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Child Maintenance and Other Payments Bill

The noble Lord, Lord Skelmersdale, has something here. Amendment No. 207 refers to Part 4 of the Bill, which deals specifically with mesothelioma. The amendment requires that the first set of any regulations made under Part 4 would be subject to parliamentary scrutiny under the affirmative resolution procedure. At present, only regulations made under Clause 43, as the noble Lord has pointed out, which state that the Secretary of State may prescribe the amount of any lump-sum payment, will be subject to the affirmative resolution procedure. Amendment No. 207 goes further and would require regulations made under Clauses 45 to 47 to be subject to the affirmative procedure in the first instance. Clause 44 sets out the conditions of entitlement that must be satisfied for a lump-sum payment in respect of mesothelioma to be made. I intend to table a government amendment, on Report, which will require that the first set of regulations made under Clause 44 be subject to the affirmative resolution procedure. This change follows a recommendation in the report of the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee. As a number of the conditions of entitlement for the new mesothelioma scheme are to be contained in regulations, it would be appropriate that in the first instance they are subject to more detailed parliamentary scrutiny. However, unlike Clauses 43 and 44, which set out the conditions for entitlement and lump-sum payments, Clauses 45 to 47 are concerned with administrative detail, such as determining claims, carrying out a reconsideration of a determination and setting out the appeal route against a determination. We feel that it is unnecessary to subject such administrative detail to the affirmative resolution procedure, and there is also a precedent in that similar regulation-making powers set out in the Pneumoconiosis etc. (Workers’ Compensation) Act 1979, on which the new mesothelioma provisions are based, are also subject to the negative resolution procedure. Given that those regulations, which focus much more on detail, such as how much a payment should be and the conditions of entitlement, will be subject to full parliamentary scrutiny under the affirmative resolution procedure, I hope that the noble Lord will feel satisfied and will be able to withdraw the amendment. I think that that deals with his substantive point.