UK Infrastructure Bank Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2022-06-14
Topic: Mixed Topics
Roger Thomas (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 52, which is essentially to do with accountability and enforceability. One can only make accountable and enforceable something that is clear. I think the statute is elegantly drafted: it is very short, the phrases are chosen with particular objectivity and it reads extremely well Moreover, the regulation power is not that extensive and that is to be commended. There is no guidance, which is better still, but an extraordinary feature of this legislative process, to which the noble Lord, Lord Vaux, referred, is the framework document. I tried to look at what the articles of association say, but all that is registered at Companies House is the present status of the bank as a private company. The statute makes provision for the articles of association to say things, and I hope there will at least be a copy of the draft available, but the statute is remarkable in that, as has appeared from the eloquent answers the Minister has given this afternoon, the framework is critical, but is not even referred to in the Bill. That may be a first. It is an extremely important piece of the legislation that is not even referred to in the legislation In addition, it is a memorandum of understanding, as I picked up; "memorandum of understanding" is a phrase often used when one does not quite know whether it is legally enforceable or not. On this occasion, the Minister has made it clear that it is in part legally enforceable and in part not. It is profoundly unsatisfactory that the obligations and duties are not set out in an instrument that, first, is brought up to date—as we shall discover later, bits of it are contradictory to the provisions of the Bill—secondly, that we have not seen a draft of and, thirdly, really needs revising. I hate to say this to the hard-pressed civil servants, no doubt reduced in number, who will have to revise this, but it has to be revised. I believe the noble Lord, Lord Vaux, is right: we need to put a provision in the Bill dealing with the framework, because it is integral. It is far more important than the articles of association First, we have to get the Bill in a better legal shape, so that all the documents that are necessary for the proper constitution of what is a public bank are properly in the public domain and subject to parliamentary control. Secondly, it is important that there is proper accountability, for both the performance of the bank and the discharge of its duties, and the statute is so elegant in setting out what those duties are As the framework document recognises, there is a tension between the various duties the bank has to carry out and the enforcement options, which need to be made very clear. First, the Treasury has a critical role, as the Minister acknowledged at Second Reading. Secondly, there is the question of Parliament. At the moment, there is no proper parliamentary accountability if the base documents that control the bank are not subject to some form of legislative incorporation and scrutiny by this House. Thirdly, there is the position of the courts. From what the Minister said on the previous group, it is clear that, if the bank is not discharging its duties and the Treasury does not tell the bank to do something about it, it becomes enforceable, at the instance of interested parties, in the courts The first fundamental area to get right is the legal structure, and it is not right. The second is to make certain we have got the enforcement structure right. We are talking about large sums of public money. More importantly, we are talking about doing something to deal with two of the great crises of the time: climate and environmental change, and trying to bring about better equality between the various parts of our nation.