My Lords, it was very interesting to hear the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, pray in aid the Motion passed by this House in 1994 on the application of fatal Motions in this House. Of course, this House has a power to use fatal Motions, but, as with so many powers of this House, it is not used by convention. I cannot think, off the top of my head, of an occasion when it should be used. I am convinced that the noble Baroness did not really make the case for it, because all the arguments she used—which were perfectly valid arguments—should have been used, and probably were used, during the passage of the Bill earlier this year. That was the time when your Lordships’ House should have stopped that part of the legislation
coming into force, rather than dealing with it now. As I understand it, it was a manifesto commitment. Even if it were not, we have been discussing it in both Houses of Parliament for the last seven or eight years, going back to when my noble friend Lord Pickles was Secretary of State; he launched a review and an investigation in 2015 into how local government held elections.
Furthermore, the regulations, while they are only coming into force now, have been discussed for many months, and good local authorities will no doubt have taken steps to organise themselves. The noble Baroness, Lady Hayman of Ullock, spoke very reasonably in her speech, and, if it does not embarrass her for me to say this, I agreed with much of it. However, I also felt that my noble friend the Minister had dealt with a lot of the arguments earlier, and perhaps she can go a little further now.
The point I want to raise with the noble Baroness is on the suggestion in her regret amendment to the Motion that there should be a Select Committee of this House to examine these regulations post legislation. I wanted to confirm my understanding with both the noble Baroness and my noble friend the Minister that there is nothing to stop the House from conducting such an inquiry, but, rather than putting it in a regret amendment to the Motion before the House today, it would be entirely right to make a case to the Liaison Committee, which I have no doubt would be supported by the noble Baroness the Leader of the Opposition and the noble Lord the leader of the Liberal Democrats.