Business of the House
Debate between Lord Cormack and Lord Fox
Lord Fox (LD)
My Lords, I recognise it is unusual for a Member to bring forward a point of procedure but this is an unusual situation. The Procurement Bill started in your Lordships’ House and had its Second Reading on 25 May. The first of five Grand Committee sessions is planned for next Monday. It is a complex Bill with significant ramifications for the whole country. Today the Government tabled 342 amendments to their own Bill. These amendments change a wide range of clauses running right through the Bill. Contrary to the Cabinet Office’s Guide to Making Legislation, not a single amendment has a Member’s explanatory statement, and I cannot see an updated Explanatory Memorandum, nor an impact assessment.
The timing and scale of these amendments are cynical and against the spirit of good legislation. We are used to undercooked legislation, but this Bill is only party formed. To deal with the situation properly, I ask that the Government do what they could, and should, already have done: withdraw this Bill, revise it, produce all the necessary new supporting documentation, and then have a new Second Reading for what is, in effect, a new Bill. Given that Report probably will not surface until October, there is time to do this properly.
Lord Cormack (Con)
My Lords, the noble Lord has made a very reasonable request in the circumstances. This is yet another example—and I have raised many in the past—of the Government treating Parliament with contempt. It is something up with which we should not put. It is just not acceptable for the Government to behave like this, as if we, the Parliament of the United Kingdom, are a creature of the Executive; we are not.