Public Bodies Bill [HL]

Lord Liddle Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd November 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

Heavens above, my Lords, I do not think that I can really be such a door-opener. What might we find? I say to all noble Lords that we have access to public bodies. Whether we are on the Front or the Back Benches in this House, we are capable of tabling Questions and we can find out facts. It is quite proper to do so if things are in the public domain. The Library is there to help us and, if we seek opinions, no doubt we all have contacts that we are able to use. I do not want this debate on the Bill to be stifled by ignorance but here we are talking about the consultation process that we are seeking to bring in through the Bill, once enacted.

[Lord Liddle]

One welcomes the steps that the Government are taking in the Bill to ensure that there is wider consultation, and the noble Lord’s Amendment 114 refers to the consultation that is necessary for the bodies listed in Schedules 1 to 6. Of course one welcomes this consultation, but with regard to the area with which I am particularly concerned—that of economic development—what sort of consultation will now occur on the Government’s policy of abolishing the regional development agencies, which are referred to in Schedule 1 to the Bill? To my knowledge, there was no consultation of any kind on that policy—indeed, rather the reverse.

Soon after the general election, we were told that the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills thought that the regional development agencies should be saved, and there was a tremendous sense of relief about that in the regions, particularly in the north. Indeed, I am told that the Secretary of State said that to the chairman and chief executive of one of the leading regional development agencies in the north. Then, a few weeks later, it was suddenly announced in the Budget that these bodies were to be abolished. A few days later, a joint paper appeared in the names of the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills and the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government saying that the Government had decided to abolish them altogether and were now going to set up local economic partnerships. However, what consultation has occurred, and how is consultation now to take place in the light of the proposed new clause in Amendment 114 that the Minister intends to introduce? I should be very interested to hear his reply.

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

We are in effect debating all these bodies, as the noble Lord knows, and when we come to Schedule 1 there are amendments tabled—indeed, there is one in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Liddle—relating to the north-west, if I remember rightly. I notice that the Opposition have populated these amendments with suitable spokesmen for the regions. We will be debating that. Indeed, noble Lords should not forget that we will be debating it in the course of a piece of primary legislation. The political decision has in fact been made on the RDAs. Parliament has to agree to it but the political decision has been made. We are now talking about the process that will apply to future decisions.

[Lord Liddle]

I am sorry but that is not what the noble Lord’s Amendment 114 says. He is talking about a consultation process that applies to all the bodies listed in Schedules 1 to 6. Of course, I hope that during the course of our debates the regional development agencies—particularly those in the north of England—will be removed from Schedule 1, but there will still be no process of wider consultation, and we are going to be taking this decision with none of the normal consultation processes that one would expect when such a matter is before us. Therefore, I am still a bit mystified.

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

I have been passed a very helpful brief by my noble friend the Minister with responsibility for these matters, who happens, by chance, to be here at my side. She reminds me that the decision to close RDAs was in the coalition agreement; proposals for local enterprise partnerships to replace the RDAs were invited in June 2010 and a White Paper on sub-national growth—in other words, growth at a regional or local level—was published in October this year. Therefore, so far as concerns White Paper consultations, we are indeed in a period of consultation at this moment, and I suggest that the noble Lord gets about consulting it. Perhaps I can return to my comments on—