This group of amendments relates to the regulations that are to be made by statutory instrument under Part 2 and the consultation and parliamentary procedures by which those regulations may be made. There are seven amendments in this group, and I will deal with the government amendments first.
The Bill currently provides for two separate sets of regulations to be made by statutory instrument. The first is the single-source contract regulations—SSCRs—which are introduced under Clause 14(1). The SSCRs would contain all the regulations with the exception of those made under the second set of regulations, the penalty regulations, which are introduced under Clause 33. The penalty regulations would provide maximum penalty amounts under the civil penalty compliance regime provided for in Part 2. Drafts of both these statutory instruments were placed in the House of Lords Library on 22 January 2014.
The Bill provides for different parliamentary processes for these two sets of regulations, with the SSCRs to be made by the negative procedure under Clause 42(4) and the penalty regulations to be made by the affirmative procedure under Clause 33(7). I have previously discussed the recommendations of the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee’s report on the Bill. The recommendations that the SSCRs should be subject to a first-time affirmative procedure and that the regulations made under Clause 14 should always be made by the affirmative procedure have been accepted, and the government amendments in this group make the necessary changes to the Bill.
In order to make the recommended changes to the parliamentary process, it was considered that simplifications could be made in order to allow all the regulations under Part 2 to be made in one statutory instrument rather than the two currently provided for, being the SSCRs and the penalty regulations. Amendment 19 therefore provides for provision about maximum penalties to be made under the SSCRs rather than in separate regulations. Amendments 20 to 22 make some simplifying amendments to accommodate the fact that there is now just one set of regulations, not two, and Amendment 23 provides for the new parliamentary process by which the unified SSCRs may be made. I will now address each of these amendments in turn.
Amendment 19 is a simplifying amendment. It removes the current provision for the maximum penalty amounts to be made via a separate statutory instrument—the penalty regulations—and instead provides for this to be done in the SSCRs as with all other provisions for regulations under Part 2. There is no change to the scope of provision that will be made under Part 2 as a result of this amendment, but using a single statutory instrument for all regulations under Part 2 allows for simpler provision for the parliamentary process to be used for that one statutory instrument.
Amendment 20 follows on from Amendment 19. Clause 33(6) currently provides for the penalty regulations, as a separate statutory instrument from the SSCRs, to vary the maximum penalty amounts for two purposes: first, for “different purposes” and, secondly, specifically by reference to the value of contracts. As a result of Amendment 19, the maximum penalty values will now be included in the SSCRs, while Clause 42(2) already provides for the SSCRs to make different provision for different purposes, which is a standard provision for regulations. Therefore the part of the current subsection (6) providing for different provision for different purposes is no longer required. This amendment replaces the current subsection (6) to provide only that different provision for the maximum penalty amounts may be made by reference to the value of contracts.
Amendment 21 deletes Clause 33(7), which dealt with the parliamentary process for the penalty regulations. It is no longer required because the provisions for maximum penalty amounts will now be in the SSCRs rather than in a separate statutory instrument. So this will now be covered by the parliamentary process for the SSCRs under Amendment 23.
Amendment 22 simplifies Clause 39, which provides for the review of Part 2 and the regulations made under it by the SSRO and the Secretary of State. As there will now be only one statutory instrument, the SSCRs, Clause 39(1) can be simplified to refer only to the review of the SSCRs, rather than the more general “regulations under this Part”.
The first four amendments of the group that I have now outlined make simplifying provisions in order to make all regulations under Part 2 via one statutory instrument, the SSCRs. Amendment 23 addresses two of the recommendations of the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee relating to the parliamentary process under which the SSCRs should be made.
To begin with, it removes the current Clause 42(4), which provides that the SSCRs should be subject to the negative procedure, and replaces it by a provision reflecting those recommendations on the parliamentary process for the SSCRs: first, that they should be affirmative the first time that they are made; secondly, that any changes to the regulations related to Clause 14 should always be affirmative, as this governs which contracts will be subject to Part 2 and thus sets the scope of Part 2; and thirdly, that the affirmative procedure will also apply for any changes to regulations made under Clause 33, which relates to maximum penalty amounts and was previously to be contained in the penalty regulations. These were always to be subject to the affirmative procedure, so there is no change to the procedure as a result of this amendment. Finally, the SSCRs will follow the negative procedure for all cases other than those just outlined.