I am grateful to all noble Lords. That was an excellent debate and a lot of ground was covered. My favourite line of the debate came from the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer. She put her finger on it when she said that the Crown Estate was not a “cuddly organisation”. It does not need to be—it does not report to anybody, apart from its commissioners, and that is at the heart of the issue that I think many noble Lords are grappling with. The noble Baroness, Lady Kramer, was pleased with my recent conversion to pre-appointment scrutiny. I cannot guarantee that that will continue. I understand a new leader is in the offing in my party, so who knows what will happen?

The amendment that I put down was a useful way of probing some thinking around why the number of commissioners had to go from eight to 12. The response from the Minister was the sort of management jargon I used to learn at business school about 25 years ago. I am not much the wiser, but I will go back to Hansard and study his words carefully. Pre-appointment scrutiny, for the chair in particular, would be a very small but important change, particularly as we are dealing not with a cuddly organisation but with one which happens to own and manage some very important and valuable national assets. Therein lies the tension, and that is my concern.

Turning to the points raised by my noble friend Lord Young, it was a forensic analysis. I am sure many noble Lords learned much from it, not least how to structure a really good argument, which has stumped the Minister. I am pleased that he is stumped because I am sure that he will go away and look at it—indeed, I implore him to do so, such that we do not have to return to this, at length, on Report.

I hope that my noble friend Lord Holmes feels satisfied by the Minister’s response to his amendments. On the point raised by the noble Earl, Lord Russell, I presume that both he and I are pleased that the Crown Estate can already do what he wants it to do. I agree with him that it sounds completely obvious.

I am afraid that I am not happy with the Minister’s response on the question of disposals; in fact, I am probably more concerned by his response than I was beforehand. I am not sure that the nation would expect the complexion of the assets held by the Crown Estate to significantly change, so we may well come back to that. In the meantime, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 12 withdrawn.

Clause 2 agreed.

Amendment 13 not moved.