Groceries Code Adjudicator Bill [HL]
Debate between Duke of Montrose and Lord Knight of Weymouth
Lord Knight of Weymouth
My Lords, as I indicated in Committee, I think the noble Lord, Lord True, has a point. At Second Reading I said that I did not find these “folksy” headings—as the noble Baroness, Lady Byford, called them—offensive. I think they are fine, but the noble Lord, Lord True, is right that we here in Parliament should have the ability to amend them. He made mention of the responsibility of the Bill Minister in respect of these headings; of course there are also Private Members’ Bills, where you have to trust the individual parliamentarian to get it right. You could have a campaigning parliamentarian bringing forward Private Member’s legislation who would use the fact that Parliament cannot amend these sub-headings to say some quite odd things.
As the noble Lord, Lord True, says, if we are going to go down this road, the Government and the parliamentary authorities need to give some consideration to how we in Parliament can have some say over these sub-headings and not just leave it to informal chats with whoever is responsible for the Bill.
The Duke of Montrose
If the Government feel that they need these interrogatory questions put in print, are the Explanatory Notes not also available online, along with the Bill? Could these questions not be laid out in the Explanatory Notes rather than in the Bill itself?