Public Bodies Bill [HL]

My Lords, it is important that this is just a preliminary stage to enable this consultation to happen and, if the results of the consultation are sufficiently clear, to go forward with an order that is, as I understand it, amendable—my noble friend will correct me if I am wrong but I think I am right. If one had to do a lot of these exercises through full primary legislation, not only in competition but in all the other areas that this Bill covers, one would have no time in Parliament to do anything else. A review of this kind requires some mechanism of this sort, and we have endeavoured to make the mechanism as close and as secure as we can. It would be a pity to lose this opportunity to do what might be possible in this way, and, so far as I am concerned, putting this into the Bill at this stage is a step in the right direction.