HC Deb 19 March 1980 vol 981 cc547-72

Bill (as amended in the Standing Committee), further considered.

Mr. Powell

—and has referred to the committee, that report, very properly, is laid before the House so that, when the House reads the regulations, it reads at the same time the report tendered to the Secretary of State on those regulations by the advisory committee.

As things stand, the anomaly is that, although the Bill—this is a matter of considerable gratification in Northern Ireland, as I noted on Second Reading—endows the advisory committee with the same advisory functions with regard to Northern Ireland legislation as in relation to Great Britain legislation, when Northern Ireland regulations are laid before the advisory committee and the advisory committee makes a report, that report will fall plop into the chasm of eternal night. It will not be seen by this House. It will not be presented to this House. It will not be brought to public notice in any way.

That happens because, as the Bill is drawn, it presumes the existence of what does not exist, namely, a Northern Ireland Assembly, before which the relevant regulations and the corresponding report of the advisory committee would be laid.

Mr. Orme

This is a central point; it was discussed in Committee. The right hon. Gentleman says that this amendment is on a narrower basis; but is it not a fact that the statute remains for the devolved Government who have been replaced temporarily by direct rule?

Mr. Powell

I am obliged to the right hon. Gentleman for his intervention—so, obviously, is the Minister of State, Northern Ireland Office, who was much cheered by it. With great respect, the right hon. Gentleman is not on the point that I am dealing with. In the earlier amendments which, thanks to the right hon. Gentleman, were discussed and explained in Committee, the proposal was to alter the structure of this clause. Having studied carefully what was said in Committee, my hon. Friends and I concluded that, given the legislation that was on the statute book, we had to use that terminology and that machinery of the Department in order to get these regulations made. That is why a narrower and different point is being made now.

These amendments leave intact the machinery under the 1973 and 1974 Acts. They leave intact the function of the Department, although, under the 1974 Act, it is the Secretary of State who is temporarily responsible for the Department. The amendments do something that is narrower and different, to which I do not believe that any hon. Member could have any objection.

I accept that, if or when there is in Northern Ireland an elected assembly, it would be proper that it should be to that assembly that the regulations should be brought and the report made. But, in the interim, when there is no such assembly, it is unreasonable that the report of the advisory committee, to which we are giving duties in respect of Northern Ireland should be simply dropped out of sight and not laid before this assembly, the and not laid before this House, the only elected assembly responsible, as things are, for the affairs of Northern Ireland.

Perhaps the amendments are not the right way, but we ask the Government to ensure that in the interim period, unless and until there is a Northern Ireland assembly, the regulations and the reports of the advisory committee on them come to the attention of the House, as will the reports on the regulations referring to Great Britain. It is absurd that we should go to the trouble of making the same advisory committee responsible for oversight of Northern Ireland legislation as of Great Britain legislation and then say that when it issues a report on Northern Ireland legislation, for which no other body can take account, that report shall not be laid before the House.

This is a simple point. In no way does it prejudice either the present legislative position or the present constitutional position or any possible future constitutional position. If and when an assembly is set up, nothing would be easier than to alter this by a paragraph of a subsection of one of the schedules. Let the House have the report for Northern Ireland as well as for the rest of the United Kingdom, as long as the House remains the only elected assembly for Northern Ireland. I do not mind how the Government do it. They cannot deny that the request is reasonable, and I am sure that they will accede to it.

Mr. Orme

I followed closely what the right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell) said. He was right to correct me. He is dealing with a narrower issue than that which was discussed in Committee. One way round the problem is for the Government to consider laying a report before the House at the same time as it is laid anywhere else and for it to be debatable if parliamentary time is available. The right hon. Member and his colleagues claim that under direct rule there is no full Parliament scrutiny of Northern Ireland affairs. The right hon. Gentleman is trying to protect the rights of Northern Ireland Members.

Mr. Powell

One can imagine the House debating Great Britain regulations and a report on them when there is a corresponding and even more critical report relating to Northern Ireland to which Members cannot refer.

Mr. Orme

The right hon. Gentleman has a fair point. The Government should take it on board.

I support the right hon. Gentleman's narrower argument, although we did not support the wider aspect in the philosophical debate in Committee.

Mr. Andrew F. Bennett

Reference has been made to amendments Nos. 82 and 83. It has been suggested that they are consequential to the main amendment. They may be consequential but they were tabled for a different purpose. I acccept that Northern Ireland regulations may never be debated, but there is another problem affecting regulations for the rest of Great Britain.

Schedule 3 contains a list of regulations which do not have to be put to the new advisory body for scrutiny. They are those which are made in the first six months. They deal with family income supplement, supplementary benefit, child benefit and various other benefits. Regulations on those issues will be excluded from reference to the advisory body.

I realise that such regulations may need to be referred before the new committee is established. That would be impossible. However, in earlier debates we agreed that in an emergency the regulations could be referred later. We would still get a report and thus discover whether there was criticism of the regulations, even if it was afterwards. It is important that that should happen with the first set of regulations.

