I do not think there is any great need to “ram it through”, as the hon. Gentleman phrases it. The secondary legislation will not be written in time to affect the current set of disputes. Indeed, if the secondary legislation is already written and is in a position to be used, those measures ought to be in the Bill in the first place and there would be absolutely no reason for not having them. It is hard to understand the need to rush this through when, as I said, this Bill has been contemplated for many years, and therefore it ought to have been prepared in detail.
I think that it is helpful to refer to two very good reports from the House of Lords on the subject, “Government by Diktat” and “Democracy Denied?”, both published in November 2021. May I thank the Vote Office for hastily printing them for me? It has to be said that it is much easier to read what was said from sheets of paper than from a small mobile telephone. One of the points they make is:
“It cannot be emphasised strongly enough that the critical problem about relegating significant policy change to secondary legislation is that parliamentary scrutiny of secondary legislation is far less robust than that afforded to primary legislation”.
I remind the Committee that there were recently complaints about the Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill. Primary legislation was specifically excluded for exactly this reason: when I was responsible for that Bill, it seemed to me that if Parliament passes primary legislation, it should not, as a matter of routine, be changed by secondary legislation.
The “Government by Diktat” report goes on to say:
“We are concerned that the underlying challenge to the balance between Parliament and government is not primarily attributable to the impact of ‘exceptional times’ such as Brexit and the pandemic, as the Permanent Secretaries appeared to assert, but is instead the result of a general strategic shift by government.”
It seems to me that this Bill, which has been thought about for so many years, falls into exactly that category.
The Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee refers to “skeleton legislation”. This Bill is almost so skeletal that we wonder if bits of the bones were stolen away by wild animals and taken and buried somewhere, as happens with cartoon characters. The DPRRC takes the view that
“skeleton legislation should only be used in the most exceptional circumstances and that, where it is used, a department should always provide a full justification, including an explanation of the nature of those exceptional circumstances”
and
“why no other approach was reasonable to adopt”.
Again, that seems to be absolutely fair and reasonable. If I may quote further:
“Skeleton bills or skeleton clauses, by their very nature, cannot be adequately scrutinised during their passage through Parliament.”
We are trying to scrutinise the Bill and hold the Government to account. I want good legislation. I want legislation that achieves its objective and that clarifies the boundaries of power between the legislature, the King in Parliament and the courts.