COMMONS AMENDMENT (Hansard, 11 July 1995)

Earl Ferrers
My Lords, I beg to move that the House do agree with the Commons in their Amendment No. 2. At the same time it may be convenient if we consider Amendments Nos. 12, 13, 24, 25, 161, 192, 193, 202, 210, 239, 240, 241, 243, 268, 274, 275, 291, 292, 294, 298, 299, 308, 311 and 326. This group comprises a number of minor and technical amendments. I beg to move.

§ Baroness Hilton of Eggardon
My Lords, this is indeed a long list of technical amendments, but there is one in particular which I wish to bring to the attention of the House and to ask the Minister to explain in slightly greater detail. I refer to Amendment No. 13, which appears to give very wide-ranging and extensive powers to Ministers. It appears to suggest that a Minister may order the agency to do anything he chooses under this section or any other enactment". That is an extraordinarily wide power and grants to a Minister, who may find some obscure and irrelevant piece of legislation unrelated to the agency's functions, the power to direct the agency to act on it.
In this arena we are back to the problem of the agency not being given an overriding, overarching purpose which would confine the actions which a Minister might wish to take under this particular measure. We had long debates at earlier stages of the Bill that the agency is given no specific purpose in existing at all. Indeed, its purpose, as laid down by the Bill, is to carry out the 1475 functions transferred or assigned to it under the Bill. We have spent many hours arguing that it should have some specific role to protect or enhance the environment. It is this defect in the Bill—the fact that the agency has no specific function—which makes the extension of this particular section so odd. As far as I can see, it enables a Minister to require the agency to do almost anything. I should be grateful if the Minister could enlighten us as to why Ministers need this extraordinarily wide-ranging power to direct the agency and whether there are any restraints or confinements on what a Minister may do under this section, as it has been suggested it should be amended.

Earl Ferrers
My Lords, I do not believe that there is anything too much for the noble Baroness to be unduly concerned about. Amendment No. 13 says that the new agencies are to comply with directions given to them by Ministers. It removes any doubt that that is so. Amendments Nos. 12 and 13 were tabled because the European Commission has questioned the absence of a similar provision in Section 5(5) of the Water Resources Act 1991 and indicated that it would seek to challenge directions which are made without that sort of provision. We are confident of having an answer to such a challenge. We thought however that it would be a waste of time and money to try to fight such a case in the European Court of Justice. Part of the reason for the amended Clause 38 is to have available the means to implement European Community obligations by direction and to ensure that this provision satisfies the requirements of European Community law. Therefore, we consider that it is appropriate to put in those provisions in order to avoid any misunderstanding.