SUPPLEMENTARY. (Hansard, 17 July 2000)

§ Mr. Simon Hughes
I beg to move amendment No. 24, in clause 3, page 2, line 14, leave out from "under" to "may" in line 16 and insert "this Act".

The First Deputy Chairman
With this it will be convenient to discuss amendment No. 25, in page 2, line 19, leave out subsection (5).

§ Mr. Hughes
This will be a brief contribution, Mr. Martin. The amendments are about what procedure the House will retain for controlling orders that will be made under the Bill when it is enacted. On Thursday, the Home Secretary announced that he had accepted 133 representations from Opposition parties and outside that the Act should have a limited life of five years and that the controversial banning order and summary detention powers should be the subject of renewal orders. The renewal order provision needs a positive motion of the House to be confirmed and the summary detention order and the banning order require the House to be asked its view every year.
The amendments seek to make sure that all the orders that come under the Bill are covered by the affirmative order procedure. The other day, I put it to the Home Secretary that the powers that he has reserved to himself in clause 3 are Henry VIII powers. He said that they were not; they were Edward II powers—puny little extras which allow the Home Secretary to do little things at the edges. I am prepared to go halfway; they may have to be tied to the Bill, which refers to supplementary, incidental or consequential…transitory, transitional or saving provisions. Some could be persuaded that those provisions could go quite wide if one wanted them to.
There are certain things that we hope are included. The right hon. Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Miss Widdecombe) and her colleagues have referred to the power to make provisions for compensation, legal aid and other things. That would be consequential, so we want to make sure that there are powers available. The general principle is that we ought to have the ability to have a debate on a Bill that is clearly controversial and it ought not to be left to the rather uncertain negative resolution procedures of the House as to whether or not the orders renewing the controversial parts of the Bill are passed by the two Houses.
Amendment No. 24 would sweep the whole Act into the affirmative resolution procedure, while amendment No. 25 takes out the exception so that the rest of the matters that are not specifically provided for would be dealt with under the negative resolution procedure. The amendments go together, and they are straightforward. I can indicate now that we do not propose to divide the Committee on this matter. I hope that the Government will be positive and will give us one generic piece of information. What do they intend to use the power for? What powers will have to be introduced? If the Minister is as helpful as possible about that, it will alleviate some of the concerns.

§ The Minister of State, Home Office (Mr. Charles Clarke)
The powers invested in the Secretary of State to make orders under the Bill are limited to "supplementary, incidental or consequential" provisions. Such powers are well precedented, for example in the Criminal Justice and Court Services Bill and the recent Greater London Authority Act 1999. The Bill already requires the affirmative resolution procedure for any amendment to primary legislation and for any order extending the life of the powers under new sections 14B, 21A and 21B.
In accordance with the precedents that I mentioned, other amendments to secondary legislation can perfectly appropriately be dealt with under the negative resolution procedure, which ensures adequate parliamentary scrutiny. Among the matters that may be dealt with by such secondary legislation is the legal aid entitlement of persons issued with a notice to appear before a magistrates court.
134 For those reasons, the Government are resisting the amendment. I appreciate the motives behind it, but we believe that our approach in the Bill should be similar and equivalent to the way in which we have dealt with these issues in other legislation.

§ Mr. Peter Bottomley (Worthing, West)
Can the Minister say, off the cuff, whether there are also precedents for allowing the affirmative resolution procedure for amending secondary legislation?.

§ Mr. Clarke
I believe that there are precedents, but I cannot give them off the cuff.

§ Mr. Oliver Heald (North-East Hertfordshire)
The Data Protection Acts.

§ Mr. Clarke
The hon. Gentleman is always extremely helpful in all matters concerning the welfare of the nation. He gives one example of a precedent, but I was going to offer to write to give further precedents to help the hon. Member for Worthing, West (Mr. Bottomley).
I hope that the hon. Member for Southwark, North and Bermondsey (Mr. Hughes) will withdraw the amendment.

§ Mr. Simon Hughes
The Committee will have heard what the Minister said. He has been helpful in giving us an example of what the Government would use the power for. We have the power in both Houses to have a compulsory vote on important renewal matters. I therefore beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.