Treasury pushed to answer Sharman
Tory peer Baroness Noakes has thrown her weight behind the Sharman report on central government accoutability, demanding a response from the Treasury.
Speaking in the House of Lords last week, the former president of the ICAEW complained about the lack of a reply to Lord Sharman’s report, which called for increased powers for the National Audit Office.
‘It would appear that they [the government] have sat on their hands,’ Baroness Noakes said during the Lords debate on the European Court of Auditors.
‘That is not good enough,’ the baroness said, adding: ‘The issues are straightforward and have been in the public arena for many years.’
The attack forced government spokesman Lord McIntosh of Haringey to tell the Lords that the government would give its response to the Sharman report ‘in a few weeks’, and not, as the baroness had complained, ‘in due course’.
Noakes, as Dame Sheila Masters, was a senior partner at KPMG when Lord Sharman was the firm’s global chief.
