Member

Even with Amendment 52 or Amendment 54, we still need a time limit; it cannot go on for ever. There is another way to achieve this, which the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, has proposed in her Amendment 119, and others have proposed in other ways in a later group: to delay the commencement of the Bill until the statement has been laid before, and preferably approved by, Parliament. That might be a preferable way to achieve this. However we do it, it cannot be acceptable for GBE to be able to spend substantial amounts of taxpayers’ money for an unlimited time without at the very least the statement of strategic priorities having been laid before Parliament and preferably scrutinised by it.