European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Lords, 2018-03-12
Topic: Government Operations
Robert Rogers (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, in moving Amendment 110 I shall speak also to Amendment 135, both of which are also tabled in the names of my noble and learned friend Lord Judge, my noble friend Lord Pannick and the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, who like me is a member of the Delegated Powers Committee. The amendments seek to place controls upon the use of sub-delegation and the creation of tertiary legislation. We have had something of a preview to this in the debate on Amendment 71 held last Wednesday, and earlier today the horror story about the Bar Standards Board told by the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford, which I think would have greatly alarmed my nervous maiden aunts I was extremely grateful to my noble friend Lord Wilson of Dinton for moving Amendment 71 last Wednesday and to the Committee for its understanding of why I could not do so myself. My noble friend made a magisterial and compelling speech in which he pointed out that the powers in Clauses 7, 8 and 9 could be used to sub-delegate. Indeed, so compelling was his speech that the only person who disagreed with him in the debate was the Minister. That reminded me of the story of Benjamin Jowett: when he was the Master of Balliol and was outvoted 20 to one at a college meeting, he said, "Gentlemen, we appear to have reached deadlock" This Bill is riddled with provisions which have serious constitutional implications, and the unrestricted power of sub-delegation is one of them. It allows Ministers to authorise bodies and even individual persons to make law without the approval of Parliament. As the Delegated Powers Committee pointed out, there is no requirement for this legislation to be made by statutory instrument. If it is not made by SI, the Statutory Instruments Act 1946 does not apply to it and the legislation does not have to be laid before Parliament or even published. The possibility that law which the citizen must obey might not be published offends against the first of the late Lord Bingham’s eight principles of the rule of the law: that the law must be accessible as well as clear and predictable The Government memorandum submitted to the Delegated Powers Committee suggested that the power to make tertiary legislation is intended to be used sparingly. Once again we come back to the fact that what matters is what is on the face of the Act. If the power of sub-delegation is there, you can bet that it will be used whenever convenient to the Government of the day. Moreover, it will go on being used. In addition to these amendments, I have tabled Amendment 365 to paragraph 28 of Schedule 8 which would complete the removal of the exemption for tertiary legislation from the two-year sunset provision for secondary legislation-making powers. Slightly oddly, it has not been grouped with these amendments, but when we reach it, it will provide us with a further opportunity to consider the Government’s response to the amendments in this group As the Delegated Powers Committee points out, the power to make tertiary legislation could be given to new bodies to control and regulate, by legislation and without any parliamentary control, areas that are currently governed by EU law. These include aviation, banking, investment services, chemicals, agriculture, fisheries and medicines. They would all become in effect judges in their own cause. Amendments 110 and 135 would subject sub-delegation to the same parliamentary control and time limits as regulations in the first tier of delegation. I beg to move.