Clause 7 - Forcible entry etc
Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill
11:45 am
Mark Harper (Shadow Minister, Defence; Forest of Dean, Conservative)
At the risk of repetition, which has never stopped anyone before, the clause refers back to the 2001 Act. Again, it is not sensible to argue that there were the same protections in that Act because, as we have already said, part of the problem here is that the scope of the Bill is much wider than that Act. As the scope of the Bill is wider, the scope of the protections should be wider too.
Amendments Nos. 65 and 66, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for North-East Hertfordshire and me, are reasonably similar in nature and have the same thrust as amendments Nos. 50 and 51, tabled by the Liberal Democrats. On amendment No. 65, we welcome the fact that subsection (1) puts restrictions on what order-making powers can be used for, but subsection (2), which allows the extension of such powers, is unacceptable. If it is not appropriate to use order-making powers to authorise forcible entry, search, seizure or the compelling of giving of evidence, it also should not be possible to extend such powers. That should also have to be done by primary legislation. Including the safeguard that the purposes must be similar is so loose a drafting that it provides no safeguard at all. Amendment No. 65 would remove that derestriction and make it clear that order-making powers under section 2(1) could not be used either to authorise forcible entry, search, seizure or the compelling of the giving of evidence or to extend the cases where that may happen.
Amendment No. 66 is rather wider and I am prepared to accept that amendment No. 51 is more narrowly and perhaps more appropriately drafted, which refers again to whether the Law Commissions should effectively make law here. I have one more point to make on the Law Commissions. It is unquestionably the case that the Lord Chancellor appoints very good lawyers to the Law Commission, but they are not elected by anybody. They come with their own views as well as their legal expertise. It is therefore not appropriate to give them the power to make law. They are the right people to make recommendations and to use their expertise to make suggestions. However, it should remain for this place to make law rather than be governed by experts, especially when such recommendations are particularly controversial.