Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill

I rise to speak about Government amendment No. 46 and amendment (a) to it, which is in my name and the names of other members of the Procedure Committee. Amendment (a) is a cross-party amendment, although I am aware that some members of the Committee see it as a probing amendment, while others feel very strongly about it. Government amendments Nos. 46, 50, 54 and 55 introduce the Committee veto that we have been discussing in respect of the orders under the Bill. The Procedure Committee recommended that a veto should be added to the Bill, so I give the Government one cheer for delivering the veto. However, in introducing that veto they have only partly met their commitment to the Committee, because they have sought to define the grounds on which the veto can be exercised. I have serious concerns about that on two grounds. First, as has been said by the hon. Members for Somerton and Frome (Mr. Heath) and for Cannock Chase (Dr. Wright), it raises the possibility that the courts might be encouraged to examine how a Committee reached a decision, and whether it did so properly. That would be clearly contrary to the accepted understanding of article 9 of the Bill of Rights, as the hon. Member for Cannock Chase said. It could draw the courts into areas that they have hitherto been at pains to avoid. Secondly, and most importantly, the grounds themselves are narrowly defined and certainly do not live up to the Government’s previous undertaking that no order would be proceeded with if the relevant Committee judged that it was an inappropriate use of the powers under the Bill—for example, because the matter was controversial. I refer Members to my Committee’s first report of this Session—HC 894—and evidence pages 17 and 18. We received evidence from the Minister who was then at the Cabinet Office, the hon. Member for East Renfrewshire (Mr. Murphy), who gave at least three ministerial assurances on this matter—or perhaps I should say one ministerial assurance that was repeated three times. The hon. Gentleman was unequivocal about the veto. In answer to questioning, he said:"““so our commitment is very clear, that we will not seek to do anything which is highly controversial. The Select Committee will make a judgment on that and the Select Committee can veto any recommendation from a minister.””" During the same evidence session, he went on to say:"““Ultimately, the sanction that select committees have is, ‘It doesn’t feel right. You have overstepped what we anticipated and we are not willing to give our consent to this going forward either in the way you propose’, so it should not be a negative, it should be an affirmative order or it should be super-affirmative, ‘or it should not go ahead at all’.””" Later, he returned to the scope of the veto and, referring to what the Committee could do, he said:"““so they can either move it up one, or move it up two in fact, so they can move it from negative to super-affirmative, or indeed they could just say, ‘We don’t think this is suitable at all for this committee’, and we are back to the drawing board to seek an alternative way of implementing the order.””" There was no mention of restrictions on the use of the veto, which are now before us. My Committee’s amendment, and others, would remove the definition of the grounds for the use of the veto, thus leaving open the possibility that an additional veto, which could be exercised outside a Committee, could be introduced by Standing Orders.