Lord Hunt of Wirral (Con)

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, for reminding us of some of the background with which we deal when we are presented with this Bill. I also thank my noble friend Lord Lansley. His reference to relevant EU law takes us back to pause and reflect on this Bill. As the Minister will know, it was greeted from these Benches in the other place as a bad Bill—a Trojan horse Bill. As my noble friend explained, the Bill does a lot more behind the scenes than appears on the surface and does so through secondary legislation. I thought it might be helpful to remind ourselves, as indeed the House of Commons reminded itself, that the highly prestigious Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee of this House took a view on the Bill. The Minister will remember that he had a special meeting with the committee to try to convince it that it was wrong. I repeat its view, because it is particularly relevant to the point raised by my noble friend and referred to by the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton. After the meeting with the Minister, the committee said: “We remain of the view that … the delegation to Ministers of law-making powers in this Bill involves legislative power shifting to an unacceptable extent from the legislature to the Executive”. It continued that “the Government have failed to provide a convincing justification for the inclusion of skeleton clauses in this Bill that give Ministers such wide powers to re-write in regulations the substance of the regulatory regimes for products and metrology”. From these Benches, we see the Bill as a terrible step back and a Trojan horse because it will tie us to EU red tape over which we will have no say. Through the Bill, the Government will be able to restrict Britain’s innovators with overburdensome regulations which are not in the Bill at the present time but will appear at a later stage. I recall, because I was a witness, although I did not participate directly, that it was the dynamic duo of my noble friend Lord Sharpe of Epsom and the noble Lord, Lord Fox, who came in to save the British pint. I pay tribute to them both. We very much hope that the noble Lord, Lord Fox, will be back with us as quickly as possible, fully restored. He did us all a great service acting in concert with my noble friend Lord Sharpe of Epsom. I worry about this sweeping use of Henry VIII powers and I hope that the Minister will reflect on these comments. I refer him once again—he will know that I have done this many times before—to the most marvellous lecture delivered by the Attorney- General, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hermer KC, on 14 October 2024 entitled “The Rule of Law in an Age of Populism”, in which he laid out a clear path that government should follow. The Government have certainly transgressed that in bringing forward this Bill with so many Henry VIII powers and so much detail that is still to be decided, admittedly after consultation, by secondary legislation. I hope that in his remarks the Minister will not only respond to the important points raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, but will put into context exactly what the timeline will be for the extensive use—it is rightly extended to the devolved territories—of these delegated powers. What is the timeline? What can we look forward to? Can we be assured that there will be proper consultation and that this House will have an opportunity of giving its view on each and every step taken under this Bill?