My Lords, I endorse everything that the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, has said in moving Amendment 305 in the unavoidable absence of the chairman of the Delegated Powers Committee, the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra. I know, the noble Lord being absent on parliamentary business, how much he regretted the unavoidable clash of commitments at this time. The noble Lord, Lord Tyler, was much too modest in his mention of the substitutes’ bench a moment or two ago.
In their delegated powers memorandum the Government have sought to make comparisons with procedures already established in the devolution legislation. I can be very brief, given the conspectus that the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, has given us. The sweeping effect of Clause 11 and Schedule 3 is to reserve to Westminster all returning competences unless the position is changed by Order in Council. The Delegated Powers Committee distils the problem effectively in paragraph 31 of its later, 12th report. The Government have said that the purpose of the Order in Council procedure is to provide an “appropriate mechanism”—there is that word “appropriate” again—to broaden the parameters of devolved competence in respect of retained EU law. However, as the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, made clear, the concept of the definition of retained EU law is anything but straightforward. The fundamental point is that something as important as the distribution of competences should not be left to take-it-or-leave-it statutory instruments. This is something for primary legislation and the much-enhanced scrutiny that it would receive.