Appointment of the Comptroller and Auditor General

Of course Tim Burr will be an eligible candidate, but I have had no conversation with him. He will hold the appointment until a permanent appointment can be made. This is only the second appointment under the current arrangements whereby the nomination is made by the Prime Minister with the support of the Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee. During the debate the last time this happened, there was considerable support for making the appointment entirely a matter for the House. That is not an unreasonable view, as the CAG is an Officer of the House and he must be independent of the Government. That point was not lost on the Labour party in opposition. Indeed, summing up in the debate on Sir John Bourn's appointment 20 years ago, the shadow Minister committed a future Labour Government to changing"““the method of appointment so that there is no ambiguity between the role of the Executive and that of the House.””—[Official Report, 16 December 1987; Vol. 124, c. 1201.]" My view, however, is that—I say this to the Prime Minister to whom I am grateful for his presence—there is a need for the Government to have confidence in the person appointed because that person has unlimited access to all private papers and persons of the Government. Therefore, my view is that the current situation—of course, the House can take a different view—in which both the Prime Minister and the Opposition Chairman of the PAC have to agree is not unreasonable. I say that as long as the Government appreciate the difference between selection and appointment. They need to be involved in the appointment, but not in the selection. That should be the job of the House. In this sense, I want to proceed according to statute and to precedent, and I want to follow closely the precedent set by my predecessor Bob—now Lord—Sheldon. He selected the candidate after exhaustive interviews and that selection was then put to Mrs. Thatcher and she approved it. Clearly the process now needs to be modernised in accordance with good practice. There needs to be openness, open advertising, transparency and I would need to be advised by a senior board in accordance with modern practice. Although all that can be arranged in agreement with the Government, I hope that the board would consist of a recently retired very senior servant—perhaps a former permanent secretary—a senior accountant from private practice and perhaps a recently retired officer from the NAO. I would need to listen to and consider their advice, but the Government do not need to be involved in that part of the process; otherwise there is the danger that I could find myself steered in classic Whitehall fashion in the direction of a safe candidate. I am sure that that would not be good for the future independence of the position. The Government do not have a right to a final veto. Needless to say, I want to assure the House that I approach the task with the utmost seriousness. We all want to find someone of the highest calibre, great experience and, above all, independence of mind and spirit. I believe that such a person should serve for a fixed, lengthy and non-renewable term of the order of eight to 10 years, and they should not be allowed to return to the civil service if they came from it. There can be no question of their independence being compromised. All that is for discussion, but I assure the House that I am immensely proud of the independence and the work of the NAO and the Public Accounts Committee. During my watch, I will seek to preserve that.