Public Accounts

Anyway, having got that off my chest, let me say that the reports that we are considering are extremely worth while. I want to refer to a few of them, some of which relate to my constituency. First, I shall deal with the report on the Assets Recovery Agency. The appalling failure to recover substantial assets from criminals to offset the agency's costs is a big disappointment. Clearly, the legislation was somewhat flawed, and the stewardship of the agency left an awful lot to be desired. I am not sure that merging it with the Serious Organised Crime Agency will prove to be sensible. Parliament should have done better. It should have worked harder and revisited the matter with new legislation, and the Government should have seen that the administration and management of the agency improved. It is a matter of powers and of stewardship, and the agency could have been much more successful. I take an interest in Northern Ireland. Abandoning the Assets Recovery Agency, merging it with the Serious Organised Crime Agency, doing away with the Assets Recovery Agency in Northern Ireland and merging it in the blancmange of the new agency will prove to be a big mistake. Even if the Government had decided to merge the two agencies, they should have introduced a new statute that hived off the function in Northern Ireland. A designated Northern Ireland agency could have complemented and worked much more closely with the very successful assets recovery agency in the Irish Republic, which to some extent pioneered our legislation. It was a mistake not to ring-fence the function in Northern Ireland. There is an ongoing need to tackle organised crime and to recover the profits of crime in that part of the United Kingdom. I commend the Committee for its work on reducing the reliance on landfill in England. I feel particularly strongly about that because my constituency, Thurrock, has been scarred by more than 100 years of landfill. It is unjust, unfair, appalling in its effect on the environment, and it is still going on. Successive Governments have not been energetic enough or enthusiastic enough in reducing the amount of waste put in landfill. Parliament has not taken seriously its moral obligations to reduce the amount of packaging and waste that is produced. We feel strongly about the matter in Thurrock because landfill has altered the topography of Thurrock and continues to do so, with unnatural bunds in and around the Thames estuary. It is highly inappropriate. The Government should take on board urgently the recommendations of the Public Accounts Committee and other organisations. Many local authorities are not doing nearly enough to encourage recycling and the sorting of waste. I notice that the Committee drew attention to the fact that the food and restaurant sector is finding cheaper ways of disposing of the waste that they generate, but it still ends up in landfill and it still ends up in my constituency. I unashamedly say to the House that that is unacceptable. I see it every day. The little bit of river traffic that passes this building, the tugs pulling the long craft, is heading for Thurrock. It is London's waste going to Thurrock. Each day there is an increment in pollution in my part of Essex. It is unacceptable, it is distorting the topography, and I make no apology for commending the report to the House and asking the Government to take the issue much more seriously and tackle it as a matter of urgency. The Committee has done some important work on the Environment Agency, which is charged by Parliament with maintaining river and coastal defences in England. It troubles me that again we are fiddling while Rome burns. If one reads the report, one sees that very little has been done—that is not fair. I withdraw that. I should say that the energy and enthusiasm of the Environment Agency, and the stewardship that Parliament charges the agency with, have been seen to be deficient. It has to deal with things immediately, but it also has to have a long-term view. Clearly, the agency is not beginning to address the causes of what could be cataclysmic consequences—probably within your and my lifetimes, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and certainly within those of our children and grandchildren—if the problem in and around our coast is not seriously addressed. As I said, I represent part of the Thames estuary, but not part that is covered by the Thames barrier. It is, however, part of the estuary that is the subject of another report—the Thames Gateway development, which clearly has ramifications for and raises issues about flooding. I do not think that there is joined-up government on the issue. I have some sympathy for the Environment Agency, in that it appears that it does not have the resources or responsibilities that it should. Furthermore, Ministers are transient and there are always reorganisations of Government Departments, which seem to merge and disappear and get new titles and so on. There does not seem to be a coherent, long-term strategy on how and to what extent we should defend the Thames estuary in particular. Speaking personally, I am amazed that nothing is under way to put an additional barrier across the Thames in the wider estuary. Such a project could be self-financing and include a road and/or rail crossing, which is much needed for the United Kingdom economy. That is the kind of ambitious engineering that should be advanced. It cannot be advanced entirely by the Environment Agency, which does not have the resources for a major engineering construction; it should be advanced by Her Majesty's Government. If we ignore that need, there will almost inevitably be dreadful consequences. They might not come next week or in the next decade—but in the next century they will. People will look back at this Parliament and recent Parliaments, which have not really done anything to address the problem. I hope that the Public Accounts Committee report's criticism of some of the Environment Agency's stewardship will be taken on board, and I implore the Government to take on more. I have referred to the Government's Thames Gateway strategy, on which the Public Accounts Committee produced an important and powerful report. I was much encouraged that, for the first time, some colleagues were addressing the flaws and failings of a Government initiative and strategy that was well meant but was not being achieved. I intervened from a sedentary position on my hon. Friend the Member for Great Grimsby (Mr. Mitchell) when he referred to that report, the contents of which he is justifiably proud. He demonstrated some dismay when I intervened rather rudely and said that it is still the case that nothing is changing. Perhaps that was an exaggeration, but I want to share with the House something that illustrates that despite the Committee's forensic, detailed report on the failings and problems arising from the Thames Gateway project, the Government are still in denial this afternoon. I buttress my case by saying that this very week, the Government office for the east of England produced the regional spatial strategy for the eastern region—that is parlance for a regional development plan. Almost two years ago, before the Public Accounts Committee hearings, I implored the Government, in both speech and writing, to address the fact that the bureaucrats in that Government office had decided, for some reason, that Thurrock Lakeside retail park was not or should not be designated a regional shopping centre. I do not know whether anyone knows my bailiwick, but that shopping centre is demonstrably a regional shopping centre. That decision is like suggesting that these green Benches are red. It is a barmy, crackpot view expressed by bureaucrats. Not only is it mad, but it has some consequences. The fact that Lakeside is not designated as a regional shopping centre has an impact on the Thurrock urban development corporation, which is a creature of statute and a baby of this Labour Government. It frustrates the corporation in fulfilling its job of creating new training opportunities and ensuring that the right skills are in the right place in Thurrock and along the Thames Gateway. It needs to be able to develop the land around the Lakeside basin—I call it the Lakeside shopping centre, but basin is the technical term for the area—and for it to do that Lakeside has to be designated a regional shopping centre. I have complained about that fact in this Chamber a number of times. I think that it hurt the Government when I said that the process was the opposite of joined-up government. People moved nervously and, of course, the Ministers were transient, because one of the great problems with the whole strategy is the turnover of Ministers charged with it. It is the opposite of joined-up government because in the Department that deals with the matter, one Minister is in charge of spatial strategy while another, to the best of his or her ability, enthusiastically tries to push the Thames Gateway strategy forward. I have drawn attention to that problem time and again. This week, the spatial strategy came out. I agreed with a lot of it, but it had one caveat—that the Lakeside basin at Thurrock would be the subject of further consultation. The East of England regional assembly and the Government office will report in December 2009 about the category that should cover Lakeside. Ministers should not take my word for it. They should go back to their Departments and ask, ““Is what the hon. Member for Thurrock said true?”” They will then see that the process is the opposite of joined-up government.