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Public Bodies Bill [HL]

I declare an interest as the chair of Consumer Focus for a few more days. Does the noble Lord not realise that some bodies on the list were established in order to give their opinion to government and more widely, and that their future, or the future of the role that they currently undertake, is therefore of vital importance to government? What the Minister seems to be saying is pretty appalling stuff: that the injunction on public bodies not to commentate extends not just to them talking to newspapers or lobbying Members of Parliament but even to talking to Ministers and responding to public consultation about their own future. That seems to me to be pretty draconian. If that is the Government’s position, frankly, it is shocking.