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Parliament (Joint Departments) Bill [HL]

moved Amendment No. 2: 2: After Clause 2 , insert the following new Clause— ““Annual report A joint department shall, by 30th September each year, lay before both Houses of Parliament a report of the department’s operations and financial affairs in the financial year ending on 31st March in the preceding year.”” The noble Lord said: The amendment provides for an annual report. It stems from the idea that these joint departments are to be, in effect, self-standing joint subsidiaries of the two Houses. I think it would be wise to ensure that the affairs of such departments are not solely to be judged by being disentangled from the consolidated reports and accounts of the two Houses, but seen first separately as individual departments. When I look at the consolidated accounts of a great company, I like to be able to unravel what has happened in the various subsidiaries of that company. That is all the more important in the case of a subsidiary jointly owned by two different companies. That is the analogy here. On reflection, the words ““the preceding year”” should be replaced by ““that””, but I am not proposing a manuscript amendment. The present drafting means that the report for the financial year ended 3l March 2007 need not be produced until 30 September 2008. I really intended that it should be produced by 30 September 2007, but I await the response in principle to the idea of an annual report before pursuing that particular detail. I beg to move.