UK Parliament / Open data

Digital Switchover (Disclosure of Information) Bill

My Lords, we had a certain amount of debate on this in Committee. When the Bill was being debated in another place, we produced a draft order setting out how we plan touse the powers in an order that we intend to make immediately after Royal Assent. The amendment would effectively remove this power and introduce the new schedule. The Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee agrees that the power that we are seeking is a legitimate use of delegated power. If it were not so, I have not the slightest doubt that the noble Lord, Lord Howard of Rising, several supporters from the Back Benches and the redoubtable noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, would be on their feet, seriatim or even together, to attack the Government for having fallen foul of the views of the Delegated Powersand Regulatory Reform Committee and its critical position and asking what the Government were going to do about it. They cannot voice that criticism on this occasion because, in its sixth report of Session 2006-07, the committee said: "““This bill is to give legal authority for the disclosure of social security and war pensions information, with a view to maximising take-up under the proposed Digital Switchover Help Scheme. The Department for Culture, Media and Sport have provided a delegated powers memorandum … to explain the delegations in clause 2. The delegations are not inappropriate and there is nothing in the bill which we wish to draw to the attention of the House””." That was mentioned in Grand Committee, and the House will forgive me for mentioning it again. If we have a clear position from the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee that we are operating well within our powers, the criticism must be greatly reduced. We do not expect the information needed to be different from that set out in the draft order and the Explanatory Notes. It would be foolish for us to lose the flexibility that the use of delegated legislation would confer and which, as I have just indicated,we are fully entitled to utilise. We do not agree thatthe use of secondary legislation amounts to a blank cheque. We would have had criticism from that committee if that were the case. In our view, including the detail in the Bill would not confer any additional protection. All it would mean, in the absence of an order-making power to extend categories, is that we would have to introduce further legislation if the list of items was not absolutely correct. Nothing would be gained, but we would lose essential flexibility. I understand the concerns of the noble Lord, but he will recognise that we are acting in full compliance with the appropriate powers. We have an obvious resistance to detail being included in the Bill, because everyone will recognise the rigidity that that imposes in circumstances where change may need to be effected. I hope that the noble Lord, on reflection, will think that the Government have got the position about right.
Type
Proceeding contribution
Reference
692 c176-7 
Session
2006-07
Chamber / Committee
House of Lords chamber
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