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Public Bodies Bill [HL]

My Lords, this is an added difficulty. I think Citizens Advice was as surprised by the decision as we were, from the other end of the spectrum, as it were. It is possible that you could do this. I am not in principle opposed to the functions that Consumer Focus currently carries out being done in the third sector but I think it is difficult. We have very substantial powers, particularly powers to require information from commercial companies. There are questions as to whether it is appropriate to transfer those powers outside a government body. I have great respect for Citizens Advice and we may find a way of doing it, but we have not got there yet. There are other bits of the jigsaw we need to get in place before we do. This is, in effect, a Henry VIII Bill. However, when Henry VIII actually proposed the dissolution of the monasteries he asked his mate, Thomas Cromwell, to produce a report on each individual monastic house. He needed to do that in order to convince the barons and the powers that be that it was a sensible policy. Those reports were, on balance, pretty prejudicial and the level of debauchery that these people found certainly would not have been found in Consumer Focus. However, it is sensible for Parliament, before it takes a decision on this, to look at each individual body in detail and the context in which it works and the interrelations with the other bodies concerned in that sector and take a decision, sector by sector, type of body by type of body—not to have a whole list presented to us on which we can have only an incoherent debate using the normal procedures of this House. Even Henry VIII went further than this. We can at least do as well as Henry VIII did. I am not saying that a Select Committee or a super-affirmative resolution would necessarily have prevented the dissolution of the monasteries, but it would have been worth a try. I think it is incumbent on this House to try to find a way in which we can make sense of this procedure. At the moment we are not there and I plead with the noble Lord to accept the alternative procedure and take us down a more sensible road for dealing with this Bill.