Taxation (Cross-border Trade) Bill (Second sitting)

Debate between William Wragg and Kirsty Blackman

Tuesday 23rd January 2018 Public Bill Committees

[Mr Wragg]

Q But do you recognise the fundamental difference between this Bill and the European Union (Withdrawal) Bill, on which the Government accepted five of the amendments that concerned enhanced scrutiny? Do you recognise that distinction?

Joel Blackwell: Yes.

[Kirsty Blackman]

Q With all the issues that have been raised, especially about the negative procedure and the ways in which the House of Commons can scrutinise this, given it is not going to the Lords particularly, do you think this is a good way to do things or would there be a better way?

Joel Blackwell: I think that the Hansard Society would like to see an equivalent Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee, first off, in the lower House—or some MP in the composition of a Joint Committee or what have you. That would be a good opportunity.

I think that delegated powers notes are extremely useful documents. This one is 174 pages long. There are well over 150 delegated powers in the Bill. Some of the justifications I am struggling with, particularly as regards the use of urgency and non-urgency. I think time is an issue here, particularly if you do not have the backstop of further scrutiny by a Chamber—the second House—that is usually very good at looking at delegated legislation and has taking the lead on it in the past.

When we were doing a similar Bill, which became the Welfare Reform Act 2012, a call by many MPs on the Public Bill Committee at the time was that it would be really useful if they had draft regulations alongside the scrutiny of the Bill. You could do things like that to improve scrutiny of delegated powers but, fundamentally, the lack of representation, the fact that you would have to wait for the Bill to get to the House of Lords for a report to be published, is an issue.

Perhaps one way around that is that the House of Lords Delegated Powers Committee does what it has done for this Bill and the European Union (Withdrawal) Bill, and publishes, as usual practice, the Bill as soon as it enters the House of Commons.