The government has watered down controversial proposals to give ministers sweeping powers to abolish public bodies from a bill introduced in the House of Lords in 2010.

Prospect has welcomed the government’s concessions on some parts of the Public Bodies Bill but is reserving judgement until it sees the detail of the amendments.

The bill caused deep consternation among constitutional experts because of the wide-ranging powers it grants to ministers to abolish or reform public bodies with little or no parliamentary scrutiny.

The concessions, announced in the House of Lords on February 28, are:

• further discussion on safeguards that should apply to orders made under the Bill
• removal of Schedule 7 and Clause 11 from the Bill
• new amendments to move bodies currently listed in Schedule 7 to one or more of the remaining schedules
• removal of all the clauses and schedule entries which refer to the Forestry Commission.

Schedule 7 was heavily criticised by peers and other constitutional experts as being a form of ‘death row’ for public bodies. More than 150 organisations, which carry out a host of functions – judicial, regulatory, advisory, cultural and environmental – are listed in Schedule 7.

Ministers could bring these bodies within the scope of the bill at any time they wanted.

In the debate on February 28, Lord Goodhart said: “As it was drafted, the Bill gave power in Schedule 7 and Clause 11 for the Government to do all sorts of things whenever they decided to do so. It was entirely uncertain, and whenever I looked at it I saw in my mind the quotation from King Lear: 'I will do such things, what they are yet I know not, but they shall be the terrors of the earth'”.