Lord Fox (LD)

My Lords, this has been a really interesting debate. It is a shame that we cannot have this debate on group 3, where we could set out some of the issues that I am going to explain very briefly—without repeating the speech that I am going to make in group 3 —on how scrutiny can be enhanced for secondary legislation. I share the concern of your Lordships’ House that insufficient and inadequate scrutiny happens even when we have statutory instruments. As the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Wirral, pointed out, we need something better than the way in which we deal with statutory instruments at the moment. Very rarely, if ever, are they turned away; we have regret Motions that, in sum, make no difference at all. To some extent, we are protecting a paper tiger here. What we should be talking about is whether there is a way we can make sure that these future regulations go through a process that is properly scrutinised. The proper debate on that will happen in group 3, and we will take it through. I completely agree with the noble Lord, Lord Jackson, that the issue of criminal sanctions is a concern and that we need to have a way of scrutinising it. That will be included when I speak to group 3, as will be the environmental measures raised by the noble Lord, Lord Holmes, in this group, and by the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, in the next group. We do have a way of having greater transparency, but it is not by statutory instrument to be nodded through over and over again. We have to be honest with ourselves about what we actually do when we are dealing with secondary legislation. That is why I have been working very hard, and why I welcome the conversations I have had with the Minister and his team, to try to open up something that will not only give us better scrutiny—I would say nearly proper scrutiny—but also something that will survive contact with the government majority at the other end. That is the opening point which, to some extent, is a speech for a different group. With respect to this group, Amendment 61 mandates additional consultation, and Amendment 55—which has strangely been put in group 12—strengthens the affirmative process. I was very pleased to see the name of the noble Lord, Lord Anderson of Ipswich, added to those amendments; I very much appreciated his speech today, and that of the noble Lord, Lord Pannick. Those amendments add further resilience and help to meet some of the issues that were raised by your Lordships’ committee. Once we have discussed the changes in group 3, hopefully with the response of the Minister, they will also contain some of the issues raised by the noble Lord, Lord Deben. Again, the fundamental question is: how do we properly review legislation? I am hoping that we have come up with a way that will do this. That is why we are keeping our powder dry on these Benches. We have put a lot of work and a lot of hope in what we are going to be doing in the next group, and I think we can give your Lordships’ House, and indeed parliamentarians as well as all the external bodies, a way of participating in the proper pre-scrutiny of statutory instruments before they ever reach your Lordships’ House, whether it is by affirmative or negative process when they get here.