Public Bodies Bill [HL]

Lord Campbell of Alloway Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd November 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Campbell of Alloway]

I support the noble Lord’s Amendments 1 and 175. What he said was wholly consistent with the acknowledged function of this House to protect the constitution and to amend the Bill as it goes through, to delay it and afford the other place an opportunity to reconsider or, indeed, to compromise. What the noble Lord said is wholly consistent with that. What the Opposition will say in a moment is not, so I am not speaking about the Opposition. This is a sound approach for the reasons that I have given and it was very well presented.

[Lord Pannick]

I have added my name to the amendments tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Lester of Herne Hill, for a simple reason: this is a bad Bill. It confers excessive power on the Executive. It is of fundamental importance to include in the Bill as many protective provisions as possible.

Amendment 1, read with Amendment 175, has a simple purpose. It would restrict ministerial powers so that they can be exercised only in a way that is compatible with judicial independence and human rights and freedoms; is used proportionately; and does not prevent a public body performing its functions to establish facts or to give expert advice independently and impartially. I cannot imagine that the Minister could possibly disagree with any of those well established principles. I suspect he might say that he is doubtful that such principles need to be expressed in the Bill. However, he does then need to explain to the Committee why such principles were expressly included in the 2006 Act. He also needs not merely to explain this question of precedent but to address the question of principle.

Given the breadth of the powers that the Minister seeks in the context of the Bill; given the concerns that were expressed about the scope of those powers by your Lordships’ Committee on the Constitution, of which I am a member, and by your Lordships’ Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee; and given the concerns expressed by many of your Lordships at Second Reading, it is of vital importance to identify in the Bill important constraints on the exercise of these powers. It is important for two reasons. It is important to ensure that future Ministers are as careful in their use of the powers as I am sure the Minister will be. It is also important to reassure public bodies and members of the public that we in Parliament have not lightly conferred such powers on Ministers, but rather that we have been anxious to emphasise in the Bill that there are important limits on what Parliament is willing to authorise Ministers to do.

The importance of Amendment 1, read with Amendment 175, is confirmed by the much weaker protection that the Minister is inviting the Committee to add to the Bill in his amendments. The Government’s amendments, although a welcome improvement on the original Bill, are insufficient. They simply require the Minister to consider defined matters before exercising powers. They do not—as they should—prevent the Minister making an order if and to the extent that it would interfere with the independence of the judiciary, or concern functions which require to be exercised independently of Ministers as they involve giving impartial advice or the scrutiny of Ministers’ actions. For example, government Amendment 108, which we are considering in this group, will require the Minister to consider only the extent to which the functions affected by the order need to be exercised independently of Ministers. If the functions do indeed relate to such matters, primary legislation should be required to ensure proper parliamentary scrutiny. Amendment 109, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Lester of Herne Hill, would remove from Clause 8(2) “the Minister considers that” in relation to necessary protections.

It should not be simply a matter of the Minister forming an opinion on these matters; the Bill must provide that he or she cannot make an order if it would remove necessary protections, such as interfering with the independence of the judiciary. That would ensure—