My Lords, I apologise to my noble friend Lord Gardiner and to the Committee for having missed the first 45 seconds of his elegant introduction. My noble friend Lady Chisholm dealt with her business faster than I anticipated, so I was caught in the corridor. I am the chairman of the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee, which has looked at this instrument. Our report is in the papers for today’s meeting and our committee was obviously concerned about fishing, because fishing and fisheries policy is quite a hot topic on two grounds. One is that the “take back control” argument rides quite high in fishing; the other is the increased focus today on marine conservation, preservation, resources and so on. The committee also saw that this is a “made affirmative” instrument, and therefore has speedy passage under the European Union (Withdrawal) Act. One is always concerned about how and why it had to be done at this last minute, and so quickly, and whether it meets the requirements laid down in that Act for going through the “made affirmative” procedure.
I heard my noble friend say that this is about tidying up the statute book. Part 2 of the annex to the Explanatory Memorandum indicates that the Minister is required to make an “Appropriateness statement”, and Mr George Eustice has made a statement saying that in his view the SI,
“does no more than is appropriate”.
If we are tidying up the statute book, we do not need to think about that as part of our consideration here. This is nothing to do with tidying up the statute book.
Those are the technical issues. My real concern is the fact that we are moving from two layers of supervision to one. We are coming out of the EU; I understand all that. Up to now, each individual member state has put positions to the EU. The EU has made decisions and those have been passed back to the individual member states. That is clearly not appropriate, it does not work under the new structure, but we now have a situation where Defra is marking is own homework. Nobody is checking and saying whether it is a good decision or a bad decision; Defra is deciding it.
I know that the Government have in mind—we refer to this in our report—to introduce a stand-alone supervisory body to ensure that Defra does not mark its own homework for longer than is strictly necessary. It would be helpful as part of the consideration of this SI if the Minister could update the Committee on where we are with the creation of this new body, when it is going to arrive—I imagine as part of the Environment Bill—and how it is going to develop. Can he also generally reassure the Committee that we have in mind to ensure a proper a balance of powers, and that the Government, in the shape of Defra, will not have all the cards for longer than is necessary?