Public Bodies Bill [HL]

Lord Bishop of Oxford Excerpts

Tuesday 9th November 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Harries of Pentregarth]

My Lords, I believe that there is widespread support in this House for the Government’s desire to cut public spending. There is also much support for a hard look at all public bodies, with a view to abolishing or merging them where justified. What worries many of us, and certainly concerns me, is the indiscriminate way in which all public bodies are being considered in the one long, fierce slash of this Bill. A list has been drawn up by the Government of what is to be done: this one to be abolished, that one to be merged and so on. All right—one has to start somewhere and that is a starting point, but it is only a starting point for the serious work that must surely then begin, which is the sober, rigorous examination of each proposal on its merits.

First, what is needed is, at some point, some careful costing. The aim of the Bill is to save money, but will it in fact do that? Reorganisations are notoriously expensive. To take the HFEA, the body that I have been most familiar with in recent years, under the proposals in the Bill there will not even begin to be any savings until the next Parliament, even if there are any then, which is highly doubtful. This highlights the need to examine alternative ways of saving money. The HFEA is in the process of moving to lighter-touch regulation. It has its own firm proposals to make savings in both running costs and staff. I believe that, if we are to do our job as a House, it is essential that there is serious examination of the cost implications of each proposal together, where applicable, with the alternative proposals for saving money, not just in the short term but for the long term. I do not see how we can be said to have done our job without such a financial cost-benefit analysis.

Secondly, we need someone other than the government officials who drew up the original proposals to test the criteria that have been used against every individual public body affected by the proposals. These proposals are, again, a good starting point, but someone wants to ask about each public body, “Does it perform a technical function? Do its activities require political impartiality? Does it need to act independently to establish facts?”. It is necessary to have a serious and impartial look at each public body in the light of those questions. The answer to them cannot simply be left to the people, however worthy, who put forth the original proposals for abolition and merger.

Again, I can speak only from first-hand experience of the HFEA, which came about, as most of your Lordships know, as a result of the report that the noble Baroness, Lady Warnock, published in 1984. After days of parliamentary debate, it was established as part of the legal framework of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990. Then, again, after days of debate its existence was reaffirmed as part of the legal framework for work in this area that was provided for by the 2002-03 legislation. That is without including the Select Committee, days of debate on embryo research and other aspects of the work. If Parliament has thought this area so critical that it was worth weeks of its time to set up a regulatory body with very tight regulation in place, it hardly seems responsible to dismember that body with one quick snip and without serious consideration of the implications of so doing. As the Select Committee on the Constitution put it in paragraph 14 of its report, many of the bodies are,

“the product of extensive parliamentary debate and deliberation. We fail to see why such parliamentary debate and deliberation should be denied to proposals now to abolish or to redesign such bodies”.

The HFEA is not alone in being concerned with ethical issues. In my view, every area of life has an ethical dimension. However, the ethical dimension of the work of the HFEA, concerned as it is to preserve the special moral status of the early embryo, is of particular sensitivity and of acute concern not just to Roman Catholics but to the wider public. As we know, the issues that it has had to consider in recent years have been highly controversial and there is every reason to think that there will be new issues in the future that are no less controversial. Almost every committee meeting of the HFEA has to have a lawyer permanently in attendance to ensure that the Act is being strictly adhered to, while a number of the decisions made in recent years have been challenged up to the highest court in the land.

It is the integrated work of the HFEA that enables it to do the work that has been entrusted to it by Parliament. The clinics, the researchers and the vast and complex database are held together under the law to ensure that the will of Parliament is carried out. If the HFEA is dismembered, regulation will become fragmented and much weakened and the likelihood of slip-ups and accidents is likely to increase. There is no reason why there should not be a closer alignment with the Care Quality Commission—the HFEA has in fact developed its own proposals for that—but the circumstances of infertility licensing are so specific and individual, and that work differs so fundamentally from the work undertaken by the CQC, that the two cannot simply be merged.

I apologise for speaking only about the HFEA in relation to a Bill that concerns so many other bodies with which your Lordships are concerned. However, the general principle that I have applied to the HFEA should be brought to them all, one by one, with careful and detailed consideration. That cannot be done simply by the House in Committee; it needs a Select Committee. As it stands, the Bill is so sweeping in its scope that it is difficult to see how it can have the confidence of the public. However, I believe that careful examination by a Select Committee would mean that people were confident about its final proposals. The Minister is concerned about undue delay, but the amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Maclennan of Rogart, to the amendment sets a clear limit on that delay and, in my opinion, should be supported.

A number of your Lordships have raised the question of how such a Select Committee should go about its task. It has been widely recognised that there is already an overlapping consensus about a good number, perhaps the majority, of public bodies. The Select Committee could quickly note these and then move on to give detailed consideration to those where there is real concern about the proposals in the Bill. While I know that the Committee stage in this House will be invaluable, that process would be greatly helped by work done first by a Select Committee meeting under a strict timetable.