Appointment of the Comptroller and Auditor General

That is an important point and it should be underlined. At present there is a complete balance because the Chairman of the PAC is, by definition, from the Opposition and the Prime Minister is, by definition, from the Government. It sounds very democratic—I say this to the Chairman of the Public Administration Committee—to hand the appointment over to a Committee, but under the rules of the House, a Committee would always have a Government majority so it would appoint somebody and that would be approved by the Government. The Government would thus effectively make the appointment, which would be dangerous. The present system, which was created under the 1983 Act, was probably quite a wise compromise.