Public Bodies Bill [HL]

Baroness O'Loan Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd November 2010 Lords Chamber

[Baroness O'Loan]

My Lords, I declare an interest as a member of the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee, although I speak not for the committee but in a personal capacity.

There is no doubt that it is sensible to review the activities of public bodies—the House is agreed on that—but there are already processes within most pieces of legislation to provide for that. Quinquennial and other reviews, which are a factor of the corporate life of most public bodies, provide regular opportunities for consideration of all the issues such as functions, powers and budgets that are referred to in the Bill. The use of such reviews could provide a starting point from which there could be a coherent review of individual bodies that might, or might not, lead to the need for primary legislation.

Given the importance—indeed, the essential nature—of the work of some of the bodies included in the Bill that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Woolf, and other noble Peers have highlighted, I wish to address whether the Bill includes adequate provision to ensure proper parliamentary control. The problem of course, as noble Lords have all agreed, is that the Bill itself is fundamentally flawed. It is the prerogative of Parliament to make laws, and that prerogative has been exercised on numerous occasions to enable the creation of many of the bodies that are referred to in the Bill, although others were created by royal charter. On each occasion, the passing of the legislation was designed to address a lacuna in current provision and, in many cases, to provide protection in accordance with such fundamentals as the principles of natural justice and human rights. The noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, has already referred to the peculiar nature of the impact assessment that has been produced for the Bill.

The Bill seeks to delegate powers to Ministers to abolish, merge or modify the bodies listed in the schedules to the Bill. Noble Lords have already pointed to the significance of the individual statutory duty on many of those bodies. The Constitution Committee has declared that, in the cases that it examined, the question was whether Ministers should have the power to change the statute book for the specific purposes provided for in the Bill and, if so, whether there are adequate procedural safeguards. The committee stated:

“In our view, the Public Bodies Bill … fails both tests”.

As the noble Baroness, Lady Andrews, says, the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee, which is representative of all parties, unanimously agreed that,

“the powers contained in clauses 1 to 5 and 11 as they are currently drafted are not appropriate delegations of legislative power. They would grant to Ministers unacceptable discretion to rewrite the statute book, with inadequate parliamentary scrutiny of, and control over, the process”.

There has been no change to the essential nature of Clauses 1 to 5 and Clause 11 in the amendments presented by the noble Lord, Lord Taylor. As the noble Lords, Lord Pannick and Lord Lester, have said, when there is a delegation of a legislative power, it must be accompanied by adequate powers of parliamentary control and scrutiny. Where delegation itself is inappropriate and unconstitutional to the extent that the delegation proposed in this Bill has been declared to be, there can be no adequate powers of parliamentary control and scrutiny to redress the mischief clearly contained in the Bill.

The Government have argued that there are time pressures which mean that the legislation must be presented in this form rather than through primary legislation. I suggest—and, indeed, submit—that the effect of this legislation, if passed, would be to lead to very extensive and expensive litigation, some of which would probably end up in the highest courts, both here and in Europe. Even if this Bill were passed, it would become necessary to engage in a long and exhaustive process of consultation for each body. While in some cases the outcome might be simple, in others it clearly would not be the case. Huge concern has been articulated in the public domain.

This Bill, which places in peril the ongoing existence and functions of fundamentally important bodies such as the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions, the Equality and Human Rights Commission, the Criminal Cases Review Commission, the Independent Police Complaints Commission and the Chief Coroner's Office, cannot be subjected to sufficient parliamentary control by virtue of the provisions for control of the delegated legislative powers tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Taylor. I support the noble Baroness, Lady Andrews, in this respect. The impact of this legislation and the extent to which attempts have been made in the House to control the exercise of legislative powers do not address the issue.

[Lord Phillips of Sudbury]

Did the committee of which the noble Baroness is a member conclude that the powers in this Bill are unprecedented in terms of delegation?

[Baroness O'Loan]

I would not wish to speak of the committee without referring back to the report, but we did conclude that the delegation of these powers was inappropriate. We also concluded that, unless there were changes to the legislation, Clause 11 and Schedule 7 should be removed from the Bill.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath]

I shall speak to my Amendment 175 and support the amendments in the names of the noble Lords, Lord Lester and Lord Pannick, and my noble friend Lady Hayter. At Second Reading we made it clear that our concerns with the Bill were not with the principle of a regular review of public bodies or—I say this to the noble Lord, Lord Renton—with the tidying-up process. Our overriding concern is with the draconian powers that could be available to Ministers. I am the first to acknowledge that the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, has introduced a series of amendments and I am grateful to him for so doing, but I simply do not think that they go far enough. The Government have underestimated the concerns of noble Lords. My noble friend Lord Soley was surely right that the amendments are surprising in view of the trenchant criticism made of the Bill by two committees of your Lordships' House. The Constitution Committee said that the Bill,

“strikes at the very heart of our constitutional system”,

while the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee said that it considered,

“the powers contained in clauses 1 to 5 and 11 as they are currently drafted are not appropriate delegations of legislative power. They would grant to Ministers unacceptable discretion to rewrite the statute book, with inadequate parliamentary scrutiny of, and control over, the process”.

That is the context in which we consider this group of amendments. The noble Lord, Lord Elystan-Morgan, said that it is not really about the 450 bodies listed in the Bill; it is about the relationship between the Executive and Parliament. He is absolutely right.