My Lords, the amendment of the noble Lords, Lord McKenzie and Lord Beecham, says that an individual will be ineligible if that individual has a disqualifying interest. Yet it seems, by all the purposes of any law there is, that if you have a disqualifying interest you are by nature ineligible. I listened to the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, and I still struggle to see why one needs to clarify and why one needs the amendment, because if one has a disqualifying interest one would be ineligible. I raised this matter at early stages of the Bill. As for who should sit on these panels, yes, the members of the local authority who are qualified may sit on the panel, and there then seems to be a great emphasis on independent members.
At this stage I declare an interest, and I probably should have done so earlier in the course of this debate. I am currently a chairman of a local authority audit committee. I do not think that this disqualifies me, and perhaps it qualifies me particularly to comment on this. One of the interesting things which I hope the Minister will address in her answer is that it is currently quite the custom in many local authorities, including my own, for a member of that local authority who is of a different political party from the ruling party to be the chair of the audit committee. That very often provides a very independent chairman or chairwoman of that committee.
I am worried that if we change that and require an independent committee chair, will that chair be as independent as an opposition chair? By the nature and appointment of audit committees, when looking for people who will be independent, particularly in the case of chairs, there is in some cases a possibility that those appointing will look among people they know who may have political sympathy with the ruling administration. The current arrangements seem to give chairs greater independence. This is probably wider than the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, but it seems to me to follow on from what is a disqualifying interest. I think we are giving that too much concentration, rather than the actual and real independence of the person who chairs that committee.