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Report from the House of Commons Reform Committee on Rebuilding the House

If the hon. Gentleman will forgive me, I want to finish making this point. The House has very limited control over secondary legislation. Sadly, and very seriously, the convention to which I referred has been completely torn to shreds by this present Government. If the House wants an example, I give it section 2 of the Fiscal Responsibility Act 2010, which has very recently gone on to the statute book. Under the heading, "Further duties for securing sound public finances", subsection (1) states:""The Treasury may make an order imposing on the Treasury a duty or duties framed by reference to any one or more of the financial years ending in 2011 to 2016."" So here we have an order-making power putting on to the Treasury statutory obligations that vitally affect macro-economic policy, jobs, employment, and so on—legal powers that the Treasury will be obliged to adhere to, all whistling through this House on the basis of a 90-minute non-amendable debate. That, in my book, is a gross abuse of the legislative power of this House. It is for those reasons that, while I recognise that these reforms are a very small step in the right direction, I take the view that they are wholly inadequate to restore the legislative authority of the House of Commons.