Victims and Prisoners Bill

Debate between Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede and Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts

Committee stage
Tuesday 12th March 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts (Con)]

My Lords, I wonder whether I could detain the Committee for one minute on Amendments 156 and 157. The background to this is my time as chairman of the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee, when, with my noble friend Lord Blencathra, we drew attention to the creeping growth in the power of the Executive at the expense of the legislature in our reports Government by Diktat and Democracy Denied?. Therefore, when amendments present changes to be effected or not effected by secondary legislation, my ears prick up.

First, we have to recognise that there has to be secondary legislation. The SLSC looks at between 600 and 800 regulations per year. To think that those can be put through by primary legislation is fanciful. The Government’s system would be completely gummed up, so something has to be done.

Secondly, we all know that the system for scrutinising secondary legislation is weak, to say the least. There is no chance to amend, even if the House were to agree that one particular provision in a regulation was inadequate or wrong; it is all or nothing. There is no room for ping- pong or other things we see in primary legislation. All those things are important. This House has decided to stand in the way of secondary legislation only six times since 1968. The last time, in 2015, led to a full-scale constitutional crisis, the Strathclyde review, et cetera.

With great respect to my noble friend Lord Attlee, it seems that Amendment 156 would lock us into the structure we currently have. He says that a criminal justice Bill will be along in no time at all; maybe, but we would be locked into the structure we have because the Secretary of State has no power at all. By contrast, Amendment 157, in the name of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd, would give the Secretary of State some powers, but only to loosen, not to tighten. It seems to me that, in so far as we are seeking a balance between the Executive and the legislature, between moving too quickly and not moving at all, Amendment 157 is to be preferred, and I hope the Committee would not accept Amendment 156.

[Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)]

My Lords, this has been an interesting and relatively short debate. We have four groups of amendments covering IPP sentences, and this first group is perhaps the easiest and most benign to agree with. I say to the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, that we in the Opposition have no problem with this group. I acknowledge the interesting point that the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, just made regarding the differences between Amendments 156 and 157. Nevertheless, we have no problem agreeing with the generality of amendments in this group. I thank the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas, for his crystal-clear description, quoting my noble friend Lady Chakrabarti, when he introduced the amendments.

We agree with the general thrust of these amendments and, if it comes to it at a later stage, will support any amendments that may be pushed further. I would like to do the Minister’s job and say what the problems might be. I acknowledge that, with a reducing cohort of IPP prisoners in prison, you are dealing with very difficult and potentially dangerous people. As this number reduces, the problem gets greater. I think that is a fair point to make. It is a point the Minister usually makes, but I want to make it from this side of the Chamber.

We will come to more ambitious proposals in subsequent groups, but here we are just dealing with various amendments to licence conditions and fairly imaginative ways of reducing them overall. We support them in the generality.

Charities Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede and Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts

Thursday 18th November 2021 Other Business

[Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)]

My Lords, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Etherton, has asked me to move his Amendment 3 and has provided me with speaking notes, which I will read out. I would like to send my best wishes to the noble and learned Lord and hope that he comes back to our proceedings as soon as possible.

Amendment 3, as set out in the brief explanatory note included in the Marshalled List, is in accordance with the recommendation of the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee’s fifth report of Session 2021-22. Clause 12, which introduces new Sections 284A, 284B, 284C and 284D to the Charities Act 2011, creates a new statutory power for a charity to borrow a limited amount from the permanent endowment subject to repayment. Borrowing is limited to the permitted amount, as defined in Section 284B by reference to a formula in new Section 284B(1), and must be repaid within 20 years, as required under new Section 284A(2)(b), under the current provision in Clause 12(3) of the Bill.

Those two matters can be amended by regulations made pursuant to the negative resolution procedure. Clause 12(3) is one of five provisions in the Bill providing for regulations to be made by negative resolution where the appropriateness of the negative procedure has been questioned by the DPRRC. The DCMS response was that the powers are narrow in scope and use of the negative procedure merely follows the practice in the 2011 Act. There are three answers to that response. First, the fact that the negative resolution procedure is mostly used in the 2011 Act does not warrant the negative resolution in every case in the Bill. Secondly, there are provisions in the 2011 Act that stipulate the affirmative resolution procedure—see Sections 348 and 349. Thirdly, the regulations in Clause 12(3) are to be contrasted with regulations that are directed merely to changes in the value of money over time. As to that, the 20-year repayment stipulation is not a financial or threshold amount. No doubt it is for that reason that in his oral evidence Professor Hopkins of the Law Commission accepted that Clause 12 was not like other provisions in the Bill which provide for financial limits to be altered by regulation.

As to the calculation of the permitted amount, it is to be noted that the DPRRC said that greater weight should be given to the exceptional case of Henry VIII powers subject to the negative resolution procedure than to consistency with the existing approach in the 2011 Act; that in such cases provision for the negative resolution procedure to apply is to be treated as exceptional and requires a full justification to be given; and that, critically, unlike a power to amend the financial limit or threshold limit to uprating for inflation, the power in the Bill to amend the permitted amount that can be borrowed from the permanent endowment is not limited in any way and, in particular, is not limited to making changes to reflect changes in the value of money. I beg to move.

[Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts (Con)]

My Lords, I urge the Government and/or the Committee to accept this amendment and in doing so I, too, send my best wishes to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Etherton, for a speedy recovery. I am sorry he is not here to speak to his amendment.

The issue of permanent endowment is critical. It sounds highly technical, but it is critical because if you give a sum of money for the future, you may not wish your successors after you have died to spend it all. You may wish to have a permanent lump of money that will go on creating, looking after and fulfilling the public benefit you had in mind when you gave your funds in the first place. It is a key issue of a donor’s wishes as expressed in the way that the charity is set up. That is one problem.

The other half of the problem is that times change. The numbers get quite small because of inflation and the nature of the purposes to which you wish to put your money become outdated. We therefore need to find a way to balance this, but it is important because a person’s wishes as expressed in their will are a critical part of our society, so issues such as this require the affirmative resolution. Of course, we need to be able to change things to reflect inflation and so on, but it needs as high a level of scrutiny—of regulation—as we can offer. There are arguments about whether any level of secondary legislation scrutiny is good enough, but that is for another day. What is important is that we should have the highest possible level of scrutiny for this type of change that is available in the present regulatory structure.