Housing and Planning Bill

If the Government are placing crucial policy decisions beyond the possibility of amendment in this House, because instead of being embedded in primary legislation they are going to be carried by SIs, any attempt to amend them in whatever form will produce synthetic outrage down the other end, and we will be told we should accept them whether we like it or not. This will not do. I absolutely understand that the Minister cannot be happy at the position in which she has been placed: she is essentially being asked to bring forward framework legislation, yet again, in which the heavy lifting will be carried out by SIs, which this House—which is supposed to scrutinise those SIs—cannot touch. Issues which could have been amendable in the appropriate way in primary legislation will be put beyond our reach.