Children Bill [HL]

Part of the debate – in the House of Lords at 6:30 pm on 4 May 2004.

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Photo of Lord Elton Lord Elton Conservative 6:30, 4 May 2004

I do not know that I am entirely reassured by what the noble Baroness said, for the reasons which have already been given—that the intentions of the present Government may not be the intentions of a successor government.

If the main or only purpose of these words is to see that the commissioner spends his money only on his functions, it would be perfectly possible to put that on the face of the Bill rather than giving an open-ended cheque—an open-ended power—to limit his expenditure to anything that the Secretary of State thinks his expenditure should be limited to. Equally there may be other formulae to deal with the other difficulties that the noble Baroness sees. I hope that this is not a point that we shall lose sight of at a later stage. Indeed, if noble Lords have been thinking about the ways in which that could be dealt with now, they might like to join in at this moment, because that is a matter of some importance.