My Lords, I am somewhat disappointed by the Minister’s reply, but I should first apologise to the Committee that I did not refer in my opening remarks to the last three amendments in this group, which deal with cross-appointments. They would not be compulsory, but the Secretary of State should have the option of appointing people from other bodies with a role within the nuclear industry. It would be helpful to have something like that in the Bill, as co-ordination between agencies is aided by having non-executive directors who cross-represent. We do too little of it and, as a result, we have turf wars and misunderstandings between agencies. I could bore the Committee with some of those from my experience as a non-executive director of two such agencies and as a Minister. I agree that the Secretary of State should not be bound to do this, but the Bill should at least point him in that direction and I am disappointed that the Minister does not accept that.
On the point about pensions, this was a probing amendment. Very few regulators pay pensions to their board members. It is all part of the market rate for nuclear-trained and qualified people. I will not say any more about that in that case, as it is fine, but it is slightly odd to have that in legislation.
On the central question about the make-up of the board, it seems to me that the board, including the non-executives, must represent the best traditions in health and safety governance. That means that they have to have a high level of expertise and knowledge of the law, and of the technical and scientific areas, in which they operate. I am therefore a bit surprised that the Minister is not prepared to accept something like the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin. It also means that the success of the Health and Safety
Executive over 40 years—it has been a great success, since it has brought down the level of injuries, deaths and dangerous practices across the board in industry—has in part depended on it being seen as a collaborative effort.
The symbolism, and usually the reality, of that was that at the top level there were people representing the unions as well as the Government. Clearly, the Government still accept that view of the make-up of the HSE board even though they do not want to consult the TUC about it. Their advertisement for the board of the HSE, which I briefly considered, makes that clear.
It seems wrong that we should depart from that culture for the creation of something which is taking on responsibilities such as those of the ONR in a sector where collaboration and understanding between management and unions—and their ability to have a coherent approach to the management of risk on a daily basis—is so important, because the results of not so doing could be utterly catastrophic. The Government will regret not putting that structure in. Depending on the judgment of future Secretaries of State, they may regret not explicitly saying that they want one of the non-executive members to,
“have experience of … nuclear safety”.
It is not sufficient to say that that will be provided by the executive directors. The whole point of non-executive directors is that they can, on equal terms, discuss these issues with the executive directors. In terms of representation, it may not have the structured or corporate state kind of formal representation that was there in the origins of the HSE, although I regret the passage of that. In reality, they ought to have been able to reproduce the culture of the Health and Safety Executive at top level, and they ought to have on the board people who have experience of the main areas which are the responsibility of the ONR.
I think that it is unfortunate that the Government do not reflect that in the legislation. It is one of the things we may return to. If the Bill goes through in this form, I hope that the judgments of future Secretaries of State, whichever department is responsible, will take these things into account anyway. It would be better, frankly, if it were in legislation. That would set the tone and nature of the organisation. In the mean time, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment at this stage.
5.15 pm