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House of Commons

Friday 4 July 2003

The House met at half-past Nine o'clock

PRAYERS

[Sylvia Heal in the Chair]

MR. SPEAKER'S ABSENCE

The House being met, and the Speaker having leave of absence pursuant to paragraph (3) of Standing Order No. 3 (Deputy Speaker), Sylvia Heal, The First Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means, proceeded to the Table.

Point of Order

9.33 am

Mr. Eric Forth (Bromley and Chislehurst): On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. You will be aware that, yesterday, Mr. Speaker gave a ruling or guidance to the House about referring to the inappropriateness of the appointment of the Minister for Children. I seek your guidance and interpretation of that ruling. Mr. Speaker said:

"The House should know that when an hon. Member is being attacked in such a way there should be a substantive motion before the House."

He was talking about what he said was

"a regular and concerted attack on the Minister for Children."

Some of us thought that the Opposition were here to make regular and concerted attacks on Ministers, but that may now be a rather old-fashioned view—I do not know.

I seek your guidance, Madam Deputy Speaker, about

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the fact that Mr. Speaker said in the context of attacking Ministers that

"there should be a substantive motion before the House."

It would help us if we could have your guidance on what form that substantive motion might take and how it would enable Opposition Members or, indeed, Government Back Benchers more effectively to hold a Minister to account.

I am sure that this is not what Mr. Speaker meant, but the worrying implication of that ruling is that it suggests a degree of protection for Ministers by the occupant of the Chair. I am sure that you, Madam Deputy Speaker, will want to assure us that that cannot be so, but it would be very helpful if you could guide me and the House on what form the substantive motion should take. I hope that you will not say that it should be something like an early-day motion because, as you know, that leads absolutely nowhere.

I hope that you will be able to tell us what we can do procedurally to table a substantive motion that will allow us properly to hold a Minister to account—whether or not it represents, in Mr. Speaker's words, a

"concerted attack on the Minister"—[Official Report, 3 July 2003; Vol. 408, c. 542.]

I hope to concert many attacks on Ministers in my remaining time as a Member, but, on this occasion, your guidance would be very helpful.

Madam Deputy Speaker: I do not think that it is for me to interpret what Mr. Speaker himself said yesterday, but I suggest that the right hon. Gentleman should perhaps seek the advice of the Clerks in the Table Office.

BILL PRESENTED

Physical Punishment of Children (Prohibition)

Geraint Davies, supported by Ms Karen Buck, Ms Debra Shipley, Mr. Harold Best, Mrs. Janet Dean, Harry Cohen, Linda Perham, Mr. Greg Pope and Jane Griffiths, presented a Bill to make provision about the physical punishment of children: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time on Friday 11 July, and to be printed. [Bill 143].

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Orders of the Day

Co-operatives and Community Benefit Societies Bill

Lords amendments considered.

Clause 1

Community Benefit Societies: Power to Restrict Use of Assets

Lords amendment: No. 1, page 2, line 20, leave out "him to perform" and insert
"or assist him to perform any of".

9.36 am

Mr. Mark Todd (South Derbyshire): I beg to move, That this House agrees with the Lords in the said amendment.

Madam Deputy Speaker (Sylvia Heal): With this we may discuss Lords amendments Nos. 2 and 3.

Mr. Todd: This group of amendments, of which Lords amendment No. 2 is the most significant, arises from consideration of the Bill in the House of Lords Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee, which provided a very useful analysis of some aspects of clause 1. The critical element that the Committee raised in respect of this group of amendments was the potential for the clause to be applied more widely, so that it could touch on other aspects of the regulation of co-operative and community benefit societies, not just those related to the activities in clause 1. The intent of this group of amendments is to narrow that purpose, and those hon. Members who have a copy of the amendments available at the Table Office will see that Lords amendment No. 2 specifies how the activities of the individual carrying out such processes should be restricted.

Mr. John Randall (Uxbridge): Although I understand what the hon. Member for South Derbyshire (Mr. Todd) is saying, I confess that I am not a great expert in this subject. Why have the words

"or assist him to perform any"

been included? Lords amendment No. 2 contains a similar phrase, but why are such things restricted to the processes in the clause? I understand that such a change makes the clause less compulsory, but I should like the hon. Gentleman to explain further how it will achieve what he says is its purpose.

Mr. Eric Forth (Bromley and Chislehurst): I must admit that I always have a moment of doubt when such an amendment has to be considered at this late but quite proper stage in the proceedings on a Bill. Indeed, in this case, three such amendments have been grouped together. What worries me are phrases such as "authorise a prescribed person", which appears in Lords amendment No. 2. I say that particularly because it goes on to say that that prescribed person will

"make rules, binding on persons".

I am not sure that I fully understand why such a rather opaque expression has been written into the Bill. It would help us if the promoter of the Bill gave us his

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thoughts on who that prescribed person might be, and whether that would vary in different circumstances, to say nothing of the fact that that prescribed person can make the rules binding on other persons of a prescribed description. An awful lot of prescription is going on, about which we have no idea and on which we have no assistance. Trying to be helpful and positive, I suppose, the provision goes on to talk about

"enabling or assisting him to perform any of his functions under the regulations".

Again, the problem that we always face at this stage of legislation is that we are asked to approve a framework approach to something that will become clear only when the regulations are published. An element of doubt therefore exists that gives me pause for thought.

The next provision talks about the

"making, publication and enforcement of such rules".

Again, that is a permissive provision, but it is very wide, and it appears to provide some unrestricted powers in terms of the rules that can be made. These very wide, broad and rather vague provisions contain the potential for quite draconian action, because we are talking about binding rules being made—even if they are for the purpose of enabling or assisting, they are still binding. It would therefore help the House greatly if the promoter told us whom the prescribed person making those binding rules might be. It might also help us to know who are the persons of a prescribed description on whom these rules will bear.

The next rather intriguing provision is to leave out "carrying out" and insert "performing". Perhaps the semantics behind that change are too subtle for me to begin to understand. Clearly, the promoter understands them, and it would help the House enormously if he told us whether this subtle change of wording has some sinister implication, or whether their lordships are merely demonstrating to us that they have a much better command of the language than we do, which we would all find entirely forgivable. I am sure that I, along with the promoter, would defer happily to their lordships in their superior command of the language. If there is any more to it than that, however, it would be helpful to the House to know.

Perhaps the promoter could provide a little more help, give us a little more detail, and—if he could get behind the motivation of their lordships—tell us what he thinks was in their minds when they inserted those provisions. That would help the House greatly.

Mr. Christopher Chope (Christchurch): I very much follow what my right hon. Friend has said. Having looked at the origins of these amendments, we must be grateful to Members of the other place for having made some progress in trying to limit the Henry VIII powers in this Bill. One might almost say that a culture has been developing in recent weeks and in debates in this Chamber, particularly on Fridays, whereby people think that anybody who tables an amendment to a private Member's Bill, however worthy, is somehow to be disparaged and criticised.

Their lordships have demonstrated through these amendments that they were anxious about the original scope of the wording, because a Lords Select Committee was concerned about it. As a result of the amendment before us today, especially the second amendment in the

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group, I take the point to which the noble Lord Carter referred in the other place that any regulations conferring functions

"can only make provision for the specific and limited purpose expressly set out in subsection (1): i.e., they can only set up an asset 'lock-in' regime for community benefit societies".—[Official Report, House of Lords, 13 June 2003; Vol. 649, c. 501.]

Clearly, that is better than the previous provision, and for that reason I would be keen to support the amendments.

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