Haulage Permits and Trailer Registration Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Blencathra and Lord Tunnicliffe

Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Thursday 22nd March 2018 Grand Committee

[Lord Tunnicliffe]

My Lords, in moving Amendment 21, I will speak also to Amendments 24, 25 and 27. This group and the next group of amendments are vehicles to effect the recommendations of the Select Committee on the Constitution and the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee. I hope the Minister will agree with everything I have to say because traditionally the Government respect those committees for the very careful work they do. It is good to see the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, here. I am sure he will speak to these amendments. The work of these committees is essential to keep our law sensible, balanced and correctly scrutinised.

The 11th report of the Select Committee on the Constitution, published on 8 March, says at paragraph 7:

“If there are exceptional circumstances which require the creation of criminal offences by regulations, they should normally be subject to the affirmative procedure”.


It then goes on to talk about sifting. Clause 17(7) of the Bill says:

“Regulations under this section may not provide for an offence to be punishable with imprisonment or with a fine exceeding level 3 on the standard scale”.


But clearly there is a criminal offence and as a general rule we do not believe that any criminal offence should be introduced with a negative instrument. I hope the Minister will agree.

Turning to the subject of Amendment 27, the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee says:

“Although the Government do not currently know what regulations under clause 2 will contain or how significant they will be, the Government propose that the negative procedure will always apply to such regulations. For the reasons given at paragraph 9 above, we recommend that there should be a sifting procedure”—


I will come on to that—

“allowing a scrutiny committee to recommend an uprating of the negative procedure to the affirmative procedure”.

Paragraph 9 says:

“We also recommend that there should be a sifting procedure for regulations under clause 1—akin to the one we recommended for the European Union (Withdrawal) Bill—allowing a scrutiny committee to recommend an uprating of the negative procedure to the affirmative procedure”.


The Select Committee on the Constitution also made some references to Clauses 8 and 17. Therefore, for simplicity’s sake, we recommend that all the regulations under Clauses 1, 2, 8 and 17 should be subject to a sifting procedure which can decide whether any should be subject to the affirmative resolution procedure. I beg to move.

[Lord Blencathra]

My Lords, as the chairman of the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee, I am delighted to say a few words on Amendment 27. No doubt my noble friend the Minister swotted up on all the briefs and the grand issues relating to Brexit and European trailers; little did she know that she would have to hear confessions from Members on all sides of the Committee about their experiences driving good trailers, big trailers and dodgy little trailers—and wheels falling off.

I am not sure whether I can trump the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, but as a boy up on the farm in the Highlands I was able to drive a tractor by the age of 10 and drive it on the highway by the age of 12. When I was allowed legally to drive a car on the highway, my first car was a three-gear Ford Prefect which, on a long downhill slope, I once got up to 62 miles an hour—I could drive the tractors a bit faster.

The Delegated Powers Committee has recommended the sifting committee procedure for Clauses 1 and 2. We recommend it for Clause 1 because, as we say in our report,

“the content of any regulations made under clause 1 will depend on future international agreements … there is no current indication as to what regulations under clause 1 might say or how important they might be, if they are needed at all … it cannot be known in advance that the negative procedure will always be suitable for regulations made under clause 1 … it might transpire that some regulations made under clause 1 might require the affirmative procedure”.

On Clause 2, to shorten our report to the basics, we cite the Explanatory Memorandum which states that,

“it is not yet clear what sort of a regime or regimes will need to be introduced and, in the interest of ensuring that the provisions cater for agreed scenarios and are not too wide, it is necessary to legislate by way of secondary legislation once negotiations have been concluded and the nature of any permit scheme that needs to be introduced is clear”.

We say:

“Although the Government do not currently know what regulations under clause 2 will contain or how significant they will be, the Government propose that the negative procedure will always apply”.


For that reason, we think that there should be a sifting mechanism where colleagues in the House can decide which ones are tiddly statutory instruments and the negative procedure is okay and which ones require the affirmative procedure.

We stress in paragraph 10:

“We are not seeking to make a sifting mechanism a general feature of our legislative landscape”—


we are not seeking to attach it to every Brexit Bill.

“However, the circumstances of the United Kingdom’s exit from the European Union have given rise to unique legislative challenges”.


We know that next year we may have 800 to 1,000 statutory instruments to get through, perhaps in a short period of time. In those circumstances we have recommended the sifting procedure to the House. I know that the Leader of the House, the Lord Privy Seal, has rejected that already, but we recommend it for the Bill because the first five clauses begin with the words, “Regulations may”. That is almost unique. Because there will be so many regulations and some will be routine, trivial and therefore not crucial, some will be mega important and may require the affirmative procedure, we commend the sifting mechanism—exactly the same procedure as we identified in the European Union (Withdrawal) Bill, using the same secondary legislation scrutiny procedure, not creating any new all-singing all-dancing committee—to the Committee, and I commend it to my noble friend.

Psychoactive Substances Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Blencathra and Lord Tunnicliffe

Tuesday 23rd June 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Blencathra]

My Lords, I would be interested in hearing the Minister’s response to the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher. She seems to have a fairly good point—to me as an amateur anyway.

I wish to make my remarks mainly about Amendment 9. This may be heretical to noble and learned Lords and parliamentary draftsmen, but why can we not have the Government’s definition and the definition in Amendment 9? Definitions are going to be the big problem with this Bill—everybody recognises that—and I see no merit in brevity of definition if it makes for confusion. On the other hand, we do not want it to be tautological and we do not want too big a definition which is contradictory. I am sure that noble and learned Lords and parliamentary draftsmen will ensure that that does not happen. I ask the Minister to keep an open mind on this and be relaxed about extending the definition or picking up bits of Amendment 9 if it helps to bring more clarity, irrespective of the length of the definition.

[Lord Tunnicliffe]

My Lords, I shall comment briefly on this group. I hear the debate on Amendments 7 and 8 and will be interested in the Minister’s response. On Amendment 10, similarly, we will be interested in the Minister’s response.

On Amendment 9, I see this Bill—and I will be grateful if the Minister can flesh out whether he sees it in the same way—as a very narrow Bill. Broadly speaking, everything is illegal except the things that are defined as legal. Bringing in the word “significant” seems to me to be getting into significant bad and not significant good, and therefore we are into the area of legal challenges et cetera. The idea of the Bill, I think, is to be free from legal challenge and that is why it is formed in that way. The Minister will no doubt enlighten me.

The point of the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, on the process—of how the judgment will be made that a substance is psychoactive—is a good one. I would be grateful if either now, or perhaps in writing, the Minister could spell out how the Government envisage determining whether a substance is indeed a psychoactive substance.