I wholly support everything that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, just said, and what the noble Baroness, Lady Cumberlege said in introducing this debate. The matter that concerns the Delegated and Regulatory Reform Committee is on page 9 of its report, at paragraph 54. Not only is the power “very wide” in scope, but it,
“is to make whatever provisions—including ones amending and repealing Acts of Parliament … We note that it has become standard practice for provisions of this type to be included near the end of a Bill”.
This is appearing all the time. It is really an insurance policy: “We might make a mistake, and if we make a mistake we do not want to have the trouble of admitting it; we will just get some secondary instrument through Parliament, and that will be all that we have to do”. That is not a sufficient justification for such a wide power.
The committee suggested that at the very least, the power could be restricted by some type of objective test of necessity: to where it is necessary—to “where we have made a mistake” if you like—or to where something important has been omitted. We need something that gives substantive limitation to such a widely expressed power.