National Audit Office

But I think we have a really serious problem with responsibility in the civil service, which then feeds, of course, up to ministers.

What is Sir Brian Roach doing about that? Where is the National Audit Office? I don't think we have one, actually.

In New Zealand, you know that.

We had one in England.

So what government support should be prioritised to keep British commercial horticulture competitive?

Well, during my recent EFRA committee hearing where we had the then former Secretary of State for DEFRA, one of the things that I kept pushing on is why, in terms of horticulture, are ornamentals able to get access to funding for intensive energy use, but are edibles are not? And what was said to me, the civil servant jumped in at that point and said, well, that's because of sick codes, which are set by the National Audit Office, which in turn are set by the World Trade Organization, say the edible horticulture is not allowed to be subsidized for energy costs.

My return question to that was, yes, I get that.

But why? We are a government.

Mike Chappell is a prepper, and I'll admit, for me, that word conjures up images of tinfoil hats and gun-toting loners preparing for a zombie apocalypse.

But maybe I'm wrong, because the British government is now urging us to stockpile food and supplies to guard against extreme weather scenarios, and the National Audit Office is telling us that our supply chains of food are vulnerable to cyberattacks and disease.

So maybe Mike is right.

Maybe we should all be preppers.

And just a few years ago, I would've put you on the sort of quite radical spectrum for prepping for that.

But now we've got the British government, which is warning us to buy in supplies in case of extreme weather.

We've got the National Audit Office saying that our supply chains are vulnerable to hacking-

Yeah

And so part of what she'd be looking at is to see whether the recommendations they made were, were implemented as a result of those inquiries.

I think we know hundreds of them weren't, and she's made recommendations that that needs to change, that the National Audit Office needs to take responsibility for implementing these recommendations.

Otherwise, families like those who lost their children at the hands of Lucy Letby will feel it has all been for nothing.

And I do want to ask about those recommendations i-in just a second.

Maybe surprising to those of us who don't work in a hospital that that doesn't exist already.

And then on this question of the suspicion of deliberate harm, the development of a policy that would take effect across the country and would oblige staff to contractually abide by that policy to report suspicions of deliberate harm and a duty of candor on managers as well, bearing in mind some of what went on of people not being candid, certainly with families, about what was happening.

And as I said, there's a recommendation about the recommendations that the National Audit Office should take a responsibility to make sure they're put into effect.

So these seventeen recommendations, all the other recommendations, are meaningful and have a meaningful effect in the future.