Leigh wants to stay as chair of PAC

26 May 05
The high-profile chair of the influential Commons Public Accounts Committee, Edward Leigh, is seeking to stay in the job.

27 May 2005

The high-profile chair of the influential Commons Public Accounts Committee, Edward Leigh, is seeking to stay in the job.

The Tory MP for Gainsborough told Public Finance that he was applying for his old job. 'I would like to continue but it's up to the committee,' he said. 'But I will be putting my name forward.'

The PAC, established by William Gladstone, is one of the most respected of all Westminster committees and subsequently affords its chair a higher profile than many other opposition members. It scrutinises the spending of public money of all Whitehall departments, some £700bn, and regularly takes the government to task.

Leigh was appointed chair in October 2001, taking over from David Davis, now a contender for the Tory leadership. A new chair is traditionally selected at the beginning of a new Parliament, but Leigh said he did not think a decision was imminent. The House rises on July 21 and the new committee will probably not begin its work until the autumn. Traditionally, the chair is held by a senior opposition MP.

Since Leigh was appointed, the committee has highlighted problems in the privatisation of the National Air Traffic Services, revealed a £1bn cost to the taxpayer to set up the Tube PPP, and examined problems with defence procurement.

Its latest report, Welfare to Work: tackling the barriers to the employment of older people, was published this week. It called for better use of performance targets for the New Deal 50-plus, a programme to get unemployed over-50s back into work.

'There are twice as many people on incapacity benefits now as there were in the late 1980s, with people over 50 accounting for fully half of all cases,' Leigh said.

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