Clause 41 - Orders and regulations
Identity Cards Bill
9:45 am

Edward Garnier (Shadow Minister, (Assisted By Shadow Law Officers); Harborough, Conservative)

This innocent-sounding clause comes under the heading “Supplemental”, but it deals with orders and regulations. Although it is supplemental, it is a key aspect of the Bill that I would not wish to skate over. I suggest that it must be subject to far greater discussion and that it needs greater clarity. Let us just dip into it. Under the clause, the Secretary of State or the National Assembly for Wales is given order or regulation-making powers to be exercised by statutory instrument. We should bear it in mind that, for example, subsection (4) states that

“every power conferred by this Act on a person to make an order or regulations includes power ...

(b) to make provision subject to such exemptions and exceptions as that person thinks fit; and

(c) to make such incidental, supplemental, consequential and transitional provision as that person thinks fit.”

I have made my complaints about secondary legislation and about the enabling nature of the Bill, but in this clause we see such things on the page in stark black and white, and it is incumbent on the Government to tell Parliament precisely what they intend. If they cannot do so this morning, they should do so at least by the time the Bill leaves the House of Commons.

Tony McNulty (Minister of State (Immigration, Citizenship and Nationality), Home Office; Harrow East, Labour)

I accept the points that the hon. and learned Gentleman makes; he has made them throughout our lengthy proceedings. I shall correct him only by saying that the provisions are stated clearly in green and black, rather than in white and black, but that is by the bye. I also congratulate the draftsperson on the phrase

“incidental, supplemental, consequential and transitional”,

because it has a nice flow to it if nothing else, and it vaguely resembles English.

The hon. and learned Gentleman is right that the clause is intended to embrace all the regulation and order-making powers that are needed in respect of an enabling Bill such as this. The provisions that he alights on in subsection (4) are largely about including the necessary degree of flexibility in the order-making powers so that they are not entirely rigid. Indeed, that is what the note that has kindly just been put before me says. I am reminded of the debates that we had about fees, and about those with an itinerant lifestyle, the elderly and the young.

I know that the clause is offensive to the hon. and learned Gentleman. I cannot do anything about that, but the flexibility that it contains is important in the context of the statutory instrument and order-making powers. Before the legislation receives Royal Assent, I shall seek as and when I can—there will clearly be a considerable commencement tail as everything will not unfold at the same time—to give as full a timetable as possible of when the regulations are likely to occur and, to the extent that it is in my power, to give either drafts of those orders or regulations or an outline of what they will entail as the commencement unrolls. I cannot be fairer than that.