Arm’s-length Bodies

Baroness Finn Excerpts

Thursday 1st May 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)]

My noble friend makes an excellent point. I assure your Lordships’ House that there is no way we will engage in this process with that approach. We want to make sure that we can deliver an agile Government, fit for purpose in the 21st century, with the people in the right places and the appropriate accountability to government departments. We want to do this in a way that respects and values the people who deliver our public services day in, day out. I put on record my thanks to the civil servants and public services doing everything to deliver for our country.

[Baroness Finn (Con)]

My Lords, the abolition of NHS England was a rare decisive move from this Government, but the Government’s actions on quangos do not match the rhetoric. The Government have admitted to being in the process of setting up 29 new bodies, as per the last Written Question, and these are the ones the Government are currently admitting to. Can the Minister explain how this is in line with the so-called bonfire of the quangos?