Advisory Committee on Hazardous Substances (Abolition) Order 2012

Baroness Parminter Excerpts

Monday 28th May 2012 Grand Committee

[Baroness Parminter]

My Lords, these Benches support the proposal to abolish the advisory committee, principally on the grounds that we are satisfied that the replacement will be independent of Ministers, that it will continue to work openly and that the public and specialist interests will be able to attend meetings. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Knight, that in the absence of the terms of reference, it is difficult to find the discernible differences between the old committee and the new committee. However, I put that to one side.

It is quite clear in the explanatory documents that the consultation took views on the terms of reference and the name of the successor body. The Minister has been kind enough to share the new name and to give some indication of the terms of reference. At this point, there does not seem to be any clarity on the number of members and the scope of representation on the proposed new committee. We want to feel reassured that the scientific experts will come from a breadth of fields across the industry and more broadly to represent some of the consumer champions that have scientific experts on their staff to ensure that the general public can have full confidence in the scientific decisions that we desperately need from this committee.