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Public Bodies Bill [HL]

My noble friend Lord Faulkner of Worcester has raised a number of important points about the role and responsibilities of BRB (Residuary) Ltd and what the Government’s intentions are in relation to those activities, not least its operational and non-operational property—its estate of some 4,000 bridges, tunnels, viaducts and other structures—and the management of industrial injury claims. I, too, look forward to the Minister’s reply to the points raised by my noble friend. As he said, BRB (Residuary) Ltd is a residuary organisation staffed mainly by former employees of British Rail who have a detailed and specialist knowledge of the assets and liabilities now managed by the organisation. The company is committed, for so long as it exists, to ensuring that the knowledge held by the former BR staff is retained for use by those who might be responsible for the management of the long-term assets and liabilities in the future. In the light of that, can the Minister say what will happen to the staff of BRB (Residuary) Ltd if it is abolished? Can he give an assurance that any information currently accessible through a Freedom of Information Act request will still be accessible through such a request following any transfer of BRB (Residuary) Ltd’s duties and responsibilities elsewhere? The criteria against which the Government said their review of public bodies would be carried out were: does the public body have a precise technical operation; is it necessary for impartial decisions to be made about the distribution of taxpayers’ money; and does it fulfil a need for facts to be transparently determined independent of political interference? A public body would stay if it was deemed to have passed one of the three tests. In June this year, the Minister for the Cabinet Office said that the Government wanted to cut the number of public bodies to increase accountability and cut costs. Can the Minister explain why the Government have apparently decided that the BRB (Residuary) body does not carry out a technical operation, does not have to make impartial decisions and does not need to establish facts independent of political interference, when one of its roles is managing industrial injury claims supported by former BR employees and its staff have the detailed and specialist knowledge of the assets and liabilities that BRB (Residuary) Ltd manages? Finally, since the Cabinet Office Minister has said that one declared objective of this exercise is to cut costs, can the noble Lord tell us what the contribution will be to the reduction in costs made by abolishing BRB (Residuary) Ltd?