Public Bodies Bill [HL]

My Lords, I support my noble friend. I spent part of my previous career sitting on various quangos, some of which are included in the Bill. I must say that I thought that the quango-sitting that I did was very useful, that our contribution was a good one and so on. I would like to think that they would not simply be closed down and consigned to what the noble Lord, Lord Elton, described as the ““bonfire of the quangos”” without adequate examination by Parliament. That is exactly what my noble friend is suggesting: before the quangos are dispensed with, there should be a thorough examination, Parliament should determine whether or not they were valuable or useful and should continue to operate and, unless that happened, the quangos should continue to operate. Perhaps they would do so in a different form but the functions would not be dropped; there would be some provision for the functions that they had carried out to be performed in future. I hope that my noble friend’s arguments will attract support from the Government. The amendment seems to be very reasonable, proposing that Parliament must have the final say. That is very important, and I hope that the Government will be prepared to accept it.