Clause 38 - Interpretation of Part 3
Traffic Management Bill
5:45 pm
Mr Christopher Chope (Christchurch, Conservative)
I beg to move amendment No. 187, in
page 18, line 4, leave out
'annulment in pursuance of a resolution of either'
and insert
'an affirmative resolution of each.'.
Although this may be the last amendment to be considered this afternoon and under this part of the Bill, it is important, and I give my hon. Friend the Member for Spelthorne all the credit for raising the point. He identified the fact that, under this part, there will be a power to create new criminal offences that will never be required to be subject to a debate in relation to an affirmative resolution in this House and the other place.
The Minister conceded that, although some offences will be replicas of what is already on the statute book, there will be some new ones. That is bad enough, but if we look at the regulatory impact assessment, we see that the Government themselves recognise that at the moment it is by no means certain that the benefits of that will outweigh the costs. They have promised that a fuller RIA will be produced when the regulations are prepared. At that stage, following consultation with highway authorities and utility companies about the range of options available and the risks associated with those options, the Government will offer more detailed information about the anticipated impact of their proposals and, in particular, about the balance of costs and benefits.
Parliament still has a big job to do to scrutinise the outcome of that and, when the further RIA is
produced, to say whether it agrees that the benefits outweigh the costs to such an extent that the regulations should be passed. That is why it is important that the regulations should be subject to the affirmative resolution procedure. This measure deals not only with the liberty of the subject, given the new criminal offences; significant sums of money may be involved for individual businesses, and there is the potential for an extremely adverse effect on the British economy. Surely those issues are important enough to be debated in the context of a statutory instrument subject to an affirmative resolution, rather than as currently proposed.