Clause 3 - Purposes of orders under section 1(1) or 2(1)
Export Control Bill
12:00 pm
Dr Vincent Cable (Twickenham, Liberal Democrat)
I beg to move amendment No. 11, in page 2, line 33, leave out subsection (2).
The amendment takes us to the heart of the argument about democratic control and accountability of the export control procedure. This is a procedurally complicated area, and I suspect that even those of us who are involved in the debate are struggling to understand its complexities. It may help if I set out my understanding of the hierarchy of permissions and authorisations that will operate once the legislation has come into force.
There are essentially four types of approval mechanism. First, there is the most demanding type—the prior approval involved in the affirmative resolution procedure, which will apply to changes in the purposes for making an arms control order specified in the schedule. That process clearly requires the full involvement of Parliament. Secondly, there is the deferred affirmative procedure, which will apply to temporary orders. That, essentially, is what we are concerned about with regard to the clause. Thirdly, there is the negative resolution procedure, which applies to changes that the Government consider to be more minor, but may well involve important considerations. Lastly, there is the informing of Parliament of very small technical changes.
We acknowledge that some distinction must be made between different export controls. A one-size-fits-all procedure is not appropriate. We recognise that there is a role for prior approval—for which we must argue strongly in many cases—and for a routine procedure, which is set out in clause 8 and which would be the least demanding. We suggest that the two intermediate stages be eliminated.
On later clauses, we shall debate upgrading the negative procedure so that Parliament has proper prior scrutiny. I do not want to trespass on that subject, but I shall focus on the second stage in the hierarchy of procedures—the temporary orders. There are two problems with the temporary order procedure in the Bill, and the Quadripartite Committee dealt explicitly and somewhat critically with one of them. Two sentences from the Committee's report, ``Draft Export Control and Non-Proliferation Bill'' are relevant and capture the essence. Paragraph 45 states:
``The draft Bill makes provision at Clause 3(2)''—
with which we are dealing—
``for Orders which are not subject to the purposes set out in the Schedule. They are to be subject to modified affirmative procedure''.
The report then refers to the House of Lords Committee that considered the regulation procedures and
``expressed its concern over Clause 3(2), finding it not `right in principle and therefore appropriate to delegate a power to impose controls for purposes which are not set out in this Bill . . . The Committee does not at present consider that a restriction on the freedom to trade should be granted in such wide terms'.''
The Quadripartite Committee clearly and explicitly endorsed the criticism that there were not sufficiently good grounds for providing temporary orders that operated according to different rules.
The second set of criticisms relate to the fact that it is possible to envisage perfectly plausible circumstances in which there may be no parliamentary scrutiny whatever under the clause. If the order applied for fewer than 40 days, there would be no need for parliamentary scrutiny. Substantial and substantive changes in the export control procedure could simply be pushed through with no reference to Parliament. That relates partly to the time factor, and the Quadripartite Committee again focused on the problem, saying that
``the 40 day period of grace allowed before such an Order lapses unless parliamentary approval is given . . . seems to us too generous''.
In other words, the provision gives Ministers too much power to put through orders that have far-reaching implications without parliamentary scrutiny. The Committee suggested substantially reducing the period of 40 days.
The purpose of the amendment is to take out that second stage in the parliamentary scrutiny process to eliminate any ambiguity. The amendment is entirely in the spirit of the comments made by the Quadripartite Committee, to which members of all parties signed up. It is a building block that we can use to build stronger parliamentary scrutiny into the Bill.