Clause 2 - Provision
Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill
1:15 pm
Christopher Chope (Christchurch, Conservative)
The theme of these amendments is to try to deal with and control the extensive powers that the Government are taking in this legislation and to rein back that scope so that we are left with the purely essential. I am very disappointed about what happened in relation to clause 1. The Minister’s response to recommendations 4 and 5 in the Regulatory Reform Committee’s special report of Session 2005-06, which argued that Parliament should be able to veto the delivery of individual proposals by order and prevent the Government from reintroducing an order to address the policy problem from two years after that veto, was:
“As the Bill enters Committee stage the Government will listen carefully to the views of Parliament and seek its support in achieving the right balance between powers and protections.”
So far the Minister does not seem to have been able to deliver on what he said as recently as Friday of last week in a letter to the Chairman of that Select Committee. I hope that he can do a bit better when we consider these amendments to clause 2.
The purpose of my amendments is essentially to try to get the Minister to justify the powers that he is taking. In order to put the spotlight on those individual powers I have drawn up these amendments, which I am pleased to see are supported by others in several respects. Amendment No. 32 would remove from subsection (1) the power to repeal or replace any legislation. It is an attempt to get the Minister to justify all the words that are in the subsection at the moment.
Amendment No. 33, which is supported by the Liberal Democrats, would cut out the power enabling the Government to
“amend, repeal or replace legislation in any way that an Act might”
and to
“amend, repeal or replace legislation so as to—
(a) confer functions on any person (including functions of legislating or
functions relating to the charging of fees);
(b) modify the functions conferred on any person by legislation;
(c) transfer, or provide for the transfer or delegation of, the functions
conferred on any person by legislation.”
I should like the Minister to give us some examples of what he would consider to be a mischief that needs to be addressed by this provision and to explain why he feels that these powers should be so extensive. I hope that he will take his responsibilities to do that seriously. He has not necessarily shown much flexibility up to now. I hope that he will realise that unless we can receive assurances that these provisions are essential for the avowed objective of deregulation, we will draw an adverse inference and think that these powers are designed to give the Executive even more power than they already have over Parliament.
Amendment No. 69 is a significant amendment, if I may say so modestly, Mr. Caton. It draws attention to the common law that has developed and evolved in this country over many centuries. It would remove subsection (3)(b) and thus make it impossible to make an order under section 1 for a purpose specified that would make provision for codifying rules of law.
I cannot understand why the Government want to replace the common law; with its capacity to evolve in line with changes in society through the use of precedent, convention and rulings in the courts of this land, it has served this country extremely well over many centuries. Why do they want to make changes to that law under the delegated powers? It would mean, in effect, that if a Minister were to suffer a reverse in the High Court—that happens from time to time under all Governments—and a measure was struck down as ultra vires or as having a different intention from the one that the Minister hoped that it had, an order could be rushed through rectifying the situation and negating the entire judicial process.
Statutes have been struck down in the High Court in the past and the Government have tried to put the matter right in primary legislation, which is their privilege. But surely they should not be able to correct every error in the law by fiat, using an accelerated procedure that denies the power of Members of Parliament to hold the Government to account, to amend the proposals and to discuss them in full.
Amendment No. 35 would omit subsection (5), which is about binding the Crown. Why do the Government want to bind the Crown under this Bill? I hope that the Minister will answer that question. He will be aware of the articles suggesting that the monarchy could be abolished under these provisions and it might not be so easy to do so if the amendment removing subsection (5) were accepted.