Statutory Instruments (Amendment) Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Thomas of Gresford and Baroness Finn

3rd reading
Friday 13th June 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Thomas of Gresford (LD)]

I beg to move.

[Baroness Finn (Con)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to speak to this Bill from the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford. I will not detain your Lordships with a lengthy restatement of our concerns about the Bill, because we made them clear in Committee. I simply say that we have issues with the way it seeks to grant powers to the House of Lords that are arguably greater than the powers afforded to the elected House. Having put those concerns on the record, we did not seek to amend the Bill on Report and will not seek to delay its progress, but we cannot support it.

I close by thanking the Minister for her work on this Bill and, especially, the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford, for his engagement with me throughout its passage. He graciously and generously took time to meet to discuss the details before Committee, which was greatly appreciated.

Statutory Instruments (Amendment) Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Thomas of Gresford and Baroness Finn

Committee stage
Friday 14th March 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Thomas of Gresford (LD)]

My Lords, my objection to this amendment is that it simply does not make sense. We cannot, in the machinery that is set out in my Bill, conceivably exchange the position of the House of Lords for the House of Commons. I am not proposing legislating for the House of Commons but for the House of Lords, in the fulfilment of its function as a revising Chamber. If you change the words round—to read “House of Commons” instead of “House of Lords”—we would be asking the House of Commons to advise itself that it has made a mistake. I do not think that that can be done. The amendment put forward by the noble Baroness, I regret to say, does not make sense in the way that it is framed.

The machinery I have proposed allows the House of Lords to consider an instrument that is put before it and whether it has any concerns. If it has concerns, it does not form them into an amendment to the instrument; it simply conveys those concerns to the House of Commons for it to consider. Clause 1(2) offers two possible courses of action for the House of Commons: it can reject the concerns expressed altogether, and that is the end of that; alternatively, it can request the Minister to make amendments to the draft instrument. It is the House of Commons that makes the suggestion, to the Minister, of an amendment.

You cannot reverse that and suggest that there should be some machinery in the House of Commons to ask the House of Lords to make suggestions of amendments and to frame amendments for a Minister to make. It just does not make sense. Accordingly, since this particular amendment is a complete muddle, and with the greatest respect for the noble Baroness, I ask her to withdraw it.

[Baroness Finn (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford, for engaging with me on this amendment yesterday. I understand why, as he explained then, he thinks that it does not make sense.

We tabled this amendment to highlight the fact that the other place, just like your Lordships’ House, has no power to amend statutory instruments. If your Lordships’ House should have the power to initiate a “think again” process, with the consent of the other place, and to send Ministers back to look at their instrument again, we do not understand why the reverse should not be true—that the other place has the chance to look at it, not just that the Minister bring it.

It could be argued that when the other place disagrees with an instrument as the elected House, it should decline to approve it, yet we know that that has not happened since July 1978. It has been your Lordships’ House that has been more forceful in these matters, having rejected four statutory instruments by fatal Motion since 1997. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.