Clause 7 - Keeping of records
Vehicles (Crime) Bill
5:45 pm
Mr John Bercow (Buckingham, Conservative)
My hon. Friends and I have not tabled any amendments to this clause or to clause 8; neither has the hon. Member for Colchester, despite the bold claims he made for himself earlier. However, that does not mean that we should not ask relevant questions.
The point in the clause that caught my eye—I am sure that it occurred to my hon. Friend the Member for Lichfield, too—is in subsection (4) and, by implication, subsection (3). That subsection specifies that ``regulations under this section''—in other words, regulations providing for the keeping of records by registered persons—
may specify provisions of the regulations as provisions to which subsection (4) applies.
That is an enabling device, and may be none the worse for it. However, I am a trifle concerned and do not think that the matter should go by without explanation from the Minister.
Subsection (4)—for the elucidation of all interested parties—states that a
person who contravenes any provision to which this subsection applies shall be guilty of an offence and liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding level 4 on the standard scale.
That is a provision for an offence and a fine for the offence, but subsection (3) tells us that regulations made under it may specify provisions to which the offence and the fine will apply. Although it confers upon the Secretary of State an enabling power, it fights shy of the detail; it does not say what the offences may typically be, and that causes me some concern.
We know that many matters are dealt with through regulation. However, I am bound to say—my hon. Friend the Member for Lichfield will no doubt concur—that the trend towards more government by regulation and the onward march of secondary legislation are matters of considerable concern and regret. I recognise that it happens, but am concerned about the extent to which it happens, and the fact that regulations can be made in circumstances that legislators could not have predicted at the time. It is worth emphasising my concerns even more if the regulations, which would elaborate on points and create new offences and fines, were not themselves to be the subject of the affirmative procedure of the House, but nodded through by the infinitely inferior negative procedure.