European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Lords, 2018-05-08
Topic: Government Operations
Natalie Evans (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I thank all noble Lords for their contributions to this debate. The Government take parliamentary scrutiny of the powers afforded them very seriously, which is why, from the outset, I have made clear our view that both Houses should be treated equally when it comes to the sifting process proposed by the Commons Procedure Committee. The Government have already accepted amendments, although they only included a committee in the other place, and the government amendments that we have just discussed would extend that process to your Lordships’ House. We have listened carefully to the views of the House and numerous committees on ways in which to improve this Bill. Among other amendments, we have removed the Clause 8 power altogether and sunset the consequential power and the power to make new fees or charges. The correcting power has been prohibited from creating public authorities or amending the devolution statutes, and we have provided that regulations should be amendable only in the same way as primary legislation Having heard the views of the House in Committee, I am pleased to confirm that the Government have tabled amendments that we will debate shortly to extend the sifting committee’s remit to instruments made under the power contained in Clause 17(1). I hope that noble Lords will see this as further evidence of the Government’s willingness to listen to the case put by this House and, in particular, by the DPRRC. I believe that we have made clear our commitment to ensuring that this House can rigorously scrutinise the secondary legislation that will flow from this Bill The government amendments allow the changes to the SLSC’s order of reference, agreed by the Procedure Committee, to be put into practice following Royal Assent. I am sure that noble Lords on all sides will want to consider the committee’s report in good time. As I have said before, the agreement reached regarding the SLSC taking on the new and vital role as the sifting committee demonstrates the constructive collaboration of the House. I remain grateful to other members of the Procedure Committee and the SLSC for their support in this decision A number of noble Lords have made it clear that they would like further reassurance that the recommendations of the sifting committees will be taken seriously by the Government. I am happy to repeat what I said in Committee—that if both sifting committees were to make the same well considered and no doubt persuasive recommendation that an SI should move from the negative to the affirmative procedure, I assure the House that the Government’s expectation is that such recommendations are likely to be accepted. Where the two committees disagree, the situation would, of course, need to be carefully considered on its merits. The noble Baroness, Lady Smith, tempted me to speculate on how often the Government would disagree with a recommendation coming from both committees. Clearly, I cannot usefully do that, but I can say that the Government are not placing shackles on their ability to make a recommendation to upgrade the procedure if they so wish. It is right that this is the case, but I repeat my view—I expect that to be a rare occurrence. I can confirm that on the very rare occurrence, one hopes, when that happened, and the Government did not agree with a recommendation to use the affirmative procedure, we would fully expect to publicly set out our reasons to the committee concerned Amendments 70 and 77 in the name of noble Lords, Lord Lisvane, Lord Norton and Lord Sharkey, and the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Basildon, propose an alternative sifting process. There are two significant differences between the process proposed in Amendment 70 and that proposed by the Commons Procedure Committee, the consequences of which would put at risk our ability to achieve this Bill’s fundamental aim: a functional statute book on exit day and, indeed, for this House to exercise timely and effective scrutiny. The first would make the sifting committee’s determinations binding on the Government unless the House decided to disagree with its committee. The second is that the amendment would build into the sifting committee process a mechanism for the House as a whole to make a binding determination, irrespective of the decision of the committee to which it has delegated the responsibility for making recommendations. Such determinations raise several serious problems. The first is the potential for disagreement between the Houses, and I note that Amendment 71 involves the same problem, to which I shall come in a moment The second risk, which is potentially more serious in practical terms, is the delays which this process could create. Given that this House and the other place do not often sit on Fridays, 10 sitting days is already likely to stretch across three weeks. The addition of an extra five-day period, during which each House could overrule its own sifting committee, potentially extends this process into a fourth week. Of course, if any of this were to occur around either House’s normal recesses, the period would be longer still. Then, after that, any negative instrument would still have a praying period of 40 days during which, as now, a debate could be sought. In addition, any affirmative instrument would be subject to the usual scrutiny procedures and laid before Parliament until it could be accommodated in the parliamentary schedule.