Public Bodies Bill [HL]

My Lords, I support this amendment and I agree very much with the comments of the noble Lords, Lord Greaves and Lord Maclennan. Amendment 180 is much needed if we are to have a rational and sensible process for deciding how we deal with public bodies. I return to the example of economic development. This is a classic case of a decision to abolish a body being taken without anyone thinking about what to do with its functions, what the costs and economic disbenefits are likely to be, and what will happen to the liabilities and assets. The fact is that none of these questions was answered before the Government announced this decision. They are trying to make it up as they go along. That is not satisfactory. I know about this because of my interest as chair of Cumbria Vision. It is a very sad thing to see because the rhetoric is all about localism and setting up local economic partnerships that are supposed to be more local than the regional development agencies but the Government are devolving very few, if any, functions to the local economic partnerships. What is actually happening is that most of the things that were done in the regions are being centralised into government departments. Is that really sensible public policy-making? Should not the Government have been subject to the discipline embodied in this amendment in terms of explaining clearly what they were doing when they announced this decision? As regards expected costs and their impact, I put down a Written Question to the noble Baroness, Lady Wilcox, in which I asked for information on costs, how many people were likely to lose their job and what the impact on this, that and the other would be. I received the Answer that no such information was available or was being sought, or something like that. That is not a satisfactory due process. The Government must do better than that as regards other bodies. That is why these amendments being put forward from this side of the House are so important. I hope that they will draw support from all sides of the House.