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Mesothelioma Bill [HL]

I am grateful to the Minister for his explanation. I yield to no one in my respect for the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee, which does extremely valuable work in ensuring that the Government do not take outsized powers of a rather generalised nature when they present legislation to Parliament. However, I am not sure that an argument put forward by the Delegated Powers Committee on the proposed technical committee would have a bearing on whether it would be appropriate to take the opportunity of this scheme to make provision in primary legislation to be able in due course by regulation to establish further schemes that would be on the same model as Parliament will have approved in the primary legislation for the diffuse mesothelioma payment scheme, and which would of course have to be legislated in their specifics by way of regulation—as is quite explicitly stipulated in my Amendment 45.

I do not know what the Minister had in mind when he addressed the House at Second Reading and said that schemes to deal with these other terrible diseases should be brought forward, and that there were situations that needed to be addressed. If he was saying that he hoped he would have the opportunity to bring forward a Bill of one sort, then another and then another after that to establish further schemes, he must have known that that was not realistic. To secure legislative time is always a considerable problem, and I am afraid it would be pretty improbable that we would have the opportunity to embark on fresh primary legislation to repeat the process that we are going through now to create the mesothelioma scheme. Therefore, I can see no difficulty of principle that ought to deter us from amending the Bill to provide a clear legal base for establishing other schemes, so that it could accommodate the principle that the Secretary of State could by regulation establish further analogous schemes. In the mean time, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

About this proceeding contribution

Reference

745 c316GC 

Session

2013-14

Chamber / Committee

House of Lords Grand Committee
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