Housing and Regeneration Bill

I thank the noble Baroness for that. The Minister said earlier that directions were a powerful sanction weapon because you must comply with them. Having listened to the description of the noble Baroness, Lady Ford, I would have thought that could have been reached by agreement. I bet it would have been reached by agreement in an ordinary exchange of views and would not have needed a direction to make it happen. I am on familiar ground of my own. I am bothered about the way in which directions are creeping into all kinds of Acts of Parliament when they are not necessary. They weaken the independence of the bodies concerned because if you know that there is a power in reserve to give you directions about how you should organise your own procedure, you cannot afford to ignore it and you have to take it into account. It is always possible to have a committee of the board and to have the people who know what you need to know in attendance, but you do not always have to form a committee. If in another life I was the chief executive of the HCA and not on the board, I would be very quick to give the chairman advice about how to organise his committee structure.