My Lords, Amendment 106 is in my name and those of my noble friend Lady Walmsley and the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton. I am very grateful for their support.
Two months ago, two of our Select Committees, the DPRRC and the SLSC, published simultaneous and collaborative reports. The DPRRC report is entitled Democracy Denied? The urgent need to rebalance power between Parliament and the Executive, and the SLSC report is called Government by Diktat: A call to return power to Parliament. It would be very hard to exaggerate the importance of these reports, and I congratulate both committees on a very timely and disturbing reminder of the Government’s habit of trying to bypass Parliament and avoid effective scrutiny, as they do again in this Bill.
Both the reports focused on the long-standing abuse of the use of delegated powers legislation, and the DPRRC concluded:
“The abuse of delegated powers is in effect an abuse of Parliament and an abuse of democracy, and this report will, we hope, be a prompt to strengthen Parliament in the coming years.”
We can make a start on that hope with this Bill.
The DPRRC noted in its report of 15 December that the Bill contains 155 substantive provisions and 156 delegated powers. It concluded:
“The Health and Care Bill is a clear and disturbing illustration of how much disguised legislation a Bill can contain and offends against the democratic principles of parliamentary scrutiny.”
The report examines some of the Bill’s clauses in some detail, including the insertion via Clause 20 of a new Section 14Z48 into the National Health Service Act 2006. Essentially, the new section gives a Minister the power to make law by simply publishing “a document”. The department tries to justify the lack of any parliamentary procedure associated with the publication of a document on the grounds that the power is concerned with operational and administrative matters. However, the DPRRC goes on to say:
“Such a power is very unusual. If used in a context other than one involving public sector health bodies, it might give grave cause for concern and set an extraordinary precedent. Statutory liabilities should be imposed transparently, subject to clear legal conditions and parliamentary scrutiny.”
I should point out here the force of the word “unusual” in the committee’s comments. This is the highest form of disapprobation used by committees, and for good reason. This proposed new section is a blatant, transparent and disgraceful attempt to avoid any parliamentary scrutiny whatever.
The DPRRC’s conclusion is damning. It says:
“The power to impose a legal liability by merely publishing a document, without any parliamentary scrutiny, is a striking example of disguised legislation. We regard it as an inappropriate delegation of power, which should be removed from the Bill.”
In its report on the Bill of 7 January, the Constitution Committee agreed with the DPRRC’s recommendation to remove the new section from the Bill. I agree strongly, and that is what our amendment would do. I suggest to the Minister that if he wants to retain the powers set out in proposed new Section 14Z48, he rework them between now and Report so that they at least involve scrutiny by the affirmative procedure. If not, he can certainly expect us to return to this serious abuse of delegated powers on Report. I beg to move.