Draft Criminal Justice and Police Act 2001 (Powers of Seizure) Order 2018
Debate between Sam Gyimah and Alan Whitehead(6 years, 8 months ago)
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Mr Gyimah
I thank hon. Members for their valuable and relevant comments on the order. The first point made by the Opposition spokesperson was about whether this power would encourage fishing expeditions on the part of Ofgem. To assuage his concerns and those of the Committee, the terms of the warrant to conduct seize and sift will be clear and well defined. Ofgem will only seize and retain information that is relevant to the investigation at hand and specified in the warrant.
There was also concern about the timing and the sense of urgency regarding the consultation and the path to where we are now. The Government have been considering priorities against a very restricted legislative timetable, as the hon. Member for Southampton, Test, will be aware. A decision was taken in July 2017 to take forward the proposals on REMIT separately from the other proposals in the consultation. The timeline was driven by the non-REMIT part of the consultation, which included proposals for new primary legislation, on which decisions were due to be taken in early 2016. The opportunity for that decision to be taken was then delayed. I hope that that gives some background on the timing.
Dr Whitehead
The other piece of secondary legislation to which the Minister has referred comes under another area of law and, as far as we understand, that has been laid before Parliament as a negative statutory instrument and will come into force on 9 April, I think. That appears to suggest that the two bits of legislation that were set out in the consultation ran in parallel and not separately, as he appears to be suggesting.