Lord Markham (Con)

My Lords, I rise to speak to my noble friend Lord Parkinson’s Amendment 10 and to support the other amendments in this group. Our amendment is quite modest and uncontroversial, in that we seek to limit the number of individuals appointed to the expert panel to 20. I think we would all agree that 20 is actually quite a large number. It is the figure that was in the Conservative version of the Bill, which for some reason the Government removed. I must be honest, 20 sounds like a lot to me, so to enable that figure to be higher probably leaves us open to jokes such as, “How many regulators does it take to change a light bulb?” Twenty will definitely do it, and I hope the Government will be happy to bear that in mind. There is a serious point here. We talk about wanting a light touch and to remove red tape, but a body of more than 20 would definitely be unwieldy. I support the amendments tabled by the Minister and others. I welcome transparency being at the heart of the regulator’s work, and it is entirely correct that any potential conflicts should be openly declared. Finally, there is a consensus that Amendment 8 from my noble friend Lord Maude is a sensible move. As my noble friend said, we are perfectly happy to accept the assurances the Minister gave about subsequent chairs. She is happy for this to happen for the first chair, so the precedent has been set. I therefore hope that it is not a big ask that some assurances are made for future ones, and that there is flexibility in respect of the format. I will also take the opportunity, given that there has been quite a bit of press speculation, to ask whether there is any update on the timing for announcing the potential candidates and when we might see them in place. I hope the Minister will either accept this amendment or give an undertaking for Third Reading. If not, my noble friend will have our full support if he wishes to test the opinion of the House.