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Child Maintenance and Other Payments Bill

moved Amendment No. 207: 207: Clause 44, page 38, line 29, at end insert— ““( ) The first regulations made under Part 4 shall not be made unless a draft of the statutory instrument containing them has been laid before, and approved by a resolution of, each House of Parliament.”” The noble Lord said: We have slipped into the part of the Bill which deals with mesothelioma, which is a horrible disease about which we shall be talking in some detail next week on a pneumoconiosis order. As a part-time parliamentary technician, I tabled this amendment in response to advice given by the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee. Clause 43 provides for lump-sum payments to be made to a person suffering from diffuse mesothelioma or to the dependant of such a person who has died. Unlike the provision for lump-sum payments in similar cases of asbestosis-related illness or death under the Pneumoconiosis etc. (Workers’ Compensation) Act 1979, there is no requirement for the sufferer to have established entitlement to industrial injuries disablement benefit in relation to the diseases, on the basis that they are work related. The amounts of payments under Clause 43 are to be prescribed in regulations subject, as under the 1979 Act, to the affirmative procedure. However, while the conditions of entitlement to a payment are provided for in Clause 44, it is apparent that of the three entitlement conditions which apply to sufferers—subsection (1)—and their dependants—subsection (2)—the second and third are in each case entirely dependent on regulations, and all these can be introduced under the negative resolution format. Your Lordships’ Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee considered that this was the right approach, given that equivalent powers in the Pneumoconiosis etc. (Workers’ Compensation) Act 1979 were negative. However, that was the best part of 30 years ago and parliamentary procedure has moved on since then. At that time there were only two ways of pursuing orders, affirmative and negative. In the past 10 years or so we have developed a third; namely, to have the first order made under the affirmative procedure and subsequent orders, which are usually but not invariably amendment orders, by the negative procedure. As the Government intend something entirely new in this set of orders, it is appropriate that we have a proper discussion at the beginning and, should amendment be necessary, I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, and I and other noble Lords would point that out and perhaps the amending orders could subsequently be made by negative resolution. I beg to move.