My Lords, at the request and with the consent of the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes of Cumnock, I shall move Amendment 311. For clarification, the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, did not wish me to move Amendment 310 because he felt it had been superseded by our discussions last week. I shall be brief in moving Amendment 311 because a number of amendments were grouped for our wider debate on Brexit and devolution issues last Wednesday that related to sunset clauses, and this is another example.
It appears that here, as in a number of other areas of the Bill, particularly when powers are to be conferred on United Kingdom Ministers, a sunset clause is attached to them. However, for those in relation to devolution and the exercise of powers by UK Ministers in respect of making orders on the devolved settlement, there is no such sunset clause. As has been said by others, not only in regard to this Bill but on other occasions, there is nothing as permanent as a transitory provision. Although this is intended to be just a temporary move pending the solution of the arrangement between the powers that will go directly to Cardiff, Edinburgh and Belfast and those where we may wish to follow up on what was debated last week with regard to the UK frameworks, it nevertheless appears that there should be some incentive to get on with it and have a time limit.
We debated these issues last week, particularly whether the period should be two, three, four or five years, which is a matter for further discussion, and it is fair to say that this is more about the principle of having a sunset clause. When we debated it last week, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen of Elie, helpfully indicated in his reply that the Government’s mind was not closed on this matter and there could be an opportunity to put in some form of sunset clause in relation to this and the other amendments that we look forward to seeing on Report. I hope this amendment allows the
Government to give further thought to what was said in our debate last week, and I would certainly encourage that positive thinking with regard to a sunset clause. I beg to move.