Northern Ireland (Executive Formation) Bill

Baroness Barker Excerpts

3rd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 17th July 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barker (LD)]

My Lords, good morning—that will confuse “Yesterday in Parliament”. I rise to speak to Amendment 2, which is mercifully in the same group as the Minister’s amendments. It is a small technical amendment to the amendment in my name that was passed on Report.

Its effect is to change the deadline for the regulation-making powers and consultation from 13 January 2020 to 31 March 2020. Noble Lords who were here will have heard the Minister give a very extensive exposition of the way in which his department will pursue the regulation-making powers under Clause 9 and the very tight timetable it has to work on amendments which are somewhat more complicated than those pertaining to same-sex marriage. All this is intended to do is to give his department sufficient flexibility and the small amount of time it may need if matters fall slightly behind. It is absolutely not intended to be a reason to in any way frustrate or delay for a long time the matters on which we have deliberated in some detail and with great seriousness. I hope when others watching our proceedings come to see this amendment, they will understand the reasons why it has been tabled and the spirit in which it is proposed.

I will sit down very shortly, but I want to put on record my thanks to the staff, the Opposition Front Bench and Members of the Cross Benches, who have worked extremely hard to get us to this point. Above all, I thank the Minister, who has been outstanding on this Bill.

[Noble Lords]

Hear, hear!

--- Later in debate ---

Moved by

[Baroness Barker]

2: Clause 9, page 8, line 15, leave out “13 January 2020” and insert “31 March 2020”