Equivalence Determinations for Financial Services and Miscellaneous Provisions (Amendment etc) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019

Lord Adonis Excerpts

Monday 18th February 2019 Lords Chamber

I have a final point. Mazzini said that revolution, prima facie, demands an apology. Forcing through regulations without proper discussion and without the time to consider them certainly demands an apology. I have no doubt that the noble Lord who will speak for the Opposition will say, as he so often does, so elegantly, in his special way, “I have spent a lot of time on this but I have not been able to understand some parts of it, however much time I spend on it. It seems that those who have written it have had more time and expertise to do it but have so far not been able to explain it in a way that is entirely accessible by even the reasonably intelligent”. The noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, always refers to himself in this way: he is, of course, extremely intelligent and has understood this very much better than most, but he has said that the Government really ought to be apologising. They ought to be apologising for asking the House to do these things, which in any other circumstances they would not and could not: it is only because the SI system enables them to get away with proposing enormous changes without any costings—either now, tomorrow or in two years’ time, and with no real answer for another decade.

[Lord Adonis (Lab)]

Was the noble Lord in the House to hear the exchanges between the chair of Sub-Committee A and my noble friend Lord Rooker about a letter which apparently is going to be sent to the Treasury, but has not been made available to your Lordships, complaining about the way that consultation and impact assessments have been conducted? It came out only in the course of debate that this letter is in preparation: apparently, the chairs of the two Select Committees cannot agree on the terms of the letter, even though we are in the midst of debating literally dozens of these statutory instruments. Does he not think it would have been a good idea if we had had this letter before this debate? If the relevant authorities of the House are about to write to the Government fundamentally questioning the way that the Government have approached the process of consultation and assessing the impact of these regulations, surely it is not satisfactory for us to be considering these regulations in advance of the completion of that process.

[Lord Deben]

I was indeed in the House to hear that exchange. It was an amazing, remarkable exchange and another example of the total removal of this whole discussion from reality. It was so unusual that I left the House to recover some sense of sanity. First, it is obviously true that we should have had that letter. We thought that the letter, according to a senior member of the committee, had gone. We were then told by the chairman of the Joint Committee that it was almost gone, or nearly gone, or on the way to going. We did not understand whether it would go or whether it still had to be recovered and discussed. The fact of the matter is, I can think of no more appropriate role for the House of Lords than to tell the Treasury that it needs to be very much more precise and correct in its treatment of this House and of the other place. The answer is that it must at least give the figures, and to do that, it has to have a useful impact assessment, not one which is merely a matter of form.

[Lord Adonis]

My Lords, the noble Lord is a distinguished parliamentarian of long experience. Does he not worry that the tone of self-congratulation which we always adopt in this House for the way we conduct scrutiny and the excellence of our processes is coming under serious strain as a result of this no-deal regulation process? The earlier exchanges raise fundamental questions as to whether we are fit for purpose in the way that we are conducting this process ourselves. If it has taken us six months into this no-deal regulation process even to seek to agree an approach to the Government on how they should conduct consultations and impact assessments, does that not fundamentally question the whole process which we are ourselves adopting in holding the Government to account? Earlier a noble Lord made reference to horses bolting and stable doors being closed. Already 100 or so of the statutory instruments have bolted before the Select Committees of this House have been able to agree on what the procedure should be for considering them, let alone whether they are adequate in their own terms.

[Lord Deben]

I feel philosophically and religiously opposed to self-congratulation, so of course I will not suggest that we should congratulate ourselves. As I said earlier, it is quite clear that our processes do not admit the proper consideration of the issues being put before us. However, the second thing which is quite clear—and after this, I really will sit down—is that the world outside thinks that we are absolutely barmy and wonders what on earth Parliament as a whole is doing. The world outside has become less and less willing to accept that our system is fit for purpose. We all know that all political parties—I mean all of them—are not seen by the vast majority of the population as in any way reflecting what they think, want and expect. We are engaged in a serious situation, and one of the sadnesses is that, if we are trying to do the job as well as we can, we have to be involved in them. However, we are involved in them in a way which may well mean that we are ourselves part of the very situation which is undermining the whole reputation of this, the oldest of Parliaments.

[Lord Adonis]

My Lords, I have amendments down in respect of the later statutory instruments, and on the substance of this statutory instrument I do not have much to add to what we have heard so far from the two noble Lords. However, the earlier exchanges raise significant questions. I put on record my hope that when we have the next string of these statutory instruments on Wednesday, the chairs of the two sifting committees might address us on what their procedure will be in respect of the handling and processes of consultation and impact assessments for regulations. I hope that the letter which is to be sent can be agreed—apparently there is a dispute between the chairs of the two sifting committees—and sent tomorrow. It sounds urgently necessary that it should be agreed and sent; indeed, that should probably have happened six months ago, not now. At least we are shutting the stable door after only half the horses have bolted, which I suppose is better than after all of them have left. I put on record that if the letter can be agreed, it is important that it is circulated to your Lordships before the debates on Wednesday, because it will have an important bearing on our proceedings. It may even be possible to slightly shorten our proceedings as a result. I feel obliged to make a speech on each of these statutory instruments about the inadequate processes of consultation and impact assessment, but if the relevant committees of your Lordships’ House are making these points about all the statutory instruments and requiring the Government to improve their regime in respect of all of them, we will not have to go through this gruesome process, statutory instrument by statutory instrument.