| Regional Assemblies (Preparations) Bill
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Mr. Hammond: The Under-Secretary seems to be implying that a consequential repeal of other legislation would be trivial, but if something in the Bill directly conflicted with the provision of an Act, presumably repealing that part of the Act would be consequential on the Bill. That would not necessarily make the repeal trivial; it could be a major repeal. Mr. Leslie: My point was that at all times Parliament legislates in the context of the wider law. The intentions of Parliament would be made plain in any enactment of the legislation. Column Number: 342 Mr. Hammond: If the Under-Secretary, with the resources that he has in his Department, cannot put into a schedule the context of the wider law, as he calls it, it is a bit rich to expect ordinary members of a Committee to be able to be fully aware of any conflicts with existing legislation. Mr. Leslie: I was very careful to talk about the intentions of the legislation. Those will be quite clear in the decisions that we will make in this legislative context. All that we are seeking to do through the provision is to remove doubt. Amendment No. 81 would remove, or at least put in doubt, the ability to make those consequential incidental changes. I shall give an example of why the provision is necessary. The schedule to clause 15 makes consequential amendments to other Acts, as the hon. Runnymede and Weybridge said. They are minor amendments to take account of the enactment of the Bill. If we discovered in a few years' time that consequential amendments of a similar nature needed to be made to another Act that we have missed in the schedule, we would need the power to do so, and subsection (3) provides that. This is a precedented provision, which can be found in section 26(4) of the Local Government Act 1992. As the hon. Gentleman teasingly said, amendments Nos. 82 and 83 test what we mean by hybridity, or the hybrid procedure. Subsection (4) ensures that the hybrid procedure for affirmative resolution instruments does not apply to certain orders or regulations made under the Bill or to any provision made under section 129(1) of the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000 for referendums held under the Bill. Section 129(1) is the power to make by order provision for, or in connection with, regulating the conduct of referendums. Amendment No. 82 would remove subsection (4) from the Bill, which would mean that subordinate legislation under the Bill, where it may be hybrid, could be subject to the hybrid procedure. Amendment No. 83 is a free-standing amendment that would mean that an order made under section 129(1) for the purpose of referendums held under the Bill would, were it hybrid, be subject to the procedure for making hybrid instruments. Mr. Hammond: Can the Under-Secretary give an example of how an order made under the Bill is likely to be hybrid? Mr. Leslie: I can. Indeed, I was about to come to that in my peroration. It might be helpful if I explained the purposes behind subsections (4) and (5). An order under part 1 of the Bill could possibly be considered a hybrid instrument if, for example, it set a different referendum date and referendum period for different regions or if it were made under clause 15 and implemented different proposals for local government reorganisation in different regions. We do not consider that those differences are of a nature that justifies the use of the more complex and lengthy hybrid procedure. The best analogy to make—the hon. Gentleman may be familiar with this—is the hybrid procedure for public and private Bills and the various mixed arrangements that can apply in relation to a Column Number: 343 hybrid Bill, which are very similar in the case of statutory instruments.Mr. Hammond: I may be on the wrong track here, but is there a difference in procedure in terms of parliamentary scrutiny, and the timetabling of such scrutiny, depending on whether a matter is hybrid? Mr. Leslie: There is indeed a difference in respect of hybrid legislation. I shall try to elucidate as simply as I possibly can by reference to private Bills. Those tend to be promoted by the presenter of a petition who is seeking specific, usually local, powers, and follow a procedure of more lengthy examination by Parliament, which, unless completely unopposed, involves the taking of evidence and so forth. Hybrid Bills are public Bills to which elements of the private Bill procedure may apply. For that reason, we are taking the lead of a similar provision in section 26(2) of the Local Government Act 1992. With regard to orders made under section 129(1) of the PPERA, we intend to apply the same provision to all referendums on establishing a regional assembly, subject to the possibility of general change over time as new voting methods are established. That might indicate that applying subsection (4) to conduct orders is unnecessary because hybridity, by definition, could occur only if we had at least one order making different provisions for different regions. However, the subsection is needed for certainty reasons. Regional referendums will not all take place at the same time; it may be several years before some regions become interested in a referendum. We cannot predict what a conduct order might look like in five or 10 years' time or how parliamentary conventions or other circumstances might have changed. The question of hybridity is difficult to judge. I have explained the circumstances, in the context of the Bill, in which it could arise. I hope that hon. Members accept that our intent is not sinister; rather, we seek practical measures to tackle issues that could arise. Therefore, I ask the hon. Gentleman to withdraw the amendment. Mr. Hammond: The Under-Secretary has obviously decided to try a different tactic this morning: he is boring the Opposition into submission by rehearsing what could be a text on parliamentary procedure—but I probably asked for it. I accept much of what he says, but I cannot help thinking that the question of whether a matter is hybrid ought to be dealt with in the usual way by the proper authorities when a matter comes before the House. I find it rather objectionable that we have different procedures for private and public matters and for hybrid matters, and that the Government seek to pre-empt the proper assessment of whether something is hybrid. Mr. Leslie: I understand what the hon. Gentleman is saying, but I did refer to a similar provision in the Local Government Act 1992 that was introduced by the previous Conservative Administration to clarify whether an issue should be dealt with under the hybrid procedure. Column Number: 344 Mr. Hammond: It may come as a shock to the Under-Secretary, but I do not believe that my brief is to defend everything that was done by the previous Conservative Administration. We learn, and one thing we have learned that is relevant to the discussions of the Committee is that change in local government arrangements will not be durable and sustainable unless it is rooted at the bottom rather than passed down from the top. The Minister for Local Government and the Regions referred to comments by colleagues who were very much involved in such matters in the past. I do not take it as an absolute that I am required to stand here and defend something that was done before 1997. Instead, I shall consider whether a provision is sensible, as I expect the Under-Secretary to do. However, in view of what the Under-Secretary said and the fact that, essentially, these probing amendments were meant to establish the precise meaning and relevance of the issues, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn. Clause 27 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
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| ©Parliamentary copyright 2002 | Prepared 19 December 2002 |
