My Lords, like the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, I will take the amendments in the opposite order to the Minister, if the House is happy with that.
The delegated powers issue has almost become a ritual in your Lordships’ House. A Bill is published and in it are many very draconian powers, which seek to change almost everything the Bill can do at the will of the Minister. There is then a report from the DPRRC which condemns it, and then there is a debate and we start to move towards a more reasonable situation. I hope, perhaps, that we can learn from this and maybe cut out a few of the steps, so that we can get to the reasonable situation. The Government have given considerable ground on this, and for that we should all be accepting and reasonable and, I suppose, grateful, although perhaps gratitude is the wrong word.
With respect to Clause 12, I think we will all be watching quite closely to see how those powers are exercised, because advice can come in many forms and we will be seeking to observe that.
The characterisation that these delegated powers are required in order for the Government to react and act with speed has been absolutely confounded by the way in which the Covid crisis has been addressed by the Government. There has been very rapid legislation and very rapid reaction. Looking forward, we have got to a better place than we were in when we started. I still do not think that we would call it perfect, but we have taken a long time to get there.
My reading of the amendment proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, is that it is the return of Amendment 21, or at least most of it. Listening to his very reasonable presentation of the amendment and having listened to the debates on Report, I am somewhat surprised that the Government continue to dig their heels in. I can understand that the list in subsection (2) of the proposed new clause might have raised some concerns, and it can of course be subject to negotiation, but as the list now stands—with environmental standards and protection; animal welfare; consumer standards, including digital; employment rights and protections; the health and life of humans, animals or plants; the protection of public health; or equality entitlements—it seems that the Government could not possibly object to it, so I am surprised. The Minister has set out his concerns about an ordered market, but it is very clear that any market that did not observe these things would not be one that we wanted anyway.
With that response, I suggest that we will be supporting the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, when this Motion is put to a vote. We hope that the Government will be able to have discussions with the noble Lord and others, so that next time they can come back with something much closer to what we have seen today.