My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Fox, for tabling these amendments. As we have heard, they reflect the bulk of the DPRRC’s recommendations. I also thank the noble and learned Lords, Lord Judge and Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd, and the noble Lord, Lord Fox, for signing Amendment 50, even if it was not to support me but the recommendations of the DPRRC.
The DPRRC took the unusual step of voicing its concerns for Clause 47(7) at first, rather than working through the Bill and its clauses in turn. That goes to highlight even further its real concerns, specifically around issues of transparency and secrecy. We will come on to further amendments on transparency and try to open this up because, as we have heard, when you shine a light on the decisions being made, they are put under scrutiny. Issues and concerns can be brought to the fore so that we do not, as the noble Lord, Lord Purvis, said, end up relying on whistleblowers.
Taking the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Purvis, it may be that the immediate release of certain directions and information could have undesirable consequences in terms of market behaviour, but there must be other ways of taking it forward. The noble Lord has touched on one of them at the Scottish Parliament, where meetings were in private but the information was subsequently released.
At Second Reading, the Minister said:
“However, we will of course take into account the findings from the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee’s report and we will review accordingly.”—[Official Report, 19/1/22; col. 1712.]
I know we are all sitting here waiting to see if any of those will be enacted, and I very much look forward to the Minister’s response. The words of the DPRRC have been quoted but it is worth putting on the record points 13 and 14 in its 17th report, which say that:
“We do not recall any other occasion where the Government have argued that one reason why Parliament should not be able to scrutinise delegated legislation is because the Government might be defeated on it … Neither have the Government cited any precedent where the ability to disapply a legislative provision (here, the Bill’s subsidy control requirements) can be achieved by a direction that can be kept secret from Parliament.”
With that, I look forward to the Minister’s response.