---

Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill

Noble Lords will appreciate from what has been said that an amendment with identical terms was moved in the other place. I have to tell the noble Lord, Lord Goodhart, whom I greatly respect—I have certainly paid full attention to what he has said on these matters—that I recall that the Liberal Democrats in the other place seem to be rather impressed by the amendment; certainly some of them spoke in favour of it. I cannot say with certainty that they all voted for it, because I do not have Hansard in front of me, but I have the clearest recollection that the Liberal Democrat leading for his party spoke enthusiastically in favour of the proposed new clause in the other place. Whether that is a matter to which we should pay great attention and on which we should place great weight, I know not, but it is important to put the record straight. The other thing that I should tell your Lordships is that a great deal of work went into drafting the amendment, because we are clearly dealing with sensitive constitutional issues. The matter was discussed at length with parliamentary counsel, and I think the Committee will take it from me that this is the wording which the Government would have been asked to accept as the correct wording of a new clause if they had wished to achieve the three aims to which I referred. If they had wished to make absolutely sure that the Bill could be used to get rid of gold-plating, this is the appropriate wording. If they had wished to make it plain in the measure that the 1972 Act can be disapplied, this is the correct wording to use—of that, Members of the Committee can be absolutely certain. To return to what the noble Lord, Lord Goodhart, said, if the procedures available to this House were used with the intention of enacting law that made us fully compliant with our EU obligation, but having used those procedures, tailor-made for meeting our EU obligations, the Government believed that we had gone too far, I doubt very much whether, without this wording, it would be safe to use this measure to get rid of the gold-plating and to amend what we had originally done. I do not know how certain the noble Lord, Lord Goodhart, is in his mind. I am not certain in my mind, and I would rather be sure. Common sense tells one to spell out clearly in this measure that it could be used to get rid of gold-plating. This was not the matter which was dealt with by the noble Lord, Lord Goodhart. We have not done it yet in any statute, but it is about time that we made it plain on the face of a Bill that there is nothing all that special about the 1972 Act, which can be disapplied in a particular case if the appropriate wording is used. If it is disapplied, our courts would be obliged to give effect to Parliament’s plain intention if that was clear in the Bill.