Procedure of the House: Seventh Select Committee Report
The Chairman of Committees
That the 7th Report from the Select Committee (HL Paper 206) be agreed to.
The Chairman of Committees (Lord Brabazon of Tara)
My Lords, there are two Procedure Committee reports on the Order Paper today, and I sense that noble Lords may find the second of these more interesting than the first. But the seventh report also raises important matters, so I shall take a few moments to outline the committee’s recommendations.
As noble Lords will be aware, the Localism and Public Bodies Bills have now been through both Houses, and are in the final stages of ping-pong. Both are likely to be granted Royal Assent in the near future, and in the case of the Public Bodies Bill in particular, that may be quickly followed by the laying before Parliament of a number of important draft orders.
Clause 11 of the Public Bodies Bill, which was of course inserted in your Lordships’ House, sets out the process whereby Parliament will scrutinise these orders. A key role is played by any committee which is charged with reporting on any draft order. In particular, if this committee recommends that a particular draft order be subject to an enhanced affirmative procedure, involving a longer scrutiny period, and an opportunity to make further representations to the Minister, then that recommendation will have effect unless the whole House agrees by resolution to overturn the recommendation.
The effect of the report before the House today will be to charge the Merits of Statutory Instruments Committee with the tasks described in the Bill. This will involve some technical changes to the committee’s terms of reference, which are annexed to the report.
The provisions in the Localism Bill relate to orders akin to legislative reform orders, and our recommendation is that broadly the same procedure, of scrutiny by the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee, should apply. Again, this will require some technical changes to the committee’s terms of reference.
I hope noble Lords will join me in paying tribute to the work of both committees affected by this report, and our confidence that they will undertake their new tasks efficiently and fairly.
I hope this explains the background to the seventh report, and I beg to move.