Clause 40 - Orders and regulations under this act
Vehicles (Crime) Bill
11:00 am
Mr John Bercow (Buckingham, Conservative)
I beg to move amendment No. 90, in page 23, leave out lines 29 and 30.
The clause deals with orders and regulations under the Act. The amendment proposes to delete lines 29 and 30, and its effect would be to remove the facility to exercise discretion. I doubt why the Secretary of State should have the power,
to make different provision for different cases...or for different purposes or different areas.
Several points relevant to this matter were aired in the Committee's discussion of clause 34, but the arguments are worth batting around again.
The provision seems to allow the Secretary of State the flexibility to implement the EU end-of-life vehicles directive. Is that not dangerous? The provision appears to say that the statutory instrument would give the Secretary of State greater power to make different provisions for different areas. How much power does the Secretary of State want? What are the different scenarios in different areas, or involving different purposes, which justify the accretion to the Secretary of State of more power that he can choose to exercise in varying degrees, or not at all? For example, if the provision on notification is to apply, surely it should apply equally to all businesses in all areas? After all, the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency is a national body and it should be able to rely on a standard, uniform service from scrap metal dealers.
In the name of specificity, and therefore of predictability, the Bill and the clause should, as far as possible, be prescriptive rather than permissive. The Committee has debated this subject at length. I have argued for tying down the powers of the Secretary of State and his Ministers as far as possible, so that the nature and extent of those powers are apparent and the manner in which they may be exercised can be foreseen with reasonable confidence and precision. By contrast, Ministers have tended to pray in aid the unforeseen or the unpredictable, arguing that it justifies the accretion to them of more power, which they can decide how to exercise at some unspecified time in the future. I am uncomfortable about that.
I am minded, therefore, to raise again the concern that I mentioned when the subject was previously debated: namely, that what bothers me about much of the legislation, and certainly about lines 29 and 30 of the clause, is that there is so little specific information or reassurance by way of example. I hope that the Minister will be willing and able today to give me and my hon. Friend the Member for Lichfield examples of when and how differential application of ministerial power would be exercised. The Minister claims that he must have maximum flexibility as different scenarios might arise and that it is sensible not to tie the clause down in a way that might not permit him, or agents acting on his behalf, to exercise powers that were subsequently judged necessary.
I would be more comfortable if he were able and willing to say that the provision is needed because business X and Y might differ in their size, location, or another material factor. He has not yet been specific about differential application, and that lack of specificity makes me uncomfortable. It is our duty to probe the Minister and to try to get him to offer a more concrete justification of the unamended clause. I do not object—and neither does my hon. Friend—to the principle of vesting power in the Secretary of State. Nor are we objecting to the exercise of power by statutory instrument. Our objection is that, if such a power is to exist, it should be clearly described and applied in a way that does not inappropriately discriminate between one motor salvage operator and another, one registered plate supplier and another, or one scrap metal dealer and another.