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Legal Services Bill [HL]

My Lords, I am sorry, but I had sat down. I am not considering a form of words because the process, with the Office of the Commissioner for Public Appointments, works extremely well. It serves the Government and Parliament very well. It is enshrined in the code of practice; it is publicly available; it is open and based on merit. There is no need to say anything other in the legislation than that we will follow that process; it applies to all ministerial appointments and does not need to be in the Bill. That is why I am resisting the amendment; it is not because I do not accept that noble Lords want to see a positive process of merit and transparency. We already have one, and we do not put it in legislation. The Office of the Commissioner for Public Appointments says that putting anything different in the legislation would undermine its work completely because it could not operate in the way it would wish, as we are bound to have said something that would arguably go against what it was doing.