Lord Moylan (Con)

My Lords, I note and am grateful for the assurance from the Minister that he will return on Report with an amendment—or amendments—that will address the points raised by the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee. I am sure that the noble Baroness, Lady Grender, and I will study that carefully, to see whether it will allow us not to press our own amendments. Beyond that, I am afraid to say that the Minister has, I think, disappointed the Committee with his response. I will briefly comment on the relationship between the Secretary of State and the CAA. In normal circumstances—we might take Great British Railways as an example, as it is being created at the moment—we expect the Secretary of State to issue a document setting out the Government’s priorities and to impose them on the body being regulated. However, in this case, the Minister seems to envisage a partnership arrangement—a contract of some sort—between the Department for Transport and the Civil Aviation Authority, in which the CAA can say, “No, we don’t accept that part of the contract. We want something else”. That seems to be unprecedented, although it is possible that the Minister can find precedence for it elsewhere in the regulatory environment in which we exist. It seems unprecedented, but it also seems to requires its own supervisory structure. In the end, if the Civil Aviation Authority can decide what it is willing to do, and the Secretary of State does not have the power to issue guidance requiring it to do those things, then we have created a monster that is totally outside of our control. I hear the Minister’s justification, but, as far as I understand it, it seems to raise more questions than it answers. I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.