Constitutional Reform (Prerogative Powers and Civil Service etc.) Bill [HL]

moved Amendment No. 1:"Page 2, line 10, leave out ““2”” and insert ““5””" The noble Lord said: It is a very late hour to be starting the Committee stage of this Bill. Before coming to the precise terms of Amendment No. 1, I will make one or two general remarks but they will, I promise the Committee, be brief. The noble Lord, Lord Lester of Herne Hill, has obviously put an enormous amount of work into the drafting and preparation of the Bill. On that, he should be congratulated. He also deserves the thanks of the House for giving these very important issues concerning prerogative powers and the Civil Service an airing. In the nature of things, it has not been all that much of an airing. There was a Second Reading debate, which lasted rather less than three hours and now we have the Committee stage at this very late hour, which is hardly likely to attract all that much attention. I must say that I feel under considerable pressure and feel that it is hardly possible to do justice to the arguments raised by the measure. The truth of the matter surely is that it is very unusual to find proposals for extremely important changes to the law concerning the public service and the Royal prerogative contained in a Private Member’s Bill. I understand the noble Lord’s exasperation at the Government’s failure to introduce a Civil Service Bill. Private Members’ Bills are a jolly good way to kick a Government, trying to goad them into action, but the Bill before us does far more than put the Civil Service on a statutory footing. Most people would be mightily surprised if the Government allowed such fundamental change to come about other than by a government Bill, probably by a government Bill following a manifesto commitment. Amendment No. 1 underlines my point. At present, the Bill states that from two years after the passing of the Act, no Executive powers may be exercised unless Parliament has provided appropriate authority. The Explanatory Notes, which are very helpful, state that the two-year period is to allow for the completion of Orders in Council under consideration when the Bill is passed. I suggest that it would be appropriate for the two-year period to be changed to a five-year period for a rather different reason—so that, if, by any chance, the Bill were to become law, the requirement that Executive powers could not be exercised without parliamentary authority would not come into force until after a general election in which the people had a chance to approve the change. I beg to move.