My Lords, I am grateful to those who have spoken in the debate, which I will try to sum up briefly. As the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, indicated, because of the quite proper impact of the pre-emption rule, and of how the Bill is grouped and how we consider it, there will be further opportunities to address in a later group the points she raised and those raised my noble friend Lady Neville-Rolfe on the appropriateness of the use of powers. Obviously, most amendments in this group follow on from and, as the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, said, precede discussion on powers that are all exercised in the Bill as drafted by the affirmative resolution procedure.
We contend that those powers are necessary to provide flexibility to respond to future developments in the provision of goods and services trade. As my noble friend Lord Callanan said, and I venture to suggest might say again, we are fully committed to ensuring that these powers are used appropriately. The powers will be subject to parliamentary oversight to give them the widest legitimacy, which means that we will consult appropriately on the use of the power, including with each of the devolved Administrations.
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As my noble friend Lady McIntosh and the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, set out, most of the amendments in this group ask for a super-affirmative procedure; indeed, as she said, equivalent amendments were tabled
in Committee. Without repeating all the arguments made in Committee, I remind the House that I said that your Lordships’ Delegated Powers Committee, which considered these issues carefully, did not propose any super-affirmative power for the Bill. I explained the problems with the proposed approach, which were graphically described by my noble friend Lord Naseby, with his great experience in the other place; this would cause unnecessary delay where a change is urgently needed.
I made it clear that it is our view that the affirmative power is sufficient to ensure adequate scrutiny while enabling the Government to act in the interests of the whole United Kingdom and, as we have heard and seen, the core arguments have not changed. Today, my noble friend Lord Callanan has tabled amendments to introduce consultation with the devolved Administrations and a requirement for the Secretary of State to review and report within five years on the use of the powers. Furthermore, the Government have supported Amendment 2 to remove the power in Clause 3. I believe that, taken together, these amendments deliver the additional assurances for consultation, due consideration, transparency and scrutiny that my noble friend seeks. However, the underlying objections to the super-affirmative procedure remain.
Indeed, the objections are tacitly acknowledged in Amendment 74, which, curiously, seems to allow the Secretary of State to set aside this procedure whenever he wishes to do so by declaring that it is urgent. That would be a very novel form of parliamentary procedure. It may be that the Law Society of Scotland has the answer to this one, but to legislate for super-affirmative and then say that the Secretary of State can set it aside whenever he wants by saying that it is urgent is a funny old way of proceeding, it seems to a non-lawyer at the Dispatch Box. Therefore, I urge my noble friend not to press her amendments. I ask her to consider that they are not proportionate, as my noble friend Lord Naseby said.
Amendment 9 now refers—I always defer to the wisdom of your Lordships—to Clause 6(5) to (7), including a reference to consultations, which your Lordships have just voted to remove. So the reference to consultations in this amendment is to sections that are no longer in the Bill. Looking at the intent of the amendment, it requires publication of the results of consultation on the exercise of the powers that were in Clause 6. Well, devolved Administrations and indeed the Secretary of State are perfectly free to publish their responses if they so choose, but the Government do not believe that that choice should be made for them in the Bill. Therefore, even if the amendment still made sense in the new context, there is no need for the stipulation in it. As it no longer makes sense in context, following your Lordships’ amendment to the Bill a few minutes ago, and it does not seem to be a good way to make law to send to the other place, as it were, a floating amendment which refers to consultations which are no longer within the clause, I hope that my noble friend will withdraw her amendment.