Quangos

Baroness Royall of Blaisdon Excerpts

Tuesday 29th June 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

The noble Lord expresses himself powerfully. As my noble friend mentioned in her supplementary question, the cost of maintaining quangos amounts to £38.4 billion per year, which contrasts with £15.4 billion in 2002. There is a considerable problem to tackle. By dealing with it rigorously, I hope that the Government will show that they are in earnest and have purpose.

[Baroness Royall of Blaisdon]

My Lords, I welcome the noble Lord to his new role. I am sure he will agree that new Governments always talk about getting rid of quangos and not creating them. Much has been made of the importance of the Office for Budget Responsibility, which I believe is a quango. Therefore, how many quangos have the coalition Government announced or set up since they took office?

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

The Government are determined to ensure that any new bodies set up will satisfy the new tests. I remind the House that those tests are: is the function technical; does it need to be politically impartial; and do the facts need to be analysed transparently?