My Lords, I speak as a member of the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee. The chairman of the committee, the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, is unable to be here today because is absent on parliamentary business. No doubt noble Lords have a copy of the 51st report of the Delegated Powers Committee. The argument set out by the committee is brief, concise and telling. I will not attempt to summarise it or indeed to read out the report, because paragraph 5 could hardly be summarised more briefly than it has been set out by the committee.
The committee acknowledges in paragraph 4:
“The principal justification for clause 2 of this Bill is that it might be necessary to legislate at speed next week”—
in other words, this week—
“to change exit day. The affirmative procedure might cause delays, with the risk that exit day in domestic law might not be aligned with exit day agreed under EU law”.
The committee goes on to say that on the other hand, there are powerful and telling arguments in favour of the affirmative procedure. It notes that were Clause 2 to be removed from the Bill, we would simply return to, as it were, the default setting.
Because this will be a matter of business management, the most helpful thing for your Lordships might be to have some indication from the Minister as to whether there is a balance of advantage of using the negative or the affirmative procedure. On that basis, it may be for your Lordships to decide whether Clause 2 remains in the Bill.