My Lords, I shall speak to Amendment 18 tabled in my name and to Amendment 6 which is tabled in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Touhig. The amendments are similar. In contrast to the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, we believe that it is important that Parliament should play its full role in legislation. If the Defence Council is to have new powers conferred on it, it would be appropriate to make an affirmative decision rather than use a negative instrument. The noble Lord, Lord Touhig, took the words out of my mouth. I was in this Room last week taking part in a debate about reporting on the process of Brexit. The issues being discussed included questions about the role that Parliament plays in that. The Henry VIII clauses which are in the EU withdrawal Bill cover a bigger set of issues, but the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, has asked, “If these clauses were part of a bigger Bill, would we be bothered about them?”. Perhaps not, but that is not the point. At the moment there seems to be a tendency on the part of Her Majesty’s Government to say, “If the Government have an idea, it should be accepted without any amendment or scrutiny”. It is important that your Lordships’ House and Parliament as a whole play their part in scrutinising legislation, and it is right that this should be done through the affirmative procedure.
On reports, the noble Lord, Lord Touhig, reminded us that there now is information; I am grateful to the Minister for ensuring over the summer that further
information was provided regarding the sort of questions we were looking for. As my noble friend Lady Jolly said, Amendment 4 was a probing amendment, but obviously, the more information that can be given and made available to people and the more detail we have, the greater the opportunity for this to be successful.