Public Bodies Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Liddle and Lord Maclennan of Rogart

Tuesday 11th January 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Maclennan of Rogart]

I am not trying to resurrect history tonight, but merely to call in aid some of the relevant factors. It is true that inflation dropped to 10 per cent, but that is still more than three times what it is at present.

I agree that the nexus and concatenation of consumer protection bodies played a considerable role in helping to focus policy-making on what was necessary. I appeal to the Government to recognise the inadequacy of the present proposals for change. The Bill is primarily about winding up bodies, not about indicating what is to take their place. That is one of its defects. It is an attempt to make things possible, but it will not command the approval of Parliament if we do not know what are to be the alternatives, and if we are not satisfied that they are satisfactory and will deliver what the bodies that are for the chop have delivered. No one can pretend that this body has passed its sell-by date or ceased to have a useful potential purpose in future. I say yes to rationalisation and reorganisation—but let us know how it is to be done.

[Lord Liddle]

My Lords, briefly, I support the amendment. We have had an excellent debate. I cannot believe that the Minister, who knows a lot about this subject, is not somewhat uneasy in the light of what she has heard. We have had excellent contributions from my noble friends Lady Hayter, Lord Whitty and Lord Borrie, and the noble Lord, Lord Maclennan, who really know their stuff in this area, as I know she does. If she is thinking about how to win an argument within government for a change of policy on this issue, perhaps I may suggest that abolishing the National Consumer Council—Consumer Focus—is a deeply anti-big society move. If you look at the history of the consumer movement in Britain, you will see that in the 1950s there was a tremendous growth of interest in consumerism on the part of social democrats, such as the late Lord Young of Dartington and some of the progressives from the Conservative Party who wanted to see a different kind of politics from the clash between employers and trade unions, and who wanted a third voice—a consumer voice—to be represented.

Public Bodies Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Liddle and Lord Maclennan of Rogart

Tuesday 23rd November 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Maclennan of Rogart]

My Lords, I very much agree with the purpose of Amendment 180. It is of fundamental importance that the purposes of the making of the order are fully understood in respect of the transfer of functions. It is more than desirable; it is inevitable and necessary that if the changes are being made to procure efficiency, economy or accountability, it should be possible to judge whether those goals are being achieved by the transfer of authority or the winding up of the body. I know that, in respect of the regional development agencies—notwithstanding the announcement of the LEPs—there is a great deal of uncertainty, for example in respect of the distribution of the European rural development fund, which has not been resolved. It has been suggested that this may be transferred to another body. It has been suggested that it might be transferred to a privatised body, perhaps even consisting of existing members of the RDAs, which have been responsible for this for some time. We have no idea how this will be handled. That is not satisfactory. It is a reasonable objective that the Bill should make this clear, for the reasons already given in this debate. The language of the amendment might not be absolutely suited to bringing this out; none the less, I hope the Minister will give serious thought to that requirement of transparency.

[Lord Liddle]

My Lords, I support this amendment and I agree very much with the comments of the noble Lords, Lord Greaves and Lord Maclennan. Amendment 180 is much needed if we are to have a rational and sensible process for deciding how we deal with public bodies. I return to the example of economic development. This is a classic case of a decision to abolish a body being taken without anyone thinking about what to do with its functions, what the costs and economic disbenefits are likely to be, and what will happen to the liabilities and assets.

The fact is that none of these questions was answered before the Government announced this decision. They are trying to make it up as they go along. That is not satisfactory. I know about this because of my interest as chair of Cumbria Vision. It is a very sad thing to see because the rhetoric is all about localism and setting up local economic partnerships that are supposed to be more local than the regional development agencies but the Government are devolving very few, if any, functions to the local economic partnerships. What is actually happening is that most of the things that were done in the regions are being centralised into government departments. Is that really sensible public policy-making? Should not the Government have been subject to the discipline embodied in this amendment in terms of explaining clearly what they were doing when they announced this decision?

As regards expected costs and their impact, I put down a Written Question to the noble Baroness, Lady Wilcox, in which I asked for information on costs, how many people were likely to lose their job and what the impact on this, that and the other would be. I received the Answer that no such information was available or was being sought, or something like that. That is not a satisfactory due process. The Government must do better than that as regards other bodies. That is why these amendments being put forward from this side of the House are so important. I hope that they will draw support from all sides of the House.