It would have been better had we been given the opportunity to debate new clause 3. We could then have had a different form of scrutiny for the regulations the first time round. Unless the Government tell us that they propose some other form of scrutiny, it is essential for the first set of regulations to be referred, even after they have been made for report. There is a danger once provision is written into the first regulations that it will appear in successive regulations year after year without any justification. The first regulations are especially important.

I hope that the Under-Secretary is prepared to accept amendments Nos. 82 and 83 in their own right. That will ensure that the advisory committee has the chance to scrutinise all the regulations for Great Britain as well as ensuring that there is proper scrutiny by this House of regulations for Northern Ireland.

Mrs. Chalker

The aim of these amendments, as the right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell) said, is to overrule in one way the Northern Ireland Act 1974. I appreciate that the right hon. Gentleman was making a narrower point, but I believe that it has a wider implication. Obviously I am concerned that anything we do in this House—and this is a matter of social security—is not misunderstood in any of the current discussions and does not pre-empt any other discussions. I wish to make sure that the form of words that we use in this Bill replicate similar words used in other current leislation.

The effect of amendments Nos. 64, 65 and 66 would be to delete references to the Northern Ireland assembly and to make the Northern Ireland regulations subject to the same procedure at Westminster as their counterparts for the rest of Great Britain. Parliament accepted in 1974 that in the absence of devolved government in Northern Ireland it would, as a temporary measure, take on the more important responsibilities of the dissolved Northern Ireland assembly.

Because of the pressure of business, Parliament recognised the need to abbreviate certain procedures in some areas. However, it was accepted that the lack of any procedure would, though unsatisfactory, be tolerable for an interim period regardless of individual opinions about the satisfactory nature of these arrangements. I believe that it is not right to seek modifications of procedure in particular areas in this way.

I have an eye on the Government's present initiative in Northern Ireland. In no way would this House wish to prejudice those discussions. I am sad to say that acceptance of this amendment would be tantamount to Parliament declaring that responsibility for social security—traditionally a devolved subject—would henceforth be exercised by Westminster and not by any future Northern Ireland assembly. It is clearly not the right time to be making that sort of signal, and I am concerned that it might be taken amiss by the parties in Northern Ireland.

We have in this House procedures which I believe should be preserved so that these regulations, along with other regulations which affect Northern Ireland, might be drafted and discussed in the same way. I must tell the right hon. Gentleman, whose case I understand—I should hate him to think otherwise—that at present any move such as the one he seeks to persuade us to make in these amendments could make the present very serious discussions all the more difficult.

10.15 pm
Mr. Orme

I am following the hon. Lady's argument with interest. The Opposition might disagree with the right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell) about what will happen or is happening now, but we do not want anything to be done that will prejudice the present situation. We stand by the 1974 Act. Indeed, my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, South (Mr. Rees) was responsible for putting that Act through the House. I suggest that, without accepting the amendments, the hon. Lady could take on board the strong point made by the right hon. Member for Down, South—a point that I have tried to underline—that, in duplicate in a sense, regulations or submissions could still be made to the House without in any way prejudicing the Act as it is.

Mrs. Chalker

I am no expert on Northern Ireland matters. I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Minister of State, Northern Ireland Office, who is present, for his advice. I understand that the procedures that we use now regarding regulations as they affect Northern Ireland would be applied in the same way to regulations on social security matters. If we were to take the step suggested by the right hon. Member for Down, South, we should be extending the role in a way that is likely to be misunderstood at this delicate time in the negotiations.

One of the difficulties is that we do not often discuss some of these matters at a reasonable hour. Whilst I have not been privy to some of these discussions—I accept the point made by the right hon. Gentleman—I think that it would be in the interests of all concerned not to make an exception of social security regulations, which is what we would be doing, in comparison with other regulations which are made in the interest of Northern Ireland.

The hon. Member for Stockport, North (Mr. Bennett) spoke to amendment No. 83. The new Social Security Advisory Committee is an integral part of the new structure beginning in November. It will take over from the Supplementary Benefits Commission and the National Insurance Advisory Committee at that point. In practice, therefore, paragraph 17, which is the subject of the amendment, can be effective for only a very short time—for the very end of the six months following Royal Assent. That would be at a time when the new committee would be finding its feet. The new committee will be taking stock of its new, wide and onerous duties. I believe that it is important not to burden the committee with proposals for regulations in the first few days of its life. Furthermore, we have had a long standing practice to exclude reference to regulations made within six months of the passing of social security Bills on the grounds of urgency.

Taking the supplementary benefit scheme as an example, it is our intention that the revised scheme should come into operation at the same time as the November uprating. That will mean that 3 million weekly benefit payments will need to be recalculated to give effect to the detailed changes, most of which are prescribed in regulations. It is therefore essential that the main regulations be made as soon as possible after Royal Assent. These will be subject to affirmative resolution and, therefore, to debate in both Houses. Other regulations— for example, those governing the award of exceptional needs payments—will follow as soon as possible thereafter. But it is necessary for these regulations to be made quickly, because of the need to print the necessary leaflets and to train and equip local officers to operate the new rules. All that has to be completed in time for the revised scheme to become fully operational from November. There will clearly be no time, in the first short period of the Committee's life, for these urgent regulations to be dealt with.

