Financial Guidance and Claims Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2017-09-11
Topic: Government Operations
William David McKenzie (Labour, Centre-left): Clause 14 enables the Secretary of State by affirmative resolution to dissolve the SFGB. The background to this, including the Henry VIII power that it includes, is set out in the Government’s memorandum to the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee. That memorandum points out: "This power will allow the Secretary of State to dissolve the single financial guidance body. The Bill does not provide for a fixed lifetime for the new single financial guidance body. This clause is therefore in line with the Cabinet Office guidance relating to setting up new arm’s-length bodies, which states that: ‘The legislation setting up a new Public Body should contain powers to permit winding up at a later date and for finalising and auditing the closing accounts, if a fixed lifetime is not established at the outset. Departmental legal advisers would need to be involved in this process. Difficulties have occurred in past cases where sponsor Departments have not been able to wind up statutory bodies when their work has been completed due to problems in securing a Parliamentary slot to amend the primary founding legislation. The bodies therefore continue to exist as legal entities even though there is no longer a requirement for them’ If there is ever a need to dissolve this body, it will be essential to have a range of options and sufficient flexibility to be able to transfer functions, property rights and assets without recourse to primary legislation. This is the point made by the Cabinet Office’s guidance" That is all well and good but, as the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee points out: "Although the new single financial guidance body will be created by Parliament, clause 14 allows Ministers by affirmative-procedure regulations to abolish the body and transfer its functions to any other person. The normal principle is that what Parliament has created, Parliament alone should dissolve. In this case, the Minister: does not have to be satisfied as to anything before deciding to abolish the body, does not have to consult, does not have to conduct a formal review, and does not have to wait a certain time before seeing whether the new body works well Where Parliament has previously legislated to abolish public bodies it has provided procedural safeguards. Under the Public Bodies Act 2011, a Minister proposing to abolish a public body must consult the body concerned and others affected by the proposal; he then has to allow 12 weeks for responses. The Minister has to lay before Parliament a detailed explanatory document. A committee of either House of Parliament may require an enhanced affirmative procedure and the power to abolish is time-limited. None of these procedural safeguards is included in the current Bill The power to abolish the body and transfer its functions to any other person is a very broad power. For example, it is important that the guidance is independent of any commercial interests. However the power to transfer functions to another body is, on its face, unlimited The Committee raised similar concerns in its report on the Enterprise Bill, 9th Report of Session 2015-16, where the power was to abolish the Small Business Commissioner by statutory instrument. In response, the Government acknowledged the Committee’s concerns and tabled amendments that made the abolition of the Commissioner dependent on a 12-week consultation, the laying before Parliament of an explanatory document in addition to draft regulations" We support the recommendations of the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee, which is what this amendment does. We take the view that it is inappropriate for the Bill to confer on Ministers a power to abolish the single financial guidance body. It is all the more unsatisfactory because the power is unaccompanied by the sorts of procedural safeguards found in the Public Bodies Act 2011 and the Enterprise Act 2016. This is exactly what this amendment is about and it seems to me pretty straightforward. Should the Government set their face against this, the noble Lord, Lord Sharkey, has an alternative proposition that the clause do not stand part of the Bill. We would be minded to support that as an alternative. I beg to move.