Offender Management Bill

I thought so: all young, brave officers say, ““Charge, men, I’m right behind you!”” I hope that all hon. Members will take this opportunity to think carefully about what they are doing. Amendment No. 22 would make the Government and the Secretary of State more accountable. The Bill gives the Secretary of State huge powers to amend the law by secondary legislation. The question of whether the Secretary of State should use the affirmative or the negative procedure to change the law has been debated, and the Minister of State said in a letter of 17 July that the Government accept that some parliamentary scrutiny ““would be appropriate””. That is very nice of him, but he proposes that it should take the form of the negative rather than the affirmative procedure. I had hoped for rather more than that. If the Bill is to make progress, the Government should accept the procedure set out in amendment No. 22, which proposes what is known colloquially as the super-affirmative procedure. The proposed system is logical and clear, and would lead to far greater parliamentary scrutiny, with the result that the Secretary of State would be rendered more accountable to both Houses of Parliament. No democrat who is a member of the Executive should complain about that. We face one constitutional problem that some people—and, from time to time, I am one of them—say is a benefit. It is that the Executive not only sit in Parliament, but on it as well. The amendment goes some way towards redressing the balance. If we can get the Government to ensure that their measures are ““superly”” affirmed, the result may be that the Executive are required to look Parliament more directly in the face. Amendment No. 38 deals with the date of implementation. It may not be known by many in the Chamber that the implementation provision is to be found on the last page of the main body of the Bill, in clause 38. The provision permits the Secretary of State to designate an appointed day for the Bill to come into force. Amendment No. 38 would mean that the appointed day would be provisional on the factors referred to in subsections (1A) and (1B) in the amendment. Those seem entirely sensible and logical matters to take into account. [Interruption.] I am informed that the Government are so concerned about the super-affirmative procedure that they would like to speak at some length on the subject. I would be delighted if the right hon. Member for Rutherglen and Hamilton, West (Mr. McAvoy), who is concerned about my well-being, could have that opportunity, but sadly he is part of the silent service, so we have merely to stand here and admire him in every possible way. Unfortunately, the argument that he has put to me politely on paper does not move me at all and, in due course, I will ask for the opinion of the House on the procedural matters in this group of amendments.