Lord Cromwell (CB)

My Lords, we spoke earlier about the issue of two regulators and I will not go back over that. However, I will talk a little more about the presence of people on boards. I think there is a middle ground here—obviously beautifully set out in my amendment. To extrapolate a little from that, I agree that directors in a company have specific responsibilities which would not sit comfortably with having a consumer representative as a member of the board. That is clear and right. These companies, however, are not just profit-making companies which represent shareholder interests; they are monopolies providing a service to the public for which they achieve a reward. That is an important distinction to make. For that reason, I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, that avoiding groupthink and having challenge on a board is a very useful thing. However, I would not go so far as to make them directors, for all sorts of legal reasons that others have already expounded. It pains me to disagree marginally with the noble Duke, the Duke of Wellington. I do not like panels, because they become ghettos that the unfortunate member of board who has to interact with them dreads going to—but they go anyway, they go through the motions and then they come back. I far prefer something more formal: a regular cycle of meetings with representatives of civil society, which are going to be challenging and sometimes uncomfortable but which end with recorded actions that are made public. Otherwise, it becomes just a token exercise and a ghettoisation into panels. I will not try to emulate the tone of the noble Lord, Lord Deben, but the representatives of consumers or environmentalists can be listened to but not heard.