Baroness Finn (Con)

My Lords, Amendment 4 seeks to grant another place the same power to initiate the “think again” procedure under Clause 1. In the other place, secondary legislation is considered differently than in your Lordships’ House. When an affirmative statutory instrument is tabled there, it is automatically referred to a Delegated Legislation Committee. These committees have 16 to 18 members, and any member can attend and speak, but only members of the committee can vote. A Delegated Legislation Committee considers an SI but does not have the power to stop it. In some rare cases, the statutory instrument is not referred to a committee but is debated on the Floor of the House if it is of particular interest. Once the statutory instrument has been debated by a committee, it needs final approval by another place before being made and becoming law. As noble Lords will see, the other place suffers from precisely the same handicap as your Lordships’ House when considering secondary legislation. It has the binary choice to approve or not to approve. That is the question. I tabled this amendment to probe the willingness of the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford, to grant an equal power to the other place to initiate the “think again” procedure. We are open to discussions on the precise drafting of this amendment, but it is the principle we are seeking to probe. Why should your Lordships’ House have the power to trigger a process by which Ministers are asked to think again when another place does not have that power? I accept that the Bill grants another place the ultimate say on whether Ministers are forced to amend their instrument, thus preserving the primacy of the elected House, but we do not understand why it is only your Lordships’ House that can initiate a process that asks the Government to reconsider.