Lord Lansley (Con)

My Lords, there are four amendments in this group, and they are all my amendments, so I hope I will not need to detain the House for a very long time. However, it is rather important, as this group relates to the scrutiny that is to be attached to the powers which are used in the continuing jurisdiction that this country will exercise in Diego Garcia. They are powers that are established under the royal prerogative, but the question that Amendments 34, 35 and 36 relate to is the extent of parliamentary scrutiny in the exercise of those powers. Noble Lords may recall that, although these amendments were tabled in Committee and they were tabled in order to give effect to the recommendations of the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee, the intention is very straightforward. It is that Orders in Council which exercise Henry VIII powers—that is, amending or repealing primary statutes—should be subject to an affirmative resolution procedure, and that all other Orders should be subject to a negative resolution procedure, rather than, as proposed by the Bill, no parliamentary procedure at all. In Committee, the Minister said: “We are still considering these suggestions and we will return to them on Report”.—[Official Report, 25/11/25; col. 1303.] So we are returning to them on Report by virtue of these amendments tabled. The Minister and I have not had an opportunity for a discussion of this issue since Committee, but I am grateful for the copy of the letter by which the Government responded on 23 December to the DPRRC. Noble Lords will also recall a letter of 22 December, which is relevant, and which was sent to noble Lords participating in Committee. The Government have not accepted the recommendations of the Delegated Powers Committee, so I ask the House to include the recommended level of parliamentary scrutiny, and Amendments 34 and 36 would achieve that. The Government’s arguments are that the Bill provides for the continuation of the laws in Diego Garcia and that processes for making laws in the military base area should be the same as those applying previously—in short, maintaining the status quo. However, the status quo has changed; we are not in the status quo. The treaty with Mauritius provides that sovereignty is no longer with this country. Sovereignty, including in Diego Garcia, by virtue of the treaty, is with Mauritius, as we have heard. So, in so far as the prerogative powers were previously derived from that sovereignty, that no longer applies. The Minister’s letters refer to Cyprus as a precedent, but the Cyprus treaty and the Cyprus Act 1960 provide that the United Kingdom’s sovereignty is continued in relation to the two sovereign base areas—the clue is in the title. As we heard in an earlier debate, my noble friend Lady Goldie would have preferred that we retain sovereignty in Diego Garcia, but that has not happened.