Strathclyde Review

My Lords, I join all noble Lords in congratulating the Government and the Leader of the House on reaching a much more mature position than was threatened by the previous Prime Minister. The whole House very much welcomes the recognition of the House’s role. However, I warmly endorse the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Lang, about the overreliance on secondary legislation as part of the legislative process. Along with others, I have spent many happy hours in the Moses Room tormenting Ministers, or endeavouring to, on the contents of secondary legislation. I am particularly conscious of how the system works in the light of the experience over the Housing and Planning Act, as it now is. It is now more than six months since the Act received Royal Assent; the Bill went through on the basis of consultation that had not taken place and leading to secondary legislation, none of which has yet emerged. We have not even seen the response to the consultation. This is a grave defect in the system, and the noble Lord was right to draw attention to it—and it is a matter that the House and the Government need to consider, because it makes a nonsense of the time devoted in this House to primary legislation if so much of what actually happens is determined by this somewhat difficult process, over which we have little control and which, on the basis of the experience of the Housing and Planning Act, seems never to emerge.