Greater London Authority Bill

I will leave that point there, but the noble Baroness has talked about key appointments. That is the other area where I have a problem. I do not believe that only the Chair and the Deputy Chair are key. The bodies have enormous spending power—some of them have very big budgets—and power to affect the lives of Londoners. Although not all of them have conducted their affairs quite as openly as I might have liked, from time to time votes are taken on the boards at the moment. The Transport for London board had a vote—it might have been just the one—over the Thames Gateway Bridge, but it was a narrow decision; I think that there was only one vote in it. In that situation, surely every board member is important. The noble Baroness put into category 2, if I can put it that way, the skills board. The skills board really will have a lot of influence and, I hope, will be very important to London. Although I was with the noble Lord, Lord Hanningfield, until the last moment, the point about the civil servant seemed to be the only good argument that I have heard about the attempt to round out the process. The noble Baroness clearly wants to come back on that point. I hope that she is not feeling personally attacked.