Public Bodies Bill [HL]

My Lords, a number of points have been made. If I attempted to answer them all, I would rerun both the speech I made a while back and the one I made four months ago. Perhaps I may emphasise three points. First, I am not arguing that we should go on with a body costing the sums that the Minister referred to and should instruct it exactly as we do at present. Secondly, if my remarks were taken as in any way being rude to civil servants, that was not my intention. I have a high regard for them and have worked with many of them. However, they do not want to touch some quite important tribunals in the local authority field with a barge pole—and nor do they know much about them. These are important parts of the system of administrative justice, as are the ombudsmen. Thirdly, I turn to the geographical points that were made. The AJTC covers not the whole of the United Kingdom but the whole of Great Britain. It has a separate Scottish committee. Since 2007, it has had a separate Welsh committee, voted for by the House. I cannot be certain what will emerge, but there is a strong possibility that Wales and Scotland will decide to maintain their committees while England gets rid of anything similar that it has. That would not make sense. I find myself in a position that I neither expected nor wanted. There has been a slight flavour in one or two conversations that I have had that those of us who are pushing these issues are simply trying to defend the work that we did over—in my case—10 years. Obviously, that is in my mind. However, if I test the opinion of the House, it will not be for reasons of amour propre but because it would be wrong to do what is proposed. We need to do more to protect the standards of administrative justice and, in particular, the interests of those relatively less well off and vulnerable people who are to a large extent the subjects and users of the system. I am a bit disappointed that nobody from the Cross-Benches joined in, but I am profoundly grateful to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Howe of Aberavon, for his consistent support; to the noble Lord, Lord Borrie, for his support once again; and ultimately to my noble and learned friend Lord Mackay, who at least made a friendly comment, although I am not sure where it will take him—I am a very friendly towards him too, I might say. My last comment is about the Minister’s suggestion that the noble Lord, Lord Borrie, gave the game away by referring to the process that will be required to pass an order under Schedule 1, or indeed any other schedule. Much of the first part of the debate on the Bill was taken up with my noble friend Lord Taylor of Holbeach introducing safeguard after safeguard on consultation, the parliamentary process and amendability in certain respects, to reassure people that this would not just be a stroke of the ministerial pen. If a game has been given away, frankly, it was by my noble friend Lord McNally who said, ““We don’t want to prolong all this uncertainty, do we? We can’t really have all this upset again by debating an order and possibly not passing it””. It does not stand up with what the Government have said, and what is now enshrined in the clauses of the Bill—with all the consultation and the rest of it. I am not sure that my noble friends will thank me and I do not particularly want to do it, but I shall not feel happy with myself unless I test the opinion of the House. Division on Amendment 26 Contents 198; Not-Contents 191. Amendment 26 agreed. Amendment 27 had been retabled as Amendment 34A. Clause 3: Power to modify constitutional arrangements Amendment 28 Clause 3: Power to modify constitutional arrangements Amendment 28 Moved by