Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill |
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Mr. Harper: The Minister is in danger of repeating the point that there is replication of the 2001 Act. That is the case, but the point is that the Bill is much wider in scope, and because of that we want a more robust safeguard. That is exactly why we have tabled the amendment. It is unlikely to happen often that both Houses of Parliament, or both of their relevant Committees, insist on an amendment to an order. The Minister has been able to suggest that other proposed amendments to the Bill have been poorly drafted or relatively flippant. It will not happen often that a Minister proposes an order and both Houses of Parliament vote that it should be changed, but it seems to me that when it does it would be unacceptable for the Minister to proceed. The Minister said that he would not intend to push things through in that case. If that is true, why does not he allow it to be set out in the Bill? If he finds the drafting of the amendment not to his liking—despite the fact that it was drafted by my hon. Friend the Member for North-East Hertfordshire, the barrister—he is perfectly entitled to say, as he generously did on a previous provision, that he accepts the spirit of the amendment but wants to give it to parliamentary draftsmen to examine, so that he can return with a Government amendment that may be more elegantly drafted. Mr. Murphy: I am happy, again, to give the additional reassurance that the Government would not push through an order in the face of opposition from the Committees. That is, I understand, an understanding deriving from the 2001 Act. There is no evidence that the current procedure, whereby Committees can make recommendations and Ministers and Departments can reflect on them, make adjustments and offer reassurances to the Committees, has not worked well. However, the amendments
Committees have rejected previous orders. Civil registration is one matter on which the Regulatory Reform Committee rejected an order. The Committees have powers, but the current system has worked well. As an example, the Regulatory Reform (Business Tenancies) (England) Order 2003 enabled the process to work very well. Mr. Chope: Will the Minister give way? Mr. Murphy: No, I am concluding; I am on my last sentence. On the basis that I have outlined, the Government would not be minded to support an amendment that would make it compulsory to accept amendments from the relevant Select Committees or the House. It would be unnecessarily prescriptive and could jeopardise an entire order for the sake of a specific amendment. I again give a reassurance that the Government would not push through an order in the face of opposition from the relevant Select Committees charged by the House of Commons to carry out that task. Mr. Harper: I did not necessarily expect the Minister to accept the amendment as drafted, but I am disappointed that he did not even suggest that he might consider the drafting of something that accorded with it in spirit. If both Houses of Parliament or both Committees of both Houses of Parliament insist that an order needs to be amended in a particular way it is the height of arrogance for a Minister to insist on pushing the measure through. For that reason we want to press amendment No. 1 to a vote. Question put, That the amendment be made:— The Committee divided: Ayes 6, Noes 9. [Division No. 13] AYES Chope, Mr. ChristopherHarper, Mr. Mark Heald, Mr. Oliver Heath, Mr. David Howarth, David Watkinson, Angela
NOES Austin, Mr. IanCooper, Rosie Dhanda, Mr. Parmjit Hillier, Meg Hodgson, Mrs. Sharon Keeley, Barbara Love, Mr. Andrew Murphy, Mr. Jim Seabeck, Alison Question accordingly negatived. Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill. Mr. Chope: We could have avoided this if the Minister had accepted my intervention earlier, but he was not prepared to justify his assertion that I was
On a very small point, when the Minister appeared before the Procedure Committee, he was asked why the wording in clause 16 was slightly different from that in the predecessor 2001 Act. He was slightly taken by surprise, and Ms Jennings, who was there supporting the Minister, said that the Minister would check up on the matter and report back to the Committee. I am not aware of having seen a response to the Procedure Committee in light of that exchange; I wonder whether the Minister could enlighten us about that. Mr. Murphy: Just to reassure the hon. Gentleman, I was not suggesting that he was unhappy that the Government were accepting some amendments; I was suggesting that he would be unhappy that we were not accepting the amendments to the previous clause. Perhaps that was a misinterpretation because of my