Housing and Planning Bill

Debate between Viscount Eccles and Lord Kerslake

Wednesday 13th April 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Kerslake (CB)]

My Lords, I will speak very briefly on this issue because it is almost impossible to follow that advocacy. I learned more in that particular bit about the process of dealing with these issues than I have over a long period.

During the Bill’s passage, there has been a great deal of concern about the things we do not know and cannot see at this point in its progress. We will come on to the question of secondary legislation, as the noble Lord, Lord Lisvane, said, but here and now we have an opportunity to get this issue right between regulation and determination. Any technical issues that might flow from that were amply addressed by the noble Lord. I commend the amendment to the House as a practical and sensible way to address a continuing strand of debate throughout the whole passage of the Bill.

[Viscount Eccles (Con)]

My Lords, some years ago, I was a member of the Delegated Powers Committee. Determinations are almost always undesirable. They are arrived at and presented as an option of last resort because, as the noble Lord, Lord Lisvane, said, the matter being considered has become very complicated and detailed. Determinations are a sort of escape clause, as I see it. In a parliamentary democracy, they are inherently undesirable, and I therefore support the amendment.