I speak as a member of the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee. This is precisely the sort of area which is inappropriate to be left to regulation, at least without clear guidance to your Lordships’ House at this stage.
Does the Minister appreciate that she is establishing a precedent here if she allows this sort of public authority creep to extend this far? The noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, mentioned transparency. I am particularly concerned at present at the way in which the Government are rowing back on freedom of information. If the
Government are not to be totally inconsistent in this area, they will have to extend freedom of information to these organisations.
You cannot treat an organisation that happens to be taking public money as automatically becoming a public authority in the terms of new subsection (9) without recognising the implications. If you are asking it in one respect to be treated as a public authority in terms of facility time, why not in terms of freedom of information? I beg the Minister to recognise the point that has just been made from behind her that this is a dangerous area to leave to secondary legislation. We are already in some difficulty with the relationship between primary and secondary legislation; this is precisely the sort of area which should not be left to secondary legislation. I hope very much that she will be able to give your Lordships a clear assurance that new subsection (9) is to be reviewed in toto, not just tweaked, otherwise it establishes a considerable new extension of the designation of public authority. If they are not prepared to do that, I warn the Government that, on many sides of this House, we will see this as an opportunity to extend the requirements of freedom of information legislation.
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