Public Bodies Bill [HL]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 60A. I am a member of the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee, which has given considerable thought to this. However, I speak for myself and not the committee—as is always the case, of course. I remind the House that the committee’s 11th and 12th reports are in the Vote Office now. Paragraph 12 in the 11th report states: "““If these expansive powers are to be delegated by Parliament to Ministers, it is important that, as a minimum, the general purposes for which Parliament expects the powers to be used should be set out on the face of the Bill, and this is not currently the case. The Committee therefore concludes that, as they stand, clauses 1 to 5 remain inappropriate delegations of legislative power””." Quite rightly, the Minister has indicated that that is what Amendment 60A seeks to address. I am sure that he has put his usual effort into it, because I agree very much with my noble friend Lady Hayter that the Minister has gone a long way to improving this Bill—not least with the sunset clause, as the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee recommended, which is a very important move. Indeed, I suspect that if the Minister had control of this Bill from the beginning, it might not have been such a mess in the first place. He must take some credit for that. Whether that helps his career or not is another matter, but I am afraid I cannot handle everything from here. The amendment still deals with the issues under which the Minister may make an order. It refers to these fascinating words: "““efficiency … effectiveness … economy, and … securing appropriate accountability to Ministers””." I always wonder how courts cope with things like this. Presumably if a body, an organisation, or an individual for that matter, chose to challenge a decision, it would first have to show that it was focusing on one of these issues. Then, if the court were asked to adjudicate, it would have to adjudicate on that basis. This is where we come to the second issue. In its 12th report—the latest one that came out the other day—the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee says in paragraph 8: "““It is for the House to consider whether Amendment 60A provides an effective indication of the purposes for which Parliament will expect Ministers to use their very broad powers under clauses 1 to 5””." I would like a little more from the Minister on that. I am not sure how anyone is to interpret the phrase: "““improving the exercise of public functions””," and, "““efficiency … effectiveness … economy, and … securing appropriate accountability””," without either giving up in the face of a stronger government position or challenging it in court. I do not think that I am not alone in having concerns over many years, and over many Governments, about this increasingly blurred area between what Parliament says and means and the courts having to interpret it, which gets harder by the day. The phrase, "““improving the exercise of public functions””" could be used in almost any circumstance. You could put it into almost any Bill, stand by it and say, ““This is what the Government have decided and we will now have the powers delegated to us to carry it out in the way we think fit””. We should remember that when we delegate powers in this way, we are handing very broad powers to Ministers, which was the issue that concerned the committee. I would also argue that these powers are not clearly defined, so I would like a little more explanation from the Government. Indeed, I wonder where the words, "““improving the exercise of public functions””," came from. I have a sneaking suspicion that, having read the 11th report, the Minister or his staff decided that they had to come up with something better. Since there is nothing in the Bill, the best they could manage to come up with is this phrase. Again, it could appear in almost any Bill, but if we go down this road we will start producing Bills that will hand over even more power to the courts to interpret. It is a bit late in the day, but I wonder whether the House is really happy about Ministers having this much power delegated to them in increasingly difficult areas of definition.