My Lords, I support the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire. I put my name to Amendment 18, and I am glad that the noble
Lord, Lord Berkeley, did so too and that it is being debated with many other amendments about which I have a similar concern. It is right that this is a cross-party challenge to the Bill. It reflects the report of the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee, now chaired by my noble friend Lord McLoughlin, and of course previously chaired by my noble friend Lord Blencathra. I do not think that I have ever seen such an excoriating report on the abuse of delegated powers.
This is a hugely important piece of legislation, affecting £300 billion a year of public money and its impact on those who supply it. That is nearly as much as the enormous sums spent and misspent on Covid. We now need much more information on the secondary legislation and regulations to be made under the Bill. Even if this is clarified and information is provided, my noble friend needs to bear in mind that he cannot bind a future Government or Prime Minister and their teams. Frankly, the regulatory and other delegated provisions before us are extremely dangerous and need to be reconsidered in the light of the DPRRC report and of course today’s debate and the answers that we are given. I am just sorry that we are not on the Floor of the House.
I will give a few choice quotations from the report. First, paragraph 20 says that
“in general [the relevant provisions of the Bill] leave the content of such notices, etc to be set out in Regulations”.
This includes notices about awards made without competitive tendering, the exclusion of suppliers and modifications or terminations.
Secondly, paragraph 23 says:
“We are also disappointed that the Government have provided no illustrative regulations. Illustrative regulations would have been very helpful and, without them, scrutiny of clause 86 is considerably hampered.”
This is delightful in its politeness, but it is very strong.
Thirdly, paragraph 33 says:
“The Government have failed to adequately explain”—
split infinitives would not be allowed in my day—
“why Ministers are to be given such a broad power to override the existing statutory bar on public authorities”.
This is an open-ended power to override primary legislation by order. The matters covered include: “conditions of employment” of a contractor’s workforce, “industrial disputes”, countries of origin and—this stuck in the gullet—
“political, industrial or sectarian affiliations or interests of contractors or their directors, partners or employees”.
This is utterly over the top, unless you are Mr Jeremy Corbyn, I suppose.
Finally, paragraph 53 says:
“The Government have failed to provide any justification for leaving entirely to regulations the question of which concession contracts for air services provided by air carriers are to be exempted from the Bill.”
From sitting in the Competitiveness Council of the European Union for several years, I can tell noble Lords that air services are big politically, and decisions need to be properly scrutinised by Parliament and not concluded by officials who tend—in my considerable
experience—to exercise the power once matters are put into delegated legislation. There is also a vast shareholder base in aviation that should be quaking when it sees this Bill, if I have understood it correctly.
I apologise to my noble friend the Minister, with whom I have worked so well over the years, but resolving our challenge to these delegated powers is a real test of his mettle and of this Committee’s competence. They mean that the Bill is, in practice, regulatory, not deregulatory as we all hoped. I very much look forward to supporting my noble friend the Minister and others in making some very necessary changes to the Bill.