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Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill

moved Amendment No. 33: After Clause 20, insert the following new clause- ““APPLICATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS ACT 1998 Orders made under this Part shall be treated for the purposes of the Human Rights Act 1998 (c. 42) as subordinate legislation and not as primary legislation (whether or not they amend primary legislation).”” The noble Lord said: My Lords, I shall deal with the amendment very briefly because we dealt with a large part of its purpose in the previous debate. I draw the attention of the House to paragraph 1.15 of the 21st report of the Joint Committee on Human Rights of the current Session, which says: "““We therefore remain of the view that a provision should be inserted into the ‘Restrictions’ part of the Bill making clear that no order made under clause 1 of the Bill amending, repealing or replacing any legislation shall be treated as primary legislation for the purposes of the Human Rights Act 1998. We draw this matter to the attention of each House””." Of course, we all regard the Joint Committee on Human Rights as extremely important and believe that its views must be greatly respected. If its view was adopted, we would avoid the difficulties that seemed to arise in the debate on Amendment No. 29, because it would be perfectly clear that the court would have the power to strike down an order that was incompatible in the same way as it can strike down an order that is made ultra vires, irrationally or without the proper procedure. The amendment, if accepted, would clearly improve the Bill. I beg to move.