accent, or perhaps he is hearing things again. I will investigate whether the response to the question that the hon. Gentleman mentioned has been given to the relevant Select Committee, and will perhaps bring that to the Committee’s attention. I will certainly investigate his point. Question put and agreed to. Clause 16 ordered to stand part of the Bill. Clause 17 Calculation of time periods Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill. Mr. Heald: I just wonder whether the Minister could confirm that, in calculating the periods of time referred to in clauses 13 to 16, time does not run in the vacation. Sometimes, one reads these things and finds that they have almost the opposite effect to what one thought. It will be extremely helpful to know what is meant. Mr. Heath: I am fairly clear that the recess, being a period during which the
would not be counted, but what concerns me is what apparently would be counted. A “period of days” could be calculated either side of a Prorogation or Dissolution. I am extremely concerned that orders might be laid before a Dissolution, and then picked up in the opening days of a new Parliament, as Parliament sits, and while swearing in takes place. The clear implication of the clause is that orders can persist over a period of Dissolution or Prorogation; it cannot be interpreted in any other way. I have to say that that is not acceptable. The Minister will have to go away and come back with better wording, because I certainly am not about to accept the principle that such orders could persist during the Dissolution of Parliament. That would be a constitutional outrage, frankly, and I
My other point is about the interrelationship between the provisions in this part of the Bill on legislative procedure, Standing Orders and rules of the House. I would like an assurance from the Minister that he has had appropriate discussions with the Leader of the House regarding draft changes to Standing Orders being prepared and that we may have sight of those in the House in the context of Report stage, because they refer to our House. We should be clear what the consequential changes in Standing Orders would be to give effect to the legislative procedural proposals that fall within the Bill. 6.30 pmMr. Harper: The hon. Gentleman makes a good point. It is interesting that in its report, the Regulatory Reform Committee detailed some of the changes that it thought were consequential on these changes. It would be helpful if the Minister indicated whether he wanted those changes, or whether, having thought about it and discussed it with the Leader of the House, there might be other changes. As the hon. Gentleman said, it would be helpful to have those matters laid out as we consider the rest of the Bill before Report. Mr. Heath: I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman’s support, but this is more than important—it is essential. I am not a great buyer of pigs in pokes, and I am rather fed up with the Bill, because I am being asked to buy a great number of pigs in a substantial number of pokes. Will the Minister remove at least some of the aforesaid pigs from their pokes and give us a clear assurance that if the Leader of the House has not done this work already, he will do so as a matter of expedition and will, perhaps, write to you, Sir Nicholas, as Chairman of this Committee, and Committee members explaining the draft proposals for the changes in Standing Orders, because that is absolutely instrumental to our understanding of the safeguards that are to be put in place as a result of the Bill? I repeat the point, which has repeatedly been made throughout our discussions on the Bill, that we are not prepared to accept assurances as to what will be parliamentary procedure. We want to see it in black and white and make sure that it accords with our expectation of what will happen in practice when dealing with orders of this kind. Mr. Chope: The hon. Gentleman makes a good point. Perhaps I may reinforce it by reminding hon. Members that the Procedure Committee raised with the Minister the issue of why the Government were precluding the House authorities from deciding that a different Committee might deal with the procedural side of the orders, as opposed to the substance of the orders. Rather than leaving that open to the House authorities and Standing Orders to resolve, the Minister is taking powers in the Bill to require that
