Clause 27
Saving Gateway Accounts Bill
9:30 am
Jeremy Browne (Taunton, Liberal Democrat)
There is a somewhat ritualistic quality to these amendments, in that they require subsequent changes to the Bill, subject to the positive procedure. In a way, therefore, we are making a more general point about the right of this House to scrutinise legislation—a point that parties in opposition tend to make with greater zeal than those in government do.
Having said that, on this occasion the amendments are slightly more than just ritualistic, because the Committee will see that there are some particularly high-profile provisions such as the 50p rate of Government contribution—we touched on that in our previous discussions—that will come back to this House for any changes that the Government envisage ought to be made at a future date. However, there are endless provisions for which that is not the case. In fact, I think that I said on Second Reading that there are 32 clauses in the Bill and 29 delegated powers, so we are almost at the point where what the Government get to decide on is greater than what we are passing into law in this Committee and in the Commons Chamber.
As we have discussed in our deliberations on previous clauses, some of the powers that the Government have taken upon themselves, without our having the opportunity to consider them with any great certainty in this Committee, are quite substantial and would affect the workings of the provision of the saving gateway accounts and thereby affect our constituents. If the Government are going to go down the path of allowing a huge amount of flexibility, which is clearly the preferred option, when they come back with changes in practice to the Bill, we, as Members of the House of Commons, should have the opportunity to scrutinise those changes as fully as we think appropriate.