Non-departmental Public Bodies

Lord Maclennan of Rogart Excerpts

Tuesday 19th October 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Tebbit]

My Lords—

[Lord Maclennan of Rogart]

My Lords—

[Noble Lords]

Tebbit!

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Maclennan of Rogart]

My Lords, I recognise that there are bound to be significant costs in implementing these attempts to tackle the democratic deficit, including dealing with redundancies, retraining and some further recruitment. However, will my noble friend enable Parliament to have rather more detailed scrutiny of these matters and in particular arrange for pre-legislative scrutiny of the public bodies Bill?

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

I thank my noble friend for that question because it enables me to say that the public bodies Bill is essentially an enabling Bill to provide a legislative framework to back up the decisions taken by the Government. I can assure noble Lords that it is likely to be introduced fairly soon. Meanwhile, as I have said, all decisions made by departments regarding their spending will be the subject of announcements which will be laid before the House.