My Lords, I am pleased to hear the Minister confirm that this House has the power to vote down statutory instruments. Indeed, if the Government continued to pursue policy goals through secondary legislation, that procedure would become much more widely used than it has been in the past without the suggestion that the British constitution was being undermined.
The Minister has said that these powers have been taken in the pursuit of Foreign Office goals. A memorandum from the Foreign and Commonwealth
Office, dated 19 October last, was sent to the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee. Paragraph 52 says, under the heading “Justification for taking the powers”:
“The Government therefore considers it necessary and appropriate to provide framework powers that enable detailed sanctions regimes to be set out in secondary legislation”.
If the justification for taking the powers must be necessary and appropriate, why is the same test not to be applied to the exercise of those powers?