Procedure and Privileges Committee

Lord Hunt of Wirral Excerpts

Monday 17th July 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hunt of Wirral (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak briefly to the Procedure and Privileges Committee’s recommendation that the terms of reference of the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee, which I am privileged to chair, should be extended to include scrutiny of proposed negative instruments laid under the retained EU law Act. In 2018, the committee was given a similar sifting function in relation to the withdrawal Act, which was later extended to include the sifting of proposed negative instruments under the 2020 future relationship Act.

At the beginning, the committee was in uncharted territory, but under the wise leadership of my noble friend Lord Trefgarne, the noble Lord, Lord Cunningham of Felling, and then my noble friend Lord Hodgson of Astley of Abbotts, ably assisted by the noble Lord, Lord Hutton, and others, together with a strong team of advisers and other staff, I believe the committee has since become well accustomed to what was at the time a novel procedure. Having considered nearly 350 proposed negative instruments laid under the 2018 and 2020 Acts, we would welcome this opportunity to apply our experience to sifting instruments laid under the retained EU law Act.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Lab Co-op)]

My Lords, can I raise a couple of points in relation to leave of absence? I have reason to believe that in one or two cases the leave of absence provision has been exploited in an unfortunate way. I wonder therefore whether the committee and the chairman could consider two things. I understand why this is not retrospective and says “in future”, but first these proposals should be drawn to the attention of those who are currently on leave of absence and, secondly, each current case of leave of absence should be looked at to ensure it is not being exploited in an unfortunate way. If the chairman wants further information, I am very happy to provide it.