I have added my name to Amendments 4, 52 and 69, which would remove the provision for criminal offences to be created by delegated legislation.
The Government are developing a reputation for riding roughshod over the law, personal liberties and the role of lawyers. Indeed, the Internal Market Bill, debate on which is taking place in the Chamber today, is a reflection of that.
I am afraid that this Bill continues that trend, as indicated by the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee in its very direct criticism of the criminal offence provisions. The committee drew attention to provisions in the Bill which give Ministers powers to create and modify imprisonable offences by statutory instrument. Thus regulations under Clauses 1 and 8 may create a criminal offence of failing to comply with provision made in such regulations that is punishable by imprisonment up to two years. Regulations under Clauses 1 and 8 may also amend the dozens of offence-creating provisions in the existing regulations. Regulations under Clause 12 may create new criminal offences relating to medical devices that are punishable by imprisonment for up to one year. Schedule 2 inserts a new regulation 60A and a new schedule into the 2002 regulations which make it a criminal offence, punishable by imprisonment for up to one year, to breach any of the provisions in the 2002 regulations that are listed in the new schedule. It goes on: Clause 14(1)(d) provides that regulations under Clause 12 may amend the new Schedule 30.
The powers conferred in all these provisions give rise to two concerns. As the Select Committee reported, it has previously expressed the view that it expects a
compelling justification for the ingredients of a criminal offence to be set by delegated legislation. The powers in Clauses 1, 8 and 12 would allow Ministers to create completely new criminal offences and make changes to the ingredients of existing offences, yet the memorandum does not appear to contain any justification at all for this. The committee also points out that it has also said that where the penalty for a criminal offence may be set by delegated legislation, it would expect the maximum penalty to be included in the Bill, save in exceptional circumstances.
While the Bill limits the maximum penalty for offences created by regulations under Clauses 1 and 8, it is unclear whether this limit also applies to the many existing medicines offences which could be modified by regulations under Clause 1 or Clause 8. Again, the memorandum does not appear to shed any light on this. The Minister in his Amendments 43, 44, 64 and 65 has attempted to soften the pill by ensuring that regulations under Clause 1 (1) and Clause 8 (1) may not provide for an offence to be punishable with a sentence of more than two years. That is obviously welcome, but I do not think it goes far enough. From my reading of the amendments—no doubt we will hear about them later—they do not deal with the other substantial concern of the committee that the powers in Clauses 1, 8 and 12 would allow Ministers to create completely new criminal offences and make changes to the ingredients of existing offences. Given that, I do not think we can allow these delegated powers to be retained in the Bill. I beg to move.