pleased about that, but I have to question the speed with which the Bill passed through Committee. I make no criticism of the Members who served on the Committee, but, as has been mentioned, no amendments whatsoever were tabled in Committee. It is also worth placing on the record that although my hon. Friend was obviously present in Committee, as was the Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy), and seven other hon. Members, there were several Members missing: the hon. Members for Clacton (Mr Carswell), for Swansea East (Carolyn Harris), for Oldham West and Royton (Jim McMahon), for Ealing North (Stephen Pound), for Stoke-on-Trent North (Ruth Smeeth) and for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg) and my hon. Friend the Member for South Thanet (Craig Mackinlay). It is particularly noteworthy that my hon. Friend the Member for North Dorset (Simon Hoare), who had quite a lot to say about this Bill on Second Reading, missed the cut, as they say in golf, when it came to selecting the Committee members. Had he made the cut, some of the matters we will be touching on this morning might have been dealt with then I fear that the number and nature of the amendments before us today suggest that matters were somewhat glossed over in Committee. As evidence of that, I cite the transcript of the Second Reading debate on 25 November last year. That debate contained several references to things being ironed out in Committee. My hon. Friend the Member for Aldridge-Brownhills said: "I understand that hon. Members have raised concerns today, and they are exactly the kind of points that I would be more than happy for us to consider in Committee." My hon. Friend the Member for North Dorset said: "There will be some issues to be teased out in Committee". He then doubled up on that when referring to the question of what constitutes related documents. He said: "I am absolutely certain that the issue will be teased out in Committee". —[Official Report, 25 November 2016; Vol. 617, c. 1200-03.] Well, I am sorry to say that it was not The purpose of my amendment is to clarify the terminology used in this Bill, and to avoid any possibility of confusion in the future. I hope that, after I have spent a few minutes advancing the arguments for the importance of my amendment, it will be accepted, because I believe that its inclusion would strengthen the Bill. It is not what I would term a wrecking amendment, and I have tabled it in the best possible spirit. This is a short Bill, and my amendment to clause 1 simply seeks to put in the Bill what is inferred from the explanatory notes and the briefing papers, which I believe is the intention of the Bill The first three subsections of section 26 of the Local Audit and Accountability Act 2014 state: (1) At each audit of accounts under this Act, other than an audit of accounts of a health service body, any persons interested may— (a) inspect the accounting records for the financial year to which the audit relates and all books, deeds, contracts, bills, vouchers, receipts and other documents relating to those records, and (b) make copies of all or any part of those records or documents (2) At the request of a local government elector for any area to which the accounts relate, the local auditor must give the elector, or any representative of the elector, an opportunity to question the auditor about the accounting records (3) The local auditor’s reasonable costs of complying with subsection (2) are recoverable from the relevant authority to which the accounts relate That is the underlying provision in statute that my hon. Friend’s Bill seeks to amend. It is important to bear it in mind, however, that that Act was itself a consolidating Act of a previous consolidating Act—namely, the Audit Commission Act 1998. It is important to remember that reference was made to a previous Act, as we shall see when we look at the leading case involved I want to talk now about the bodies that are covered by the 2014 Act. It covers a number of relevant authorities, which are set out in schedule 2 to the Act. For example, it covers county, district, borough and parish councils, combined authorities, police and crime commissioners, passenger transport executives and national parks authorities. At that time, it also covered the Greater London Authority. The bodies covered by the Act will inevitably produce a wide variety of stories that journalists might wish to pursue The leading case relating to this matter is that of R. (on the application of HTV Ltd) v. Bristol City Council. The House of Commons Library briefing on this Bill refers to that case, and the explanatory notes to the Bill mention the fact that it was this Bill that first identified the problem in the earlier legislation. We must bear it in mind that, although that case took place in 2004, it refers to the previous Act and not to the current Act that is being amended.