Regulatory Reform (Collaboration etc. between Ombudsmen) Order 2007

My Lords, I very much agree with that last statement. I apologise for my earlier mistake, although it was not my arithmetic that was at fault. I was a historian and my history was at fault. I had forgotten the date, which is a different matter entirely. The noble Lord, Lord Maclennan, will recognise that in general terms there is a real problem about the explicitness with which one reflects on a mediator’s role, for obvious reasons. Parties may be requiredto shift their position for agreement to be reached. That is better done within a framework of some confidentiality, rather than in a situation in which all cases are open and all parties are likely to see the decisions, and how they are arrived at, quite explicitly. But I do not have a categorical answer to his question, so I will have to write to him. On Question, Motion agreed to.