I thank the noble Lords, Lord Davies and Lord Tunnicliffe, for a little relief from leading off. I shall be very brief. Amendments 6, 8 and 9 again revert to the recommendations of the DPRRC.
I start, briefly, with Amendment 6. I really do not understand the Government’s argument that they should be able to create new self-isolation support schemes and make them exempt from NICs without even alerting Parliament, never mind providing any public notice or any means of scrutiny. That is the problem that Amendment 6 seeks to tackle.
The Treasury’s view, as I understand it as written in the legislation, is that it can create as many schemes as it likes without a statutory instrument, provided that, in its view, they are “similar” to the schemes listed in the Bill. I deal on such a frequent basis with the Treasury, and the Treasury’s view of “similar” is, frankly, as long as a piece of string.
This turns into yet another precedent for being able to create all kinds of schemes, with just some sort of underpinning or general linking theme, without any scrutiny. All that the DPRRC asks is that these powers should be subject to a negative resolution. At least then there would be something that the public can look at and some element of scrutiny. That is not a big ask and one that the Government should be prepared to provide.
Amendments 8 and 9 are rather different, in that they would require affirmative rather than negative resolution for all of Clause 3, not just Clause 3(3), all dealing with free ports, and Clause 6, which deals with NICs relief for veterans. I cannot understand the Government’s position that the Henry VIII powers they seek are, again, trivial; I am entirely with the DPRRC on this. The various subsections in Clause 3 enable free ports to be extended to 2031 and widely change the conditions to be met. Surely that needs affirmative resolution. Similarly, in a strange way, Clause 6 sets no limit on the number of years that can be added to the veterans scheme and how often. Again, surely that is sufficiently significant, as the
committee said. With the free ports issue, I would say that in some cases it is even controversial. I am very grateful to the DPRRC for its vigilance, and the arguments for Amendments 8 and 9 is that the provisions are of a standing that meets the test for an affirmative rather than a negative resolution.