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Industry and the Environment

My hon. Friend is right, and Conservative Members will continue to hold the Government to account for their performance alongside the targets that they have, as my hon. Friend points out, set themselves. Let me turn to the reasons for the failure to improve our productivity performance and our competitiveness, one of which is the increased burden of regulation on British business. Does the Secretary of State agree that by far the biggest complaint that one hears from British business, especially small business, is the sheer costs of compliance with the ever-greater flow of regulations and burdens from the Government? Since 1997—we should record this as we are debating the Queen’s Speech and considering yet further legislation—the Government have produced no fewer than 315 Acts of Parliament; quite a lot of law for people to be getting on with. We have now reached the absurd position where, in the Queen’s Speech this week, we have proposals to legislate to reduce the amount of legislation. Legislation is to be introduced to streamline regulatory structures and to make it simpler to remove outdated or unnecessary legislation. Legislation to remove legislation and a new quango to cut bureaucracy; that is what the Government offer us. We will be scrutinising very hard the Secretary of State’s proposals on regulation to see whether he can live up to his promises. I also warn the Secretary of State of something else that concerns Conservative Members emerging from the election campaign: the growing problem of tough questions that are ruled out during the campaign, excluded from discussion by the Government and fail to appear in their manifesto, but which suddenly and miraculously appear on the policy agenda within days of their re-election. Call me old fashioned, but I thought the idea was that one put one’s policy proposals before the electorate to fight an election on them, rather than trying to get re-elected first and then deciding what the policies should be. The Secretary of State has examples of that in his own Department. On the Post Office, does he stand by the statement in the Labour manifesto that the Government’s"““ambition is to see a publicly owned Royal Mail fully restored to good health, providing customers with excellent services and its employees with rewarding employment””?" Or is it true—as it has since been reported—that"““workers could be given shares in the postal operator in a ‘John Lewis’-style ownership structure””?" We in the House of Commons are entitled to know whether he stands by the statements made in the Labour manifesto or not. On energy, the Secretary of State and his colleagues studiously avoided talking about the energy crisis during the election. However, we know from a leaked memorandum that one of his officials has already written to him, calling for a speedy decision on whether to build more nuclear facilities. She said:"““The case for looking at the nuclear question again quickly is that if we want to avoid a very sharp fuel in nuclear’s contribution to energy supplies (some fall is certain and has already begun), we should need to act soon given the long lead times . . . in getting a new nuclear station up and running.””" Will the Secretary of State confirm that he has received that advice and, as it has now appeared in the public prints, will he put a full copy in the Library? Let me put a further point to the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, who is sitting beside the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, because the minute refers to her. It states:"““Because Beckett opposes nuclear new build, the review has not so far considered whether nuclear should contribute to cutting emissions.””" We would like to know whether that remains the Secretary of State’s view, and the Government’s position on nuclear power.