The House of Lords Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee (DPRRC) has published a report on the Railways Bill, flagging concerns with three clauses contained in the Bill as either too broadly drawn, having insufficient parliamentary oversight, or representing inappropriate ‘Henry VIII’ powers.
The Committee say that Clause 71 in the Railways Bill, which gives the Government the power to make changes to access arrangements for private rail firms to access the rail network with the creation of Great British Railways (GBR) “confers a unilateral right to amend contracts to which the Government is a party”.
While the Government have said in an associated memorandum that it will use the power in a limited way and only when necessary, the Committee say that the “assurances would not be necessary if the delegated power was more constrained” and that the Committee judges proposed delegated powers on how the government, or a future government, could use them, not how it says it will.
The Committee says the House of Lords should consider amending the powers in Clause 71 so it can only be used for the purposes for which the Government say it is intended and that when they are used they should be subject to a higher degree of parliamentary oversight than currently proposed
The Committee also consider Clauses 72 and 73 which also deal with access to infrastructure and says they are Henry VIII powers – allowing Ministers to amend, repeal or otherwise modify the effect of an existing Act of Parliament. The report says the Government has not justified why these powers are necessary which, in the case of Clause 72, would allow the government to amend future – as yet unknown – legislation without proper parliamentary scrutiny.
The Committee says the House of Lords should consider removing clause 73 from the Bill and amending Clause 72 so that it cannot be used to amend Acts passed in future sessions of Parliament.
The full report can be viewed here.
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