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Public Bodies (Abolition of the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts) Order 2012

My Lords, I welcome the explanation given by the noble Baroness. Of course, I fully support this proposal, as does, it appears, virtually everybody who has been consulted. My one question relates to the retention of the endowment within the public sector. As I understand it, the Government do not want to transfer the endowment out of the public sector, as the endowment is held more in less in government securities and, if those were to be transferred out, that would lead to an increase in the public sector net debt. Could the noble Baroness assure me that the retention for national accounts purposes of the endowment in the public sector does not imply any form of control of those assets by the Treasury? Clearly, the whole purpose of doing this is to get this out of the public sector entirely. Will she assure me that this is purely a technicality and that there will be no attempt by the Treasury to control that flow of money?