My Lords, I am grateful to all noble Lords who have spoken in this debate. I am replying to a debate in which, fairly typically, the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, produced a magnificent firework display in his opening contribution. The problem with fireworks is that they can be experienced in two ways. The first is the enormous explosion—that was discussed by all those who followed the noble Lord—but there second is through their glittering stars; that approach appears in all the contributions that examined the role of the third sector and NGOs in advancing welfare in our society and improving the delivery of government services.

I will addresses myself to the bang in a moment—and will not sell the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, short—but will deal with the stars first. The first star was the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, who hoped that this debate would be largely about the third sector and charities. She wanted to clearly identify where we could improve the Government's relationship with charities and the success of the service they provide, while not compromising their many essential functions which are well beyond any concern of government. She was followed by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Carlisle who emphasised that, as far as the church was concerned, this different and independent role must be preserved. It is bound to be preserved and appreciated. At the same time, the church has a role to play within the delivery framework of some services.

I emphasise that we take the criticisms voiced in the debate seriously. The noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, identified them first. There is a problem with contracting. The noble Baroness is right: short-term contracting puts any organisation under pressure, and charities often do not have the resources to cope with some of these challenges as easily as other bodies. Of course, charities are entitled to include the full costs in bidding for services, and we are concerned to train and develop those involved in the third sector so that the kind of issues that she—and the right reverend Prelate, in terms of the church's role—identified should be addressed. In developing an intensely fruitful new government approach, we should make sure of that.

The noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, did not comment on charities, but he will have recognised that other Lords have taken the opportunity of his debate to emphasise that how certain services are delivered is changing because of the nature of our society: the move from the welfare state to the welfare society. That is an extremely graphic illustration of the fact that people relate to the necessary support they receive, underpinned by the state, in rather different ways if it can be provided by organisations in which they have trust and with which they relate closely. Charities fulfil this role in extensive ways. I was grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Low, for identifying the crucial role of the charities in which he is involved.

The noble Lord, Lord Best, identified some of the most crucial aspects of the third sector: the housing associations. We know of his great expertise in the housing sector. I fear that what I received from him today was a trail of his contribution to the legislation when it appears in the House. He will forgive me if I duck the responsibility of replying to him in any detail on how the Bill will be handled and respond to the challenges he presents.

Of course, in circumstances identified by the noble Lord, the old mechanisms in which social housing had been provided—with resources for local authorities to provide local council housing—have been transformed in recent decades into a new form of delivery and service. That requires crucial issues of accountability to be taken into account. I recognise that the noble Lord, Lord Best, will have something to say about the potentially overweening power of those appointed to be accountable for public money in this area. Others will have the chance to respond to that in due course.

I was delighted that the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, chose this debate for his maiden speech. I am also delighted at his arrival here. The old canard for those of us who returned to the Pennines was that all the Scots got home a good deal faster because they got aircraft to Glasgow or Edinburgh, or fast trains to Aberdeen, while we struggled to get back to our areas.

I must say to the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, that I had enough trouble with the broad texture of this debate, and the rather specific questions he introduced are a real problem for me to respond to. I can say only that the Government are concerned about the judgment with regard to the Human Rights Act and private care, and we are examining the position. The Government are wrestling with the problem of the Freedom of Information Act as it stands. Those challenges are still to be responded to. I appreciate that he sees merit in extending the Act further. I cannot promise an early and immediate response to that, but he has registered the fact that he will be campaigning strongly on it. We are therefore duly warned of the contribution that he will make.

I was, of course, enormously grateful to my noble friend Lady Pitkeathley for her contribution. The House recognises her expertise in this area. She was able to demonstrate the extent to which the Government, in shifting ranges of services to be delivered through the sector, have set out to wrestle with the significant problems of dealing with charities differently from other agencies—a point that the noble Lord, Lord Maclennan, also emphasised. We have made substantial commitments. The Cabinet Office has a Minister for the third sector. That provides accountability but it also means that at ministerial level we have responsibility for effective liaison with the third sector and with charities, and that is a base on which we can work for the future.

The noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, introduced this debate in his usual challenging way. What about the issues that he raised and the problems of the quangos? He asked where the promised bonfire of the quangos is. He will have heard the noble Lord, Lord De Mauley, indicating that he thought that the Government are shifting their criteria somewhat—and he was not including devolved Assembly quangos in the criteria—but nevertheless, somewhat grudgingly, recognising that the Government are able to point to the fact that far from mushrooming, quangos are under control. Since 1997, they have fallen in numbers. The noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, said that people cannot find out about these bodies and that doing so defies the wit of man. If it defies his wit, it would certainly defy the wit of many other people. Let me assure him that the Cabinet Office will shortly publish figures for 2007 that will show a further reduction in numbers. The Cabinet Office will shortly publish a report that covers quangos and their role in government. It may not be as extensive as some reports in the past, but it will contain information on the size, spend and membership of the quango sector, so that will save the noble Lord some searching on the website for elements of his research.

I think that the noble Lord was perhaps stressing the point too strongly, but it is the case that we expect quangos to be responsible. It is necessary that they are subject to regular and rigorous review. The noble Lord touched a rich vein of support with the Government when he lamented the fact that almost every Bill that goes through the House has an amendment about the annual report. I hasten to add that it is generally tabled by the Official Opposition, and we all wonder what its value might be.

I chaired a government quango for a while. We were well aware, as the noble Lord rightly said, that our circulation list included a large number of people whose filing cabinet for our report was a proverbial wastepaper basket. It was quite difficult, however, to suggest to people that they were being careless about the hard work you had done. I can talk about it freely now because it was the Further Education Funding Council, one of the bodies the noble Baroness, Lady Sharples, referred to, which has disappeared and now comes within the framework of the Learning and Skills Council, but that body appreciated the fact that all real stakeholders who took an interest in its work read this report and responded to it in a fairly rigorous way. So the question of the publication of official reports is not all a bonfire of the vanities. I would not for one moment want to dissuade quangos from publishing reports which are necessary for their openness and accountability. If others do not read them as extensively as they might, it is a salutary exercise for those who are consuming public resources and responsible for public resources, as quangos are, to compile a report which is defensible in terms of public scrutiny.

The noble Baroness, Lady Sharples, asked about the pay for quangocrats, as she called them—people who serve on quangos. This is a matter for individual departments but she will know that a very large number of people who serve on quangos are unpaid. Many people serve quite unpaid on the boards of advisory bodies and across the United Kingdom thousands of men and women serve voluntarily on such bodies. I do not think all the issues which have arisen about excessive pay in the public sector are addressed specifically to quangos. There are one or two key government bodies which have had to adjust to the market rate. The Government have often pitched it at one level and not had enough takers. They have been obliged to increase the rate of pay in order to get somebody to fill the role.

This has been a fascinating debate and an extremely difficult one to respond to with any degree of coherence, but the themes that come through are clear. The noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, led the way by saying that it is enormously important that quangos and those who use public resources are accountable. He had a certain degree of reply to that. With a government department now concerned directly with these areas, certain aspects are becoming more explicit. I hope I take the House with me on this, but there is not doubt that Select Committees in the other place—I will say nothing about our own committees—have grown in competence over the years and exert a great deal more pressure on government and have heads of quangos before them on a regular basis. If you are heading up a significant quango in the United Kingdom, it is very likely that you will appear before a Select Committee.

I appreciate that my time is up. I want to apologise to the House for the rather split nature of my response. That is a reflection of the fact that there was a duality to this debate. But there is coherence in that answerability must occur right across the sector. As far as quangos are concerned, we must guarantee that that is so. We must also welcome the development of the welfare society in which many of the state services are delivered more effectively through third sector organisations and charities and the church, rather than through the old models of the delivery of services.