Childcare Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2015-10-14
Topic: Government Operations
John Nash (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, this group of amendments concerns the regulations made under the Bill, which will be key to setting out the detail of the new entitlement, including who will be eligible and how it will be delivered. Therefore, I understand noble Lords’ concerns about ensuring that they have a proper opportunity to scrutinise this detail There was much interest in the regulations in our earlier debates in this House and in the report by the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee. The committee concluded that the scope of the delegations and powers under Clause 1 as drafted were too wide. Given the importance of secondary legislation to the Bill, I am in complete agreement with noble Lords and with the committee’s report that it would be appropriate for regulations to be approved by a debate in both Houses. That is why I have brought forward these amendments, which would require regulations made under Clause 1 and extended entitlement regulations to be laid and approved by each House using the affirmative procedure. I hope this will reassure noble Lords that we have listened. I hope the Government’s amendments will be welcomed Amendment 27, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, would ensure that a statutory instrument containing regulations in exercise of any power in the Bill would not be made unless a draft of the instrument had been laid and approved by each House; in other words, it would subject regulations to the affirmative procedure each time the regulation-making power was exercised. We believe it is right that initially we should deal with the regulations under the affirmative procedure, rather than the negative procedure as originally planned. However, we do not believe it is necessary to make them affirmative each time. We need to strike the right balance between the mechanics of the affirmative process—for example, the need to find time in the parliamentary timetable for debates in both Houses, no matter how small the change—and the ability of government to respond efficiently and effectively to support delivery of the new entitlement, should this be necessary. That is why the government amendments in this group envisage that regulations made under Clause 1 and regulations made for the purpose of discharging the Secretary of State’s duty will be subject to a debate the first time the powers are exercised but that subsequent regulations made under the Bill would be subject to the negative resolution procedure The exception to this would be in any instances where regulations seek to amend or repeal primary legislation, or in the case of regulations seeking to update the maximum level of any financial penalty set out in the Bill, which would be subject to the affirmative procedure. This follows the precedents of parliamentary scrutiny adopted in childcare legislation or comparable education legislation. The regulations that underpin the current Section 7 entitlement have been subject to the negative procedure since they were introduced in 2008. These have been amended only four times, and each time the changes were subject to a public consultation We believe that our approach is the right one. As noble Lords have already heard, we have made great progress since Committee to narrow the scope and clarify the detail of what we will include in the regulations. I also reassure noble Lords that feedback from parents, providers and employers will be taken into account in the development of the draft regulations, and we will wish to draw on the expertise of noble Lords. Furthermore, we have committed to providing a full impact assessment on the extent of the free entitlement, which will be published when we undertake a formal public consultation on the draft regulations in 2016. Following the consultation, we will lay the draft regulations before the House for a full debate before they can be approved and added to the statute book I hope noble Lords agree that by the time they are laid, these regulations will have undergone a significant amount of close scrutiny. Therefore, I am confident that we will be able to present a set of regulations to the House that are fair and workable and remain true to the spirit of the Government’s commitment to support and reward thousands of hard-working families. I beg to move.