Space Industry Bill [HL]

Lord Steel of Aikwood Excerpts

Committee: 3rd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 23rd October 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Randerson (LD)]

My Lords, I am sure noble Lords will have noted that this amendment has support from the Labour Benches. That is significant. We are still on Clause 66—not the most popular clause in the Bill. As the Bill stands, the Secretary of State could make “minor and consequential amendments”—that phrase again—to an Act of the Scottish Parliament, an Act or Measure of the Welsh Assembly or any Northern Ireland legislation, without the consent of the relevant national legislature. This amendment would require its consent if any regulations created under this section would amend legislation it had passed.

I set out the arguments for the need for specific reference to the powers of the devolved legislatures in debate last week, so I will not detain the House by going into detail on that aspect again—save to say that a spaceport would have a major impact on its surrounding area, so conflicting views on access to land, rights of way and so forth could well arise. It is therefore essential that there is no possibility that the UK Government have the power to override the legislation put in place by the devolved Administrations. I will give an example. Planning law in Wales has diverged quite considerably from that in England and could be applied in relation to spaceport building in a very different way from the way the UK Government might expect it to be applied. Since the licensing process remains with the UK Government, the likelihood of conflict exists. It is simply not acceptable for the UK Government to have the power, if they find that a conflict exists, to be able to solve that conflict by amending devolved legislation without the specific agreement of the relevant legislature.

I noted the Minister’s definition of “minor and consequential”. The sort of situation I am thinking of would be covered by the term “consequential amendment”. I draw the attention of noble Lords to the comments of the House of Lords Constitution Committee, which stated:

“The Bill does not … make any provision for the devolved legislatures’ consent to be sought in respect of regulations amending or repealing devolved legislation. We noted a comparable issue in our scrutiny of the Wales Bill 2016-17. The House may wish to consider whether it would be more appropriate for the consent of the devolved legislatures to be required when this power is used to amend or repeal legislation enacted by them—as, for example, is the case for certain statutory instruments made under the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Act 2006 and the Public Bodies Act 2011”.


That paragraph means that, first, the Government have previous on this—they tried to do the same thing in what is the now the Wales Act and provoked a huge amount of controversy; and, secondly, that there are ways of doing it, and it was done satisfactorily in both the regulatory reform Act and the Public Bodies Act. I urge the Minister to take the amendment away and give it serious thought. There is cross-party support and the judgment of the House of Lords Constitution Committee is against this aspect of the Bill. Surely those two forces together should persuade the Government to think again. I beg to move.

[Lord Steel of Aikwood (LD)]

My Lords, I will speak very briefly in support of what my noble friend has just said. As a former Presiding Officer of the Scottish Parliament, I must admit that I know nothing about this particular Bill—but the principle she had enunciated is very important. Indeed, it seems to me that this clause, unamended, almost falls foul of the Scotland Act as we passed it in this House. So I hope that the Minister will take this issue away. I see no reason for having this in the Bill at all. It surely should be possible, as a matter of courtesy, simply to talk to the Scottish Parliament, the Welsh Assembly and the Northern Ireland Assembly—if it was recreated. I do not see the need for this issue to arise at all. It is a very dangerous principle and I am grateful to my noble friend for raising it.

[Lord Rosser]

My Lords, my name and that of my noble friend Lord Tunnicliffe are attached to the amendment moved by the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson. The points have already been made in support of the amendment and reference made to the views expressed by the Constitution Committee in its report. One hopes only that the Government are going to take on board what the Constitution Committee had to say.