I thank the noble Baroness for that explanation. I also thank my noble friend Lord Stansgate and the noble Lord, Lord Deben, for their comments. We of course support the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Wallace—I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, for her comments in support.
This is not a satisfactory situation. I suppose we should be quite pleased that the accusation of pre-emption that I made at Second Reading is not happening. I suspect that this is not through design—through deciding to wait until the legislation is on the statute book before making the appointment—but rather through not having got round to doing it yet, which is par for the course in government at the moment. I hope that will change over time, particularly if we have a change of Government.
In a way, this is the most partisan amendment that we on these Benches have put down. It is based partly on the appointment of the chair of the OfS, which was
not uncontroversial, because it was a donor to the Conservative Party and someone who made a speech in a gathering of very right-wing European politicians in Hungary, as mentioned in the discussions on the Bill in the Commons and at Second Reading. So, pardon me, but we are a bit suspicious about this appointment.
My point is that made by the noble Lord, Lord Deben: this is a particularly special appointment, and it needs to have the confidence of the whole higher education sector. The Government’s job is to ensure that that happens, and I am afraid that it is not the case at the moment. However, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.