Clause 26 - Power to make orders, rules and schemes
Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill
1:45 pm
Oliver Heald (Shadow Secretary of State for Constitutional Affairs & Shadow Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Assisted By Shadow Solicitor General), Constitutional Affairs; North East Hertfordshire, Conservative)
Clause 26 adds to the ways in which the law in the European Union can be brought into English law under section 2 of the European Communities Act 1972. Currently, that has to be done by regulations, but the clause would add orders, rules and schemes to that provision.
What sort of changes does the Minister envisage being made by “orders, rules and schemes”—those are the words that will be added—rather than by regulations? Will he explain what orders, rules and schemes are in this context? What procedures would be used to introduce them? Can he give examples of a particular change that would be best made by an order, rule or scheme? In other words, what is this all about?
The 1972 Act refers to regulations. The Minister now wants to add these other categories, and we should probe him as to what he has in mind. Subsection (5) gives Ministers powers to change Acts or subordinate legislation to include references to orders, rules and schemes. Did such things exist at the time that such Acts were made? In other words, to what extent is this provision retrospective as regards orders, rules and schemes? For example, if we wanted to change Acts that were introduced in 1995, 1996 or 1997, were orders, schemes and rules in place at the time? Are such terms known specifically under the English law?