I thank the noble Lord, Lord Lisvane, for introducing this amendment, which stands also in the names of the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, and the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter. I am glad to have the opportunity to address it.
First, I reassure noble Lords that the strength of feeling around the exercise of delegated powers by those not immediately accountable to Parliament has been heard, as I said the other evening. The Government are looking very closely at the issue of transparency before Parliament, and we will of course hold that at the forefront of our minds as we consider our position ahead of Report.
At the heart of this Bill is the repeal of the European Communities Act, including Section 2(2) of that Act. As noble Lords on all sides of the Committee know, that provision has been the vires used for many statutory instruments made by many Governments in recent years. This Bill does not replace that power. Although there are several broad powers in the Bill, with some
approaching the breadth of Section 2(2) of the ECA, they are, unlike that power, time limited. The Bill is not an assault on Parliament but, rather, the means by which this Parliament will take back control to itself.
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Nevertheless, there is, and will always be, an important place for subordinate legislation in our legislative system. As my noble and learned friend Lord Keen said in responding to the previous group, there are indeed many delegated powers of a similar type in parts of European law. I and the other former MEPs in the Committee will have known the system of comitology well. These powers currently allow the Commission, with the scrutiny of the European Parliament and the member states in the Council, to make subordinate legislation setting out technical details, adjusting to developments in the market or prescribing procedures and forms. The powers to make this legislation—generally, as the noble Lord, Lord Lisvane, acknowledged, known as tertiary legislation and taking the form of delegated or implementing acts—will still be important as an integral part of the European law regimes that we are bringing into domestic law via this Bill.
Without the ability to exercise those powers in the future, the law that we are rightly incorporating into the UK’s domestic legal order would quickly become stale. Perhaps I may give some examples of areas where regular updates are required. One is the amendment of the regulation of chemicals, where the ability to react quickly is of real importance for public safety and health. Therefore, we need narrow and specific delegated powers to be exercisable after the sunsets of the broad delegated powers in this Bill.
Although I have no doubt that over time, new domestic regimes will replace all these European-derived powers, there is not the time to seek to redesign and replace all these powers in the next two or three years. Sunsetting all these powers would commit us to doing little else in the next few years other than providing for their replacements—something I cannot consider a proportionate or sensible use of our time. The proper way for these powers to be replaced is when it is appropriate to do so as part of future primary legislation in that policy area.
I am of course aware of noble Lords’ concerns about the transparency and scrutiny of new powers being vested in UK Ministers and other public authorities under the Bill. I repeat that the Government are listening to those concerns and we will reflect closely on them before Report. However, I can illustrate the diversity of issues that these powers cover and which my ministerial colleagues are tackling. For example, I hope that noble Lords will agree that one can reasonably argue that the power to set the font size on tobacco packaging does not require the same parliamentary time as, for instance, the management of invasive alien species.
We are keen to hear the views of noble Lords but, given the variety within these powers, the Government are very wary of prescribing a one-size-fits-nobody solution to scrutiny. That, I fear, would only store up even more discontent among noble Lords. I remain convinced that the delegated powers granted under
this Bill will be needed for the foreseeable future and that the right way to address the exercise of delegated powers transferred or granted by the SIs under the Bill is not to sunset them all. Rather, it is for noble Lords to scrutinise closely and carefully the SIs transferring those powers and the conditions they set out, and to reject them if they do not meet their exacting standards. We in the Government are committed to making sure that Parliament has all the material it needs to do this. I therefore ask the noble Lord whether, in the light of that, he will consider withdrawing his amendment.