Lord Vaux of Harrowden (CB)

My Lords, my Amendment 77 is, as the noble Lord, Lord Sikka, has just said, slightly different from the others. I thought about degrouping it, but I decided that life was too short. Amendment 77 would introduce a reasonableness test—a discussion we have had before—so that an authorised officer must “reasonably” consider that it is “necessary and proportionate to require the specified information”, rather than just “consider” that it is necessary and proportionate. We have had a number of debates about a reasonableness test as we have gone through the various days in Grand Committee. Ensuring that an authorised officer should “reasonably” consider, rather than just arbitrarily “consider”, is an important safeguard against misuse of these powers. Last Monday, the Minister, the noble Baroness, Lady Anderson, argued against a similar change in Amendment 29, saying: “In addition, having thrilled the Committee with my recitations from Managing Public Money last Wednesday, I am excited to be able to quote from another government page turner, The Judge Over Your Shoulder. All ‘public law powers’ must be exercised with ‘reasonableness or rationality—following a proper reasoning process and so coming to a reasonable conclusion’. Making a Minister’s belief a ‘reasonable’ belief therefore has no effect, because they are already subject to it”.—[Official Report, 9/6/25; col. GC 159.] The Judge Over Your Shoulder—known by the rather inappropriate acronym JOYS—was a new one on me, so I looked it up. The Government describe this exciting publication as: “Guidance to help you navigate the legal frameworks within which public bodies, particularly Government, make decisions … Currently in its 6th edition, it is used to communicate with clients on what to expect when working with government lawyers, allowing for effective collaboration and lowering the risk of legal challenge. The guidance is highly regarded across the legal profession”. Most importantly, it goes on to say: “The guidance remains a lay person’s guide to Administrative Law”. So I am afraid that the noble Baroness’s argument does not hold up to scrutiny. The document is not even official guidance for civil servants; it is merely a lay person’s guide, has no legal status whatever and cannot be used as evidence that public law powers must be exercised with reasonableness or rationality. Unless the Minister can come up with something that actually has some legal force on civil servants and Ministers, the need for these reasonableness tests, which we have been debating throughout this Bill, remains. As I have said before and will keep repeating, the noble Baroness will not always be in her position. While I completely believe that she would ensure that these powers are exercised reasonably, that may not always be the case for future Ministers or future Governments. We need to legislate for the future, not just for the present situation, so safeguards should be on the face of the Bill to be effective. In my view, a requirement to act reasonably is a very important safeguard.