My Lords, briefly, I associate myself with the remarks made in a very fine speech by my noble friend Lord Deben. We entered the other place on the same day, in June 1970—I have been here continuously since, and my noble friend was briefly absent from the other place for a year or so. I think that we both feel exactly the same: a deep sense of shame that the Conservative Party should behave like this. I thought that I had got over feeling ashamed after the two last disastrous Conservative Prime Ministers. I have a great feeling of support for our present Prime Minister, but I am deeply saddened. It must be because he does not have the long parliamentary experience to see how Parliament should be treated by the Executive. This is no way to legislate.
On this extraordinary Bill, I pay genuine tribute to the stamina and energy of my noble friend the Minister. If anyone ever drew a short straw, she drew a whole packet full and got one free. She has behaved impeccably, but she has been landed with something that no Minister should be landed with: a Bill, at its very last stage, being added to in such a way without proper consultation or discussion.
This does not need to part of this Bill. If the Government believe there is a problem over house building and the environment, it can bring in another Bill in the King’s Speech that can have a proper Second Reading in the other place. It will not get scrutiny in the other place; Bills do not get it there
these days. It could then go through all the necessary processes and be through before the end of the next parliamentary session.
6 pm
This is just not right: a Christmas tree Bill effectively giving unlimited and unfettered powers to a future Secretary of State—not a Minister of State or an Under-Secretary—who will be able to do things without the full, proper approval of Parliament and who will have, effectively, an unfettered right to meddle and interfere, and all this just two years after the Environment Bill, one of the few Bills of this Parliament in which one could take any real degree of pride. That was, in no small measure, due to the noble Duke, the Duke of Wellington. His amendment went into the Bill, and we were all delighted that it did. This House improved that Bill. Now, with a series of late amendments, we are undoing the good that was done two years ago. This is something up with which we should not put.