My Lords, I begin by declaring my interest, having very recently stepped down as the chair of NHS Improvement, which included both the NHS Trust Development Authority and Monitor. I am very supportive of the spirit of these amendments, and I could not agree more with the way in which the noble Baroness, Lady Merron, set out the importance of propriety in the appointment process and the skills, attitude and culture that the directors on the board of the new NHS England need to have. It is essential, as she said, to have a spirit of collaboration, integration and patient focus.
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While I am very supportive of their spirit, I fear that these amendments fly in the face of best practice for the leadership of the boards of large complex organisations, whether they are public sector, private sector or third sector boards. I have chaired and sat on all three types, and there are two important ingredients in those boards. The first is diversity of experience, which is the spirit of this amendment. It is essential that there is real diversity of experience, including cognitive diversity, experience of diverse backgrounds and diversity of style, otherwise different positions and viewpoints will not be heard and debated properly. That spirit is really important, but it is also important that boards are unitary—that they are an inclusive team. It is the job of the chair, predominantly, to create that inclusive team. The best practice in both the public and private sector is not one of representatives but of tremendous, diverse experience being brought to create a single, inclusive unitary board, which this amendment sadly does not do.
The other reason I cannot support the amendment is that the skills that this enormous, essential and hugely important body needs will change. I think this is an example of legislative overreach. We should not legislate on the face of the Bill for the skills that you need—for a really quite long period of time, one would hope—for such an important organisation.
As I have said, that diversity is not just people’s professional background. I could not agree more with the noble Lords who have just spoken that that diversity is important, but other elements of diversity are also important. We should rely on the chair, on parliamentary scrutiny for the appointment of the chair, and on stakeholder scrutiny through the department and the Secretary of State to ensure that the appointments are run properly. I think we should look to put on the face of the Bill the duties that the organisation needs to have, rather than the specific caricatures of individuals who should sit on the board.