Regulatory Enforcement and Sanctions Bill [HL]

moved Amendment No. 3: 3: Schedule 1, page 35, line 6, leave out ““five”” and insert ““three”” The noble Lord said: Encouraged by my previous amendment, I am going on for a major prize. In paragraph 6(2) of Schedule 1, a person is appointed as an ordinary member of the LBRO for a term of less than five years and paragraph 6(5) states that the total term may not exceed 10 years—that is, two terms of office. I do not want the Minister to feel persecuted by me, but this is another place where his department must look outside at what is going on in the wider world. Almost everywhere there is now a maximum of three three-year terms—nine years. The purpose of that is quite simple. You have a year or 18 months to learn about the business, get involved in it and understand it, and a basic three-year term. If it has been a failure and you have not contributed, it can be brought to an end at three years. You then have another three-year term when you are contributing majorly to the discussions; if you are really contributing, you can be given a third three-year term, after which you should retire because you have probably become part of the furniture rather than part of the critique. Those three three-year terms are now enshrined in British corporate life. This point is not just about what is going on in the wider world. A bad chairman for five years can do an enormous amount of harm. I am not saying that we will have a bad chairman, but we could. He or she could make this organisation lose its reputation. Shorter periods of time are part of the modern practice, so people are being properly assessed on whether they are delivering on what is part of their basic role. We have been through this again and again. We went through it at some length in the Charities Bill. There we were getting two five-year terms, but the noble Lord, Lord Phillips of Sudbury—sadly, he has now taken leave of absence—persuaded the Government that three terms of three years was the right way to proceed. This is an easy win for the Minister. There is no need to redraft; even the parliamentary draftsmen could not find a reason why this had to be taken away to be redrafted. All the Minister has to say is, ““I understand that this is modern corporate governance practice and I am happy to accept it””. I encourage him so to do. It would set us off in the right form and with a spring in our step. I beg to move.