Data Protection, Privacy and Electronic Communications (Amendments etc) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019 Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateLord Trefgarne
Main Page: Lord Trefgarne (Conservative - Excepted Hereditary)Department Debates - View all Lord Trefgarne's debates with the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport
(5 years, 8 months ago)
Lords ChamberThat raises the issue of why that is not in any of the information before your Lordships. I was not aware of that at all. It is not flagged up in any of the documentation. Like other noble Lords, I appreciate hugely the work done by our Select Committees but the committee’s view is not always completely clear to the House when these instruments come before it, unless the committee has issued a formal report. We do not get full value from our Select Committees in the way that their work is presented. For instance, I am surprised that the chairs of these Select Committees do not comment on these instruments based on the committees’ work. I see that one of the chairs is sitting opposite; perhaps he would like to intervene.
All I can say at the moment is that the letter to which the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, referred has not gone quite yet.
That is because of a dispute between the two chairs. Sub-Committee B agreed in discussions last week about the terms of that letter and will meet tomorrow. I do not know what has happened today in Sub-Committee A, but Sub-Committee B made a decision, based on the statutory instruments it saw, to object to the Treasury’s objectionable policy. If Sub-Committee A does not agree, I hope that Sub-Committee B—which is dealing with half of these instruments—will send the letter on its own. Another member of Sub-Committee B is currently sitting in the Chamber.
Perhaps I misheard the noble Lord—we will call them distinguished lawyers.
However, there is a dispute going on between the chairs of Sub-Committee A and Sub-Committee B. I do not know how these disputes are resolved. Do they come to the House? Perhaps they should come to the House.
My Lords, I can assure both noble Lords, Lord Adonis and Lord Rooker, that agreement is very close.
My Lords, I hope that it is close, because meanwhile we have another seven of these instruments to consider today and the whole of the Order Paper for Wednesday has, I think, another dozen of them. We also have hundreds more coming next week. Perhaps I may say to the noble Lord that I hope that this can be resolved extremely quickly and that we can find a satisfactory way forward, because the issue of the lack of impact assessments seems to be entirely arbitrary. We have some on the later instruments that will be introduced by the noble Lord, Lord Bates, but there are none on these. However, no formal consultation has been carried out on any of the instruments.