Supplementary evidence from Mr Jim Murphy
MP, Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (P 53)
The Committee requested that examples be provided
of amendments to private or hybrid legislation which might be
made using order-making powers under the Bill (Question 57). Clause
1(3)(a) of the Bill would permit the amendment by order of local
Acts (which concern particular areas and govern, for example,
port and harbour authorities, charities or educational institutions).
The Bill would not permit the amendment of personal Acts (which
concerns named individuals and regulate such matters as family
trusts or estates). An example of an amendment that would include
making amendments to local and public Acts that might be suitable
for delivery by order is the winding up of the Covent Garden Market
Authority and return of the Market to the private sector. An order
which made these amendments would contain provision which, if
contained in a public Bill, would make that Bill hybrid.
At various points during the evidence session
I referred to the effective veto which the relevant Parliamentary
committees can exercise regarding individual draft orders. I would
like to take this opportunity to clarify that this was a reference
to the veto which is in effect created by the Ministerial undertaking
given during the Parliamentary passage of the 2001 Act, which
has to date never been departed from and will continue to apply
to draft orders under the powers in this Bill, as it is currently
drafted.
In response to Question 6, 1 stated that every
protection in the 2001 Act will remain. In this respect I was
referring to the limits on the power contained in the 2001 Act
now contained in the pre-conditions of clause 3 of the Bill, which
have been adapted to cater for the removal of the concept of legal
burdens. These pre-conditions will now apply more generally to
orders than under the 2001 Act, along with the added protection
that no new taxation or taxation increases can be imposed using
the order making power.
With reference to my response to Question 40,
it should be noted that if a relevant committee were to make a
recommendation on which procedure should apply to an order on
day 21 of the procedure, and the relevant House were to make a
contradictory resolution within the 21-day period, then the decision
of the House would prevail over the recommendation of its committee.
However the committee and the House are subject to the same, concurrent
21-day period.
Finally, I was asked in Questions 48 to 52 to
explain whether there was any significance attached to the difference
between the wording of the super-affirmative resolution procedure
in the 2001 Act and the wording of the super-affirmative procedure
in the Bill as it is currently drafted. The order-making procedure
under the 2001 Act differs from that in the Bill in one aspect.
Under the 2001 Act, a draft order is not laid until after the
60-day period for scrutiny has expired. Under the Bill, a draft
order is laid at the beginning of the scrutiny period in order
to enable either of the three alternative procedures to apply
to an order. The drafting of clause 16 reflects this difference
in particular. The Minister can lay a revised draft order at the
end of the 60-day period if he considers that changes should be
made to the original draft. Any further differences are drafting
changes designed to ensure that the clause is as clear as possible.
These do not have any substantive effect on how super-affirmative
procedure works.
March 2006
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