My Lords, I will speak also to Amendment 82, which itself is amended—or, in truth, corrected—by Amendment 82A.
Amendment 80 is pretty simple and is very much in line with the amendments we have debated today, which aim to restrict the very wide powers that Ministers—be they Minister number 1 or number 109 —have dreamed up for themselves in this Bill. The amendment would remove from Ministers the discretion to extend the definition of what constitutes a deficiency in retained law. That is important, given that Ministers have taken considerable powers to correct what they consider to be deficiencies. So it would be a two-way gain for Ministers: first, they could extend what they define as a deficiency and then they could use their powers to correct it.
The main thrust of Amendment 82 is to prevent secondary legislation under Clause 7 from being able to change the Equality Act 2010 or subordinate legislation made under that Act, or, indeed, later legislation, as in Amendment 82A. Again, it is about not reducing the rights and remedies that are available under EU retained law. While we were drafting Amendment 82 we also put in wording to restrict the ability under Clause 7 to impose taxes, fees, charges and to create quangos or introduce new criminal offences under secondary legislation. However, as I have alerted the Minister, we will not deal with that at this point because three separate groups are coming up and we will discuss the issue of criminal offences and fees later. The important thing for now is not allowing Ministers to extend the definition of deficiency or to use the regulations under Clause 7 to change the Equality Act and the subordinate legislation that flows from it. I beg to move.