Air Passenger Rights and Air Travel Organisers’ Licensing (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2018
Debate between Lord Deben and Lord Foulkes of Cumnock(5 years, 3 months ago)
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Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
My noble friend has stolen my peroration. He is absolutely right and said it much better than me. It is a frightening prospect that if nothing is agreed, nothing is approved, by the end of March we will face emergency legislation.
Lord Deben
I just wanted to give the noble Lord a chance to rewrite his peroration. Can I ask him very simply, is this what he would define as taking back control?
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
That is an even better peroration. The whole campaign of the leavers was to take back control—if I remember—to the British Parliament, not the British Government. It is not the Government or even the Cabinet, but one person who seems to be ramming it through with some kind of stubbornness and determination. That was not what it was supposed to be about. It was supposed to bring the power back to this Parliament.
I say to my noble friend Lord Adonis, if they try to push it through by emergency legislation that will be a real test of the mettle of every Member of this House, particularly the Cross-Benchers. Are they going to stand up for Parliament, or be subservient to our autocratic Government? That will be the test.
I think I have gone a little bit wider than the statutory instrument and I am grateful for the fact that the Lord Speaker does not have the same powers as the Speaker in another place; otherwise, I might have been ruled out of order by now. I am sorry to be slightly flippant; it is a very serious matter. Coming back to relevance, this one statutory instrument is illustrative of the kind of thing we face in this Parliament at the moment, and it is quite frightening.
Human Fertilisation and Embryology (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019
Debate between Lord Deben and Lord Foulkes of Cumnock(5 years, 4 months ago)
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Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
I certainly do. I see that my noble friend Lord Tunnicliffe is present. He has much greater experience in the House of Lords than I do, and he reminds me that there is a danger in using what I think he called the nuclear option of moving against statutory instruments because of the implications. If we were able to consider amendments to them and amend them in some way, we would not have that worry; we would be able to deal with them in a more specific, detailed, thoughtful and effective way. This is a difficult issue. A lot of people have become increasingly concerned over the years—and I know that this is not just in the Labour Party; it stretches right across the parties to the Conservatives, the Liberal Democrats, the Greens and others—that more and more statutory instruments are just being pushed through, rather than those matters being dealt with in primary legislation.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
The noble Lord, Lord Deben, has said “Hear, hear!” in a very positive way. I remember attending a very interesting world conference on the environment that he chaired brilliantly. He allowed everyone to participate fully, which had not happened under the previous presidency and I think has lapsed under subsequent presidencies. He did it very well indeed, which allowed matters in that area to be considered appropriately. It is good to have endorsement from the other side from someone with such experience.