European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Baroness Kramer Excerpts

Committee: 10th sitting (Hansard - continued): House of Lords
Monday 26th March 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Tyler (LD)]

My Lords, I endorse the contributions of the noble Lord, Lord Lisvane, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, and draw attention to the work of the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee, on which the noble Lord, Lord Lisvane, and I sit. One of the things the committee found most uncomfortable was the extent to which Ministers have played games with words in their explanatory memoranda. We were particularly critical of the reference in Schedule 4 to tax-like charges. The committee stated:

“A ‘tax-like charge’ means a tax. Taxes and tax-like charges should not be allowed in subordinate legislation. They are matters for Parliament, a principle central to the Bill of Rights 1688”.


It is not so late and therefore I shall indulge in some further remarks. My only really respectable connection with your Lordships’ House is that of my ancestor, the great Bishop Jonathan Trelawny, the Cornish folk hero who was one of the seven bishops to defy James II’s attempts to impose rules upon this country without Parliament’s acceptance. His portrait is in the Peers’ Guest Room—he is the one at the end with the Beatles haircut.

I make that point because I am amazed and ashamed that Members of the House of Commons have not seen the dangers in this part of the Bill. I speak as a former Member of the House of Commons. This issue goes back to not just the Bill of Rights and the Glorious Revolution of 1688, but far earlier. Reference was made to the Bill of Rights in previous exchanges in Committee. The short-circuiting of the most basic responsibility and role of the House of Commons of approving taxes seems to me an extremely important issue. We should not allow this precedent to be pursued in this Bill. It is the historic role of the House of Commons. I recall that when we had exchanges about tax credits, the former Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr George Osborne, sought to short-circuit and get round the normal process by which the House of Commons decides financial matters. I remember at the time that the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, referred, I think, to ship money and Charles I, saying that the last time a member of the Executive sought to short-circuit Parliament, he lost his head.

[Baroness Kramer (LD)]

My Lords, I shall add a very quick word because so much has already been said. There is an irony in Schedule 4 which may interest the Committee: namely that the power to provide for fees and charges has been handed to Ministers by means of either secondary or tertiary regulation, depending on which part of this measure you are looking at. Paragraph 3 of Schedule 4 states:

“A Minister of the Crown may only make regulations under paragraph 1 with the consent of the Treasury”.


The irony of that is, frankly, extraordinary because it shows where the Government intend the power of the land to lie. We have always suspected that the Treasury is handed some of the greatest powers that are denied to Parliament. If it is considered fit for the Treasury to be able to intervene in fees and charges, then surely it is Parliament’s right to be able to intervene, scrutinise and monitor those fees and charges.

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town]

My Lords, I do not think that the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, was threatening to cut the right reverend Prelate’s head off because of this. However, what may have been a threat to the Minister was to me a great delight: the promise of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, that he will do this with knobs on when we come back on Report. I look forward to that.