UK Parliament / Open data

Subsidy Control Bill

My Lords, we now come to the first mass grouping of a government concessions package. Like others, I express the thanks

of these Benches to the noble Lord the Minister and the noble Baroness and the Bill team for the discussions and this good set of revisions to the Bill. There are 11 amendments in all, and as the noble Lord, Lord Fox, has said, many have been previously moved and supported by noble Lords from across the House, especially in Committee.

As we have heard, this group relates to the recommendations in the DPRRC report, which were plentiful and uncharacteristically forceful. Like everyone else, we are glad that common sense has prevailed, particularly in relation to the situation around Clause 47, whereby certain information could have been withheld from Parliament and, by extension, the public.

The concessions made by the noble Baroness in the name of the noble Lord the Minister are most welcome, but the bigger issue at play here is the frequency with which the Government have attempted to take broad powers for themselves, often without proper justification. We hope that that trend will change as we move towards a new parliamentary Session, and these concessions and these moves help to show that. Like the noble Lord, Lord Fox, we would have liked to see movement on Clause 11, on definition of schemes of interest and schemes of particular interest—but we will take these 11 amendments, with thanks.

Type
Proceeding contribution
Reference
820 cc925-6 
Session
2021-22
Chamber / Committee
House of Lords chamber
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