Constitutional Reform and Governance Bill

I have read that clause, and I referred to it earlier, but if the Minister is telling me that that is the form of words used for dealing with the eventuality that I identified, I take some reassurance from what he has said. The Minister may well be able to help me with my second concern, too. As I was saying, it relates to clause 38(8)(b)(iv), which requires""the National Audit Office to monitor the carrying out of the Comptroller and Auditor General's functions"." Unless the Bill envisages a change in the relationship between the Comptroller and Auditor General and the National Audit Office, what the clause suggests is that the National Audit Office—of which the Comptroller and Auditor General is, in effect, the chief executive—should be the body to monitor the effectiveness of its own chief executive. That seems to me to set up a relationship that could give rise to conflict and confusion. In most organisations an entity other than the chief executive monitors the chief executive's performance, and that entity is normally the board or governors of an organisation rather than the body of which he is chief executive. Again, I may be missing something, but I invite the Minister to respond to that concern as well. The third aspect of the relationship about which I feel some concern appears in clause 38(8)(b)(vi), whereby the National Audit Office and the Comptroller and Auditor General are charged with developing a code of practice that deals with their relationship. Here we have the National Audit Office monitoring its own chief executive, and having to agree with that chief executive the code of practice according to which it would undertake its monitoring role. The provision seems to me to have been ill thought through, and I hope that either the Minister will explain what it means this evening, or an explanation can be given in Committee. I am also concerned about omissions from the Bill that relate to British citizens living overseas. Two particular categories concern me. The first consists of those who are already disenfranchised by our present arrangements for participation in general elections in this country. Those who have lived overseas for more than 15 years are disfranchised, as the Minister mentioned when he appeared to be provoked by my intervention on the hon. Member for Cambridge (David Howarth) to point out that the issue had been discussed in the Chamber before. Indeed it has, but I think that the Minister may have been a bit hasty in leaping to his feet to deny that there were many people in that category, and to appear to deny that many other countries had more restricted arrangements than ours. In the Minister's defence, I accept that it is hard to get a handle on the numbers. The Foreign Office will reply to parliamentary questions, as it has from time to time. I believe that it produces an annual estimate of the number of British citizens who live overseas, and it is around 13 million.