Natural Environment and Rural Communities Bill

I hate to interrupt the noble Baroness. In the corporate sector, Sir Derek Higgs brought in the code of corporate governance to make sure that appointed non-executive directors, chairmen and deputy chairmen of corporate companies were absolutely independent. She should check with the pensions industry, but I am sure that everybody—but everybody—would say that to have a pension for a part-time member of a board jeopardises their independence. These are not executive positions, as I understand it; we are talking about independent, non-executive people who are there to help the chairman, help to develop the staff, ask the difficult questions, support the whole company whenever it is under threat, and work jolly hard. If you give pensions to those people, they will say, ““Gosh, I’d better not ask that question. If I do, I might be slung out and there goes my £25,000-a-year pension””, or whatever it is.