My Lords, I am extremely grateful to the Minister for the detail he went into in his reply, particularly at this late hour. I also pay tribute to him for his customary generosity in being prepared to discuss these matters outside the Chamber. He recommended one weighty tome with which, as a former accounting officer, I am moderately familiar. Perhaps I may recommend to him another weighty tome, Craies On Legislation, edited in masterly fashion by Daniel Greenberg, former parliamentary counsel. I think it is at chapter 3.5.1 that he will find a very good treatment of the dos and don’ts of sub-delegation. That might be something we discuss before we come back to these matters on Report.
Of course, he is absolutely right to say that the consigning of these powers to a body or a person will require the affirmative procedure, and that is fine up to a point, but the exercise of the powers, once sub-delegated, will be free of the trammels of the accepted processes, so it becomes even more important that, in
the consigning of the powers, the constraints on how they can be used by the consignee, if I can use that rather unlegislative term, are made absolutely clear. That is something, perhaps, on which we can have further conversations between now and Report. On that basis, I beg leave to withdraw Amendment 110.