My Lords, Amendment 3 relates to the power in Clause 3 for the Secretary of State to make consequential, transitional, transitory or saving provisions in relation to the authorised staff provisions by way of regulations. It provides that they are subject to a process of negative resolution by Parliament, while the amendment seeks to apply the affirmative resolution procedure.
We believe that it is necessary to take the power in Clause 3(2) to avoid any implementation difficulties or legislative inconsistencies that could arise from changing the law. We have already identified consequential amendments to primary legislation and have made provision for them in the Schedule to the Bill. The necessary changes to secondary legislation may not become apparent until after the provisions in the Bill are implemented; therefore, this power is needed so that the authorised staff provisions can be given full effect. However, I emphasise that it is not concerned with making consequential amendments to primary legislation, for which provision is already made in the Schedule, and so this is a narrow power. As I indicated, the power cannot be used to amend primary legislation, so in these circumstances we considered that the negative resolution procedure is entirely appropriate.
I hear what noble Lords and noble and learned Lords have said about moving from the negative to the
affirmative procedure, and I will give further thought to that. However, at this stage I invite the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, to withdraw her amendment.