My Lords, I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, because his contribution means I do not really have to say much about Clause 26 stand part. The real effect of knocking out Clause 26 would be to knock out Schedule 8, so perhaps we can elide the two.
This is a very tricky area and I am sure that it should be thought about again. There is already a time-limit regime—lots of it from 1998 and 2002—and there is a clear general duty of expedition, which is referred to in Clause 26:
“duty of expedition in relation to references”.
It is clear in the current legislation that everyone is supposed to do things in as timely manner as possible. The question then arises of why the Secretary of State thinks that his or her intervention is helpful in this matter, which was very much the line along which the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, was going. I cannot see that it is helpful, nor that it is consistent with the coalition’s policy towards these matters. I thought that we believed in decentralisation, deregulation and trusting the professionals. It seems quite strange to introduce this regime, and of course it has to be hedged about with all sorts of escape clauses. If something gets as far as Brussels, all time limits are off the table; it says so in the schedule. The 40 days can be extended by 20 days, you can stop the clock in certain circumstances and—again I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Whitty—the lawyers will have great fun, as they always do, with this kind of
overcomplicated and apparently statutorily enforceable system because they find ways around it. I am very much in support of the noble Lord’s amendment—if it is not to be accepted as it is, I very much support the way in which he put it across.