Clause 46
Serious Crime Bill [Lords]
6:30 pm
Douglas Hogg (Sleaford and North Hykeham, Conservative)
I beg to move amendment No. 153, in clause 46, page 28, line 19, leave out subsection (6).
I suspect that the Minister is very glad to have passed over clause 44 without a debate, as we all are. I do not think that any of us really understood it, and she would have had to make a reasoned response. She must be relieved, as indeed am I.
Amendment No. 153 is very narrow and represents a grievance that I have had in this place for years. [Interruption.] It is not my only grievance—I see the Whip chatting away. I have many grievances. This is just one of them. As is so often the case, the Bill gives to the Secretary of State the power to amend by order—in this case, the power to amend the listed offences in schedule 3. The Committee will have been diligent in this matter and will have checked the order-making powers at the end of the Bill and found that this particular one is subject to the negative procedure. I can assure the Minister of that; it is not subject to the affirmative procedure.
That raises two questions: first, should we modify a Bill at all? And secondly, if we should do so, should it be done in a way that is wholly unamendable and unlikely to be challenged? That raises general propositions and principles that I have rehearsed time and time again. I am against that procedure. If we are to amend Bills by way of order, I think that it should be done using the affirmative resolution procedure. In general, in fact, I am very much in favour of the super-affirmative resolution procedure, which enables the House to consider whether it wishes changes to be made to the draft before it comes before it for resolution.
Having said that, however, I strongly suspect that the Minister will make an unhelpful response, and I am conscious that on this matter the Committee is unlikely to be with me. I suspect, therefore, that we will not be voting on it.