My sympathies are entirely with the Minister in having to read out some of that stuff. It was almost a revelation and confirmed me in my view that Home Office speechwriters are not blessed with a natural perception of the perception of their words. At the end of the day, the real issue is whether the Home Secretary and the Government are willing to live up to the word that they have put in the title of the anti-slavery commissioner, that word being “independent”. Frankly, first, the Minister was erroneous in some of what he said, and I would just like to correct that. Secondly, he really has not dealt with all the remarks that have been made this afternoon. I will make those two points.
My amendment does not say that the commissioner will in any way fix his budget; it makes it absolutely clear that the Home Secretary fixes the budget. Therefore, there is no question of the commissioner running amok and incurring public expenditure willy-nilly because he or she wishes to do so.
On the recruitment system, I thought that we were almost going to get violins playing when the Minister talked about the qualities of the Home Office. I am sure that there are very talented people there, but that is not the point. The point is whether the independent commissioner can go out into the marketplace and recruit people from a wider circle than civil servants—which is where the pool seems to have been set—and bring into that office people, particularly from the NGOs, with real experience of the world that he will be operating in. The Minister did not give any assurances on that.