My Lords, I begin by expressing the warmest welcome to my noble friend Lord Wallace of Tankerness and congratulating him on a distinguished beginning in this House. He and I were colleagues and friends in another place and neighbours in next-door constituencies. I wryly observe that there has already been a somewhat northerly slant on Scottish affairs in this House, but I shall welcome his championing of such issues in the future.

The noble Lord, Lord Forsyth of Drumlean, is to be congratulated on raising the issue and beginning a debate that has ranged very widely indeed. It would be appropriate to express some understanding if the Minister found it impossible to deal fully in his remarks with the topics raised in the debate. I welcome the question asked by the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, which was core to his message about the multiplication of quangos and the questions he asked about the diminution in the availability of information about those that exist. There is a need for a central point where information can be drawn down by those seeking to oversee their activities; the department-by-department quest is not always as fruitful as it might be.

That gives rise to the question of the suitability of our parliamentary oversight arrangements for these non-governmental organisations. The Public Administration Select Committee is doing a remarkable job in another place in bringing together the great issues, some of which have been touched on in this debate. I am not certain that we need another agency or oversight body for that purpose. Most of the departmental Select Committees look very closely at the activities of non-governmental organisations and it would be wrong to leave the impression that parliamentary oversight is not continuous and deeply probing.

The inquiry that the Public Administration Select Committee is conducting into the buying or commissioning of services from charitable and voluntary organisations for the public service is profoundly important. As the noble Lord, Lord Low of Dalston, said, its report is awaited with eager anticipation. It is fair to say, as the noble Baroness, Lady Pitkeathley, said, that no Government have given as much attention to the third sector as the present one, and the existence of a unit within the Cabinet Office devoted to this subject and a Cabinet Minister regularly speaking out about it is very much to be welcomed.

I take the point made earlier that the importance of the third sector in the delivery of public services is not to be exaggerated and is not to be seen as a substitution for the obligation of government and the public sector to provide those services. The statistic was revealed in a recent speech by the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster in another place that only 2 per cent of National Health Service public expenditure is spent on such bodies. That could, if left alone, give a misleading impression of its importance. As my noble friend Lady Walmsley pointed out, palliative care in this country is largely provided by that sector.

I have two concluding points. One is that if we are going to have proper scrutiny and oversight of third-sector providers of services, it is important to have better standardisation of the contracts that they operate. Our noble friend Lord Adebowale made that point in evidence to the Public Administration Select Committee and we should take it seriously.

My second point is about complaints. Nearly all third sector organisations ought to provide proper complaints procedures and mechanisms to deal with user complaints. It is surprising that the Charity Commission survey conducted last year found that 69 per cent of charities did not have complaints procedures at all, with 40 per cent of them providing public services. The independent complaints reviewer for the Charity Commission gave that evidence to the Public Administration Select Committee. He said that in this growing sector of public service provision the citizen remains unprotected by redress mechanisms other than the court. That is a matter to be addressed.

In conclusion, I am grateful that Ed Miliband, the Minister responsible, has strongly recognised the importance of the independence of these organisations not being put at risk by being contracted to deliver services. More important than the services that those bodies provide is influencing public opinion about the quality of service that could be provided and their immediate understanding of issues that are not often understood by some of the public sector, or even private sector providers, but which greatly enhance the scope and effectiveness of public service provision.