I will give way to my right hon. Friend later. If she will just be patient, I want to make a bit of progress, given the time available.
It is worth looking very carefully at the limitations and parameters constraining the exercise of clause 9. It can only be used to implement the withdrawal agreement, and even then subsection (3) makes it clear that it cannot be used to levy taxation, to make retrospective provision, to create relevant criminal offences, or to repeal or amend the Human Rights Act 1998. Paragraph 6 of schedule 7 further requires the affirmative procedure in a whole range of scenarios, from the establishment of new public authority functions to the imposition of any fee exercised by any such authority. Critically—I am not sure that all hon. Members have picked this up—the power endures only until exit day. Its operation is shorter than that under clause 7. On the Government’s current expected timetable, it would, in practice, be used for only about six months, so it is not the open-ended power that some have suggested.
In addition, the Government have accepted the amendments tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Broxbourne (Mr Walker) to establish a sifting committee to advise on the scrutiny procedures used for secondary legislation under the Bill. That will apply to this clause. That is on top of the Government amendment tabled last week that mandates Ministers to provide explanatory material for all the statutory instruments made under the principal powers of the Bill. We are listening. We are committed to making sure that Parliament plays a crucial role—a fully transparent scrutiny role—in the exercise of clause 9.
In sum, the power under clause 9 is required to legislate domestically for the large number of more technical separation issues that must be settled in time for exit day if we are to have the smooth Brexit that, whether we voted leave or remain, we all agree is crucial from here on in. The regulations—