Public Bodies Bill [HL]

My Lords, I am taking the highly unusual step of intervening briefly at this stage as chair of the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee. Our latest report on the government amendments, because of the lateness of their tabling, was placed in the Printed Paper Office only this morning. I am grateful to the staff for preparing the document so quickly after our second meeting on the Bill yesterday. If ever the committee was set up for a Bill, this was the Bill because of its skeletal nature. In our report, our view—as has been stated many times today—was unequivocal: the powers contained in Clauses 1 to 5 and 11 are not appropriate delegations of legislative power, as they would give Ministers of this and future Governments unacceptable discretion to rewrite the statute book, with inadequate parliamentary scrutiny of, and control over, the process. The committee's original report was careful not to recommend any particular course of action for the Government to take to amend the Bill to strengthen parliamentary control—contrary to what the Minister said in his letter to us. However, we set out a range of options, which were to be seen not necessarily as alternatives, as we believed that one or more might prove necessary. One option was for a form of the super-affirmative procedure that has already been enshrined—as we have also heard many times today—in the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Act 2006. The Government have now tabled a form of this procedure. My purpose in speaking now is to address their amendments. In our report published this morning, we welcomed the government amendments as a step in the right direction, because they enhance parliamentary scrutiny. However, they do not address the fundamental problem that, in the committee's view, the delegated powers in the Bill—the purposes of which are not specified or limited—are not appropriate delegations of legislative power. In other words, although Ministers of this or any future Government must ““have regard”” to certain matters, they are not constrained by any legislative provisions. This makes the super-affirmative procedure in these amendments very different from the procedure in the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Act 2006—as other noble Lords pointed out in the earlier debate. In that Act, parliamentary scrutiny is much more effective. For example, if a committee of either House recommends that no further proceedings should be taken on a draft order, any such proceedings are automatically stopped—as the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, said—until and unless the recommendations are rejected by the House itself in a procedure commonly called the veto. In the super-affirmative procedure of Amendment 118, which the Government are proposing, the Minister need only have regard to any resolution of either House—a very different matter. I will not list all the differences between the procedures in the 2006 Act and those in the Bill, as they are set out in our sixth report. Of course, there are differences in the two procedures for orders in the Bill, in Clauses 1 to 6 and in Clause 11. I will give one example to illustrate why there could be a problem with the second lot of procedures. Under Clause 11, the Minister may wish to make an order containing proposals for several bodies to be transferred from Schedule 7 to Schedule 1. During consultation, many representations may be made about one body. The Minister may be urged to amend the draft order, but to do so he must go through the whole 30, 40 or 60-day procedure again. This is unlike the procedure for earlier clauses. Rather than holding up the fate of the other bodies in the order for another two or three months, he may decide that, although he has had regard to all the contributions that he has heard, considerations of time override all representations and so he may decide to make the original order after all. It is clear from the Minister's letter to the committee that time is the crucial factor in the way that the Bill has been drafted. I understand that, having announced that there is to be a bonfire of the quangos, the Government want to light the bonfire as soon as possible. However, it is the duty of the committee of which I am chair to make sure that the match is not lit before Parliament has more effective control over the whole process.