"There are important questions to be answered about some of Sir Brian's recommendations that I criticised during debates in the House of Lords and to which he cannot respond, because he wishes to keep off the political grass," Lester wrote.
Under questioning from MPs, the transport secretary admitted that he was "concerned" the not enough progress had been made on implementing the Cullen recommendations, which severely criticised Railtrack for employing sub-contracting firms to carry out engineering works, who in turn used casual shift labour to carry those tasks out.
The cost basis of NICE's recommendations has also been criticised: the figure of £30 000 (€40 000, $60 000) per quality-adjusted life year appears not to have a scientific basis or to take account of the social costs of disease (Collier, 2008).
But the CFG criticised the recommendation that sanctions for late filing of accounts and annual returns should include the withdrawal of Gift Aid.
But it has been forced to defend the task group because it will only be able to make recommendations, and has previously been criticised by a government adviser for not taking a more active role.
In June 2002, an editorial in the British Journal of Cancer (Saunders and Valle, 2002) and a letter to the Daily Telegraph (Cunningham et al, 2002) criticised the NICE recommendations, on the grounds that there was already sufficient evidence to recommend first-line combination chemotherapy.
The German Banking Industry Committee, which represents German banks, also criticised Liikanen's recommendation to curb trading, which it said would hamper risk management.
The regulator has been criticised by MPs for dismissing recommendations from its own consultants to make the energy market work more transparently.
He has since criticised the Scottish executive for not implementing his recommendations fully but his report remains an embarrassing alternative for the Westminster government.
The decision to introduce legislation comes just weeks after Gordon Brown was criticised for leaving out legislation to implement the recommendations in full from the Queen's speech.
