Clause 6 - Minister’s duty to inform Parliament or Assembly
Inquiries Bill [Lords]
2:30 pm
Mr Jonathan Djanogly (Shadow Minister, Home Affairs; Huntingdon, Conservative)
The hon. Lady makes a fair point. I will come to the importance of flexibility, which is reflected in our amendments.
Amendment No. 5 should be read with amendment No. 6, which would require an oral statement to the relevant Parliament or Assembly, as explained earlier by my hon. Friend the Member for North-East Hertfordshire (Mr. Heald). That would enable Parliament to have true involvement in the Minister’s decisions on setting up the inquiry—in this case, allowing debate about whether the likely costs of an inquiry are appropriate in the circumstances. We doubt that any Assembly would accept £250 million as an appropriate budget to spend on an inquiry.
Once the inquiry has been set up, the Minister will have limited involvement in running the inquiry; he will not and should not have a final say about how and where the funds are spent. That would affect the inquiry’s independence, which is addressed by amendments Nos. 30 and 31. Therefore, any amendments dealing with the inquiry’s costs must also consider the chairman’s involvement in spending. Amendment No. 20 addresses that very issue. It requires the chairman, when taking a decision about the procedure or conduct of an inquiry, to publish an estimate of the likely cost of the inquiry within one month of the setting-up date. That would force the chairman to consider carefully the possible costs to be incurred and the most appropriate way to approach the tasks that he has been set. It would provide accountability of the chairman’s expenditure and, through public scrutiny and legitimate expectations, put pressure on the chairman to keep within the published budget.
The amendments would ensure that a budget was set at the outset by both the Minister and the chairman. It would then be open to Parliament and the public to object to excessive forecasts and scrutinise expenditure over and above the expected budget. I should point out—this relates to the point made by the hon. Member for Cambridge (Mrs. Campbell)—that the amendments do not impose a cap on an inquiry’s expenditure. We recognise that inquiries require the flexibility to follow new leads of evidence and interview further witnesses when appropriate. However, Ministers and chairmen running inquiries should not be given blank cheques to set unlimited amounts on unspecified inquiry costs.