My Lords, I fully support my noble friend Lord Hunt and the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Patel. I will look at the
wording of the clause; I might be slightly more inclined to consider giving the Government these powers if I understood better what the clause is getting at. I admire and sympathise with the parliamentary draftsperson; I understand that there is a massive amount of custom and practice, but what does the wording of this clause actually provide? We know what the Government are trying to do—take all the power—but we should at least try to provide something vaguely comprehensible.
Let us look at the wording. Subsection (1)(a) says that you cannot modify the legislation; under subsection (1)(b) you can
“make different provision for different purposes”;
and under subsection (1)(c) you can
“make supplementary, incidental, consequential, transitional, transitory or saving provision.”
That is just a word salad. I assume that there are good definitions of all these words, which make them distinct, but I struggle to understand what they are.
Subsection (2) says that, under Section 8, there is no power to modify legislation. Does that mean that you can still make different provisions for different purposes under Section 8, or does the word “modify” encompass everything in one? Subsection (3) gives us even more words: “amend, repeal or revoke”.
I really hope we can get an understanding of what the real powers that can be exercised under this clause mean and what the distinctions are between all these different ways of expressing what to me—a lay person—seem essentially to be the same objectives.