Mr. Murphy: The hon. Member for Somerton and Frome, with his pig in a poke comparison, refers to his previous occupation. I think that he was a pig breeder in a previous life. Mr. Heath: It was not an occupation, but a vocation. Mr. Murphy: That was before he became an optician. I have no idea. Certainly, that is where he gets his analogy from. On the point made by the hon. Member for Christchurch, it is still the Government’s opinion that the assessment of the correct procedure to be followed and the policy content of an order best rests with one Committee. Mr. Chope: But why should that be for the Government to decide, rather than the House? Mr. Murphy: Because in our view, that is the most effective way to deliver this enabling Bill. The Regulatory Reform Committee will be able to assess the policy content of the proposed order. It will, based on its assessment of that content, recommend which procedure should be followed, rather than making an assessment of the policy content and passing the procedural assessment and recommendation-making power to another Committee. That is simply the most effective way for us to work in the House. Mr. Harper: There is a good point to be made here about what the Bill will be used for. Given that the Minister says that it is for deregulation, it would be perfectly appropriate for the Regulatory Reform Committee to consider the nature of proposals. If the Bill is used, as its scope allows it to be used, for things other than deregulation, it is not entirely clear whether that Committee is the right Committee, or whether it would have the competence to assess matters outside its scope of policy. Mr. Murphy: The hon. Gentleman, characteristically, makes a reasonable point. I touched on this issue in some of the evidence sessions, I believe. If not, I make it clear now that it is for the House to decide which Committee is appropriate, but we believe that the same Committee should deal with both procedure and policy content. I hope that that helps the hon. Gentleman. I move to the point about Prorogation. I think that the hon. Member for North-East Hertfordshire used the term “vacation”; regardless of the legal background, I am not sure that Parliament has a vacation. As far as recesses are concerned, the clause is fairly similar to the relevant clause—clause 10, I think—of the 2001 Act, but is slightly more open or generous in that it refers to “either House”. Clause 17 sets out the method for calculating the length of the parliamentary scrutiny period. When calculating the time periods mentioned in clauses 13 to 16, any time in
Mr. Heath: I say, in parenthesis, of my pig-breeding that my Tamworths were not so much an occupation as a regulatory burden. The Minister simply read out what is written in the clause as a reassurance, but it does not reassure me. I accept entirely his preparedness to reconsider it and write to me again, but there can be no question of time during which Parliament is dissolved counting as part of the time period for the benefit of clauses 13 to 16, because the orders fall. Therefore, the reference to time in which Parliament is dissolved is either superfluous or sinister. Either way, it should not be there. I do not believe that an order can persist during a period in which Parliament is dissolved. It should not persist during a period in which Parliament is prorogued, but that is a more arguable case. The fact that the Minister finds it necessary to say that those time periods will not be counted for the purposes of totting up the periods under these clauses suggests that someone, somewhere believes that they will. Mr. Murphy indicated dissent. Mr. Heath: The Minister shakes his head. That is a hopeful sign that, once again, what the Bill says is not what he intends. If that is the case, he will need to write to us to explain why it says what it says and how it could be construed in any other way than that which I have suggested. I do not intend to pursue this any further now, but I do expect the Minister to write, as promised, to explain the purpose of those words in those circumstances. Mr. Murphy: I do not want to dwell on the hon. Gentleman’s previous role as a pig farmer; I am a vegetarian, so I do not want to get involved in such a conversation. I am vegetarian because I worked in a
Question put and agreed to. Clause 17 ordered to stand part of the Bill. Clause 18 Interpretation of Part 1 Amendment proposed: No. 61, in clause 18, page 9, line 35, at end add—
Question put, That the amendment be made:— The Committee divided: Ayes 6, Noes 9. [Division No. 14] AYES Chope, Mr. ChristopherHarper, Mr. Mark Heald, Mr. Oliver Heath, Mr. David Howarth, David Watkinson, Angela
NOES Austin, Mr. IanBanks, Gordon Cooper, Rosie Dhanda, Mr. Parmjit Hillier, Meg Hodgson, Mrs. Sharon Keeley, Barbara Love, Mr. Andrew Murphy, Mr. Jim Question accordingly negatived. Clause 18 ordered to stand part of the Bill. Further consideration adjourned.—[Mr. Dhanda.] Adjourned accordingly at seventeen minutes to Seven o’clock till Thursday 9 March at Nine o’clock. |
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