Public Bodies (Abolition of Courts Boards) Order 2012

My Lords, I shall resume my suspended sentence—which is not an inappropriate term in the circumstances. I invite the Minister to explore a couple of aspects, in particular in relation to the role of local government. First, it would be interesting to know whether the experiment that the noble Lord has referred to includes the relevant local authority, or authorities, in that area; and secondly, whether he would encourage the system to co-operate with any local authority scrutiny committee, because it would of course be open to a local authority to scrutinise what is happening in this area. Also, in relation to monitoring and reporting on what is happening—which can be done locally, and the local authority scrutiny committee may be a suitable vehicle for that—there is the question about whether the department itself would collate information, so that what is happening and what improvements might be made to the system can be seen nationally, rather than simply leaving it at the local level. That was the thrust of the implicit suggestion of the Merits Committee when it inquired as to that. Finally, I note that some £450,000 will be saved by this process. It is not an inconsiderable amount of money but has to be seen in the light of the £1 billion shortfall in the anticipated savings from the abolition of public bodies of one kind or another. It will be interesting to see how much more is to come in various other regulations or orders that we will no doubt be considering. Not just in the context of this department, but generally, there seems to be a long way to go to meet the Government’s target of £2 billion of savings. However, as I said at the outset, we will not oppose the order and trust that, in the developing system, there will be an adequate exchange of information. There might for example be peer review and, in particular, there should be an annual report by the department or the agency on the progress that is being made.