New Clause 17 - Combination of powers
Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill
2:45 pm
Jim Murphy (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Cabinet Office; East Renfrewshire, Labour)
As we come towards the end of our proceedings, I wish to talk to new clauses 17 and 18. They are technical, and I hope that members of the Committee found the note that I circulated last week to be helpful. I shall reiterate some of its points. Currently, it is not possible for a statutory instrument made under an enabling power in one Act to be combined with a statutory instrument made under an enabling power in another Act if parliamentary procedures require that the two Acts differ. However, it is possible for statutory instruments of same type, for example when both are orders or regulations, that are made under different enabling powers and go through the same parliamentary procedure, to be combined into one instrument.
New clause 17 would enable provisions under section 2(2) of the European Communities Act 1972 and those under another Act to be contained in a single instrument when the provision under the Act is subject to a different procedure. Broadly put, the instrument as a whole will have to follow whichever procedure under either Act is the more onerous. Section 2(2) of the European Communities Act enables the use of either affirmative or negative resolution procedure when the appropriate procedure for an instrument made under the section was affirmative. The instrument could also include provision made under another power.
New clause 18 will similarly make it possible to combine statutory instruments made under section 2(2) of the European Communities Act with an order made under clause 1, provided that the order as a whole is subject to the procedure required under part 1 of the Bill. That will enable a single order to implement Community law—section 2(2) of the ECA—while also using clause 1 to remove pre-existing domestic statutory regulatory requirements that are no longer thought appropriate, as a result.
I reassure hon. Members that the purpose of new clause 17 is not to enable Ministers to make provisions and subordinate instruments that they could not already have made, but to reduce the number of instruments needed to make provisions that could already be made. I hope that I have been helpful in a technical sense. The amendment is minor. As I have illustrated, it is about simplification.