Mr. Andrew F. Bennett

In Committee we put in clause 10(2)(a), which provided that, if there were any urgency, the Minister did not have to refer the regulations to the advisory committee before they were made, but merely that they would be referred afterwards for observations.

The Minister has argued clearly that in the first six months the regulations have to be available so that people can get on with them. I was arguing that, when the committee is set up, one of its tasks —not one that it has to rush into—will he to go through the regulations and to report on them, even after they have come into operation. There is a danger that the first set of regulations will form the framework for a very long time.

If, after the regulations have come into operation, the report states that some part is wrong, we shall have more chance of putting it right than if we have to wait until that part is referred at some future stage. It is important that we have a report, even if it is after the event.

Mrs. Chalker

To do as the hon. Gentleman suggests would put an unreasonable burden on the Social Security Advisory Committee. The regulations will come before the House for affirmative resolution. In amendments already made to the Bill we have asked for the consideration of a large number of regulations after they have been made. The extension of that to these regulations—falling within paragraph 17 of the schedule—is something with which the Committee, in the first few months of its existence, would not be able to cope.

I accept the hon. Gentleman's point, but it is not reasonable to ask it at this time. I hope that he will allow me to take the matter away for futher consideration. He mentioned it in passing in Committee, and has put it more forcefully tonight. I do not think that the matter can be dealt with in the way that he suggests, but I shall consider it again.

Mr. Bennett

The Minister said that we shall have the opportunity to debate the regulations on an affirmative resolution. That would give us a guaranteed one and a half hours for debate. Does the hon. Lady think that the House could scrutinise those regulations in one and a half hours more effectively than an advisory committee could do under referral? It would be of some help if she could guarantee more time for a debate on the regulations. One and a half hours would not be satisfactory.

Mrs. Chalker

That matter is for my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House. When the regulations come before the House, they will have been considered by the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments. There is a variety of ways in which all these matters are considered. I do not think that any of the regulations will lack investigation by one committee or another. If the onus of the debates that we have had on this issue in Committee and on the Floor of the House is anything to go by, we shall have so many people considering the regulations that we shall be in danger of going in the wrong direction.

I do not wish to be difficult. I wish to take a sensible—

Mr. Orme

I am sorry to press the hon. Lady once more, but I am advised that the regulations are laid in Parliament and referred to the Northern Ireland Committee. If so, they are discussed. Does not that cut across the point made by the right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell)? I asked whether the regulations could be laid in the House, but the hon. Lady said that they could not be.

Mrs. Chalker

My right hon. Friend the Minister of State, Northern Ireland Office wishes to add a few expert words on this issue. I am seeking to ensure that we use the same procedures for these regulations as we use for other regulations affecting Northern Ireland.

The Minister of State, Northern Ireland Office (Mr. Hugh Rossi)

Perhaps I can assist the House on this technical, constitutional problem.

Other than where the House decides by primary legislation—by means of a Bill—that it shall apply to Northern Ireland, primary legislation otherwise applies to Northern Ireland by way of Order in Council. Subordinate legislation is downgraded one step. If it applies to Britain, it is a matter for affirmative resolution in this House. In Northern Ireland the same regulation is dealt with by negative resolution. A negative resolution is not discussed at all in this House. That is probably the right hon. Member's problem.

That is how the 1974 Act has defined the situation. We would wish to depart from that position as soon as normal circumstances prevail in Northern Ireland. But, as the House is aware, at present we are engaged in sensitive and delicate discussions in the hope of achieving normality in the Province.

I urge the House to do nothing in this Bill to change what has been so far the recognised way of dealing with these matters, because such things can be readily misinterpreted across the water. The last thing that I would want to do is to create a situation in which an Act of this House, in all innocence, creates difficulties for us in Northern Ireland.

Mr. J. Enoch Powell

In moving these amendments, I referred to the fact that there is another stage for the Bill. Perhaps I may spend a few seconds to take up the gravamen of the Minister's point.

In addition to the points that I have already accepted, I accept that it would be awkward for regulations which, in all other contexts, would not be laid before the House under the 1974 Act to be laid before the House in this case only. The only reason for introducing that provision into these amendments was as a trigger mechanism, as it were, to try to get the report before the House. If the Government can manage to get the report before the House by one way or another, they will not be breaching any precedents or systems laid down in the 1974 Act because these reports are unique. There is no similar report from such a body as this about regulations.

My object is simply to ensure that the Government have an opportunity to consider in the narrowest and most specific possible form the points at issue before the next stage of this Bill. That is why I took the time of the House to make that additional remark.

Mrs. Chalker

With the leave of the House, I should like to reply to the right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell). I will look at what he has just said and I will write to him. I accept the logic of his case, but I am not in a position at present to give him the assurance that he seeks.

Mr. Powell

In the light of that undertaking, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

  1. Schedule 3
      2. cc558-65
    1. SOCIAL SECURITY ADVISORY COMMITTEE 2,857 words
  2. Clause 13
      3. cc565-8
    1. TENURE OF OFFICE OF COMMISSIONER 717 words
  3. Clause 21
      4. cc568-72
    1. SUPPLEMENTAL 2,102 words, 1 division
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