European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Lord Lisvane Excerpts

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

[Lord Adonis (Lab)]

The debate that I seek to initiate is on the ability to increase fees and charges by delegated or sub-delegated powers. It is a straightforward matter of proper parliamentary oversight that that should not happen.

Having said that, my role in this debate is one which I am now performing regularly in this Committee—to act as John the Baptist to my good noble friend Lord Lisvane, who is probably the greatest expert in the history of Parliament on the procedures which are adequate and necessary for raising fees and charges. I now make way for the authorised version to be given to the Committee.

[Lord Lisvane (CB)]

My Lords, there are few better warm-up men than the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, but I fear that I will disappoint your Lordships. As the Question formally before the Committee is whether Clause 12 shall stand part of the Bill, I will speak to Amendments 348 and 349 rather than moving Amendment 348. The amendments are in my name and those of my noble and learned friend Lord Judge, my noble friend Lord Pannick and the noble Lord, Lord Tyler. I can be very brief, even at this refreshingly early hour of the evening, as the issues in both amendments have already been considered by the Committee in one way or another. It may indeed be that we have had a sneak preview of the Minister’s response on both issues.

Amendment 348 would prevent fees or charges to be levied by tertiary legislation. At an earlier stage, I expressed concern that this Bill, already proposing to confer sweeping powers upon Ministers, should go even further and permit the making of the law of the land by persons and bodies authorised by a Minister. The authorisation would, as the Minister said in an earlier debate, be subject to the affirmative procedure, but once that authorisation had been made, the law made under it would be under no sort of parliamentary control and, unless in the form of a statutory instrument—which it would not be—would not even be required to be published.

The arguments against tertiary legislation become even stronger when the powers being given to persons and bodies would allow them to levy fees and charges which might well be used to gold-plate their functions. Clause 14(1) defines “public authority” by reference to Section 6 of the Human Rights Act 1998, and Section 6(3) of that Act, in turn, defines “a public authority” as including a court or tribunal—which is fine—but also,

“any person certain of whose functions are functions of a public nature”.

That spreads the net very wide indeed.

Amendment 349 returns to the issue of ancient principle that taxation should be by primary legislation, not by statutory instrument. When this was considered by the Committee earlier in its proceedings, your Lordships were supportive of the proposition that it should be for the House of Commons to impose taxation by primary legislation, not for Ministers to do it by regulations. In a sense, we are possibly getting a little punch drunk as we see power after power after power being arrogated to Ministers. This is one which should not be.

[Lord Judge (CB)]

My Lords, I was not able, for unavoidable reasons, to be here when the issue of tertiary legislation was addressed in the course of the debate on this Bill, so I want to add something. I do not think that even those who do not see eye to eye with me would accuse me of being an ardent advocate of secondary legislation: I am not. I spoke about this at Second Reading and have been extremely reticent on the issue in Committee, but I shall return to it in much greater detail on Report.

I support my noble friend Lord Lisvane. The provision we are considering—I will take it quite slowly, because this is how I see it—would vest powers in a Minister to use secondary legislation, with negligible proper scrutiny, if any, to bestow lawmaking powers on a public authority, with even less scrutiny. It amounts, in effect, to scrutiny being diminished to extinction. In that process, we as lawmakers are not doing right. We are simply handing power over to people who should not have it. This tertiary form of legislation is, therefore, even more questionable than secondary legislation, for the same reasons and—I add, at this time of night—with knobs on.