Public Bodies: Reform

Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville Excerpts

Thursday 14th October 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Boateng]

My Lords, the Caribbean Board—

[Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville]

At a similar point in a prior Administration, I was ministerially responsible for a department with 43 non-departmental public bodies. I received a Cabinet Office instruction almost to double the proportion of women on those boards within a matter of months. That order could have been carried out to the letter either by greatly raising the number of women board members or by conducting a massacre of male innocents on their own quarter-decks. At some risk to my own quarter-deck, I minuted back about which course I was to follow. Can my noble friend give an assurance that a competent mathematician will proof-read any similar instructions before they are sent out this time?

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

I cannot guarantee the standards of proof-reading or mathematical skills, but I am sure that we have a highly skilled Civil Service and that no instruction will go out which is neither numerate nor literate.