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Government Regulation

I beg to move,"That this House draws attention to the escalating cost of regulation and the increasing number of cases where regulation either achieves nothing or does positive harm to those being regulated; urges the Government to produce a deregulation Bill which goes beyond exhortation to better regulation by repealing unnecessary and burdensome laws and rules; encourages the Government to table a programme for the UK Presidency of lesser and better regulation for the EU as a whole; and asks the Government to bring forward proposals which free professionals in hospitals and schools, which cut the costs of controls over elected local government, and allow business in the UK to compete more successfully against Asian and American competitors." In moving this motion, I am a little bemused by the Government’s response. I crafted the wording of the motion myself—it is a veritable pussycat of a motion. My right hon. and hon. Friends have been too generous. They have not said, ““Are you losing your touch? Where is the tiger in the tail?”” It was deliberately couched in words that I thought Her Majesty’s Government would welcome. I have heard many fine words from the Prime Minister; even more remarkably, I have heard sometimes similar fine words from the Chancellor of the Exchequer. It appears that, at times, this is one issue on which they agree: they now wish to run a deregulatory Government. In this motion, I give them a little encouragement, assistance and advice. Its wording is surely unexceptionable—if they are as truly committed as some of the readers of their words might expect. Our motion"““urges the Government to produce a deregulation Bill which goes beyond exhortation . . . by repealing unnecessary and burdensome laws””." Do I take it from the Government’s wish to strike our motion from the Order Paper when proceedings conclude that they no longer wish to have a deregulation Bill—there was one in the Gracious Speech—or do they wish to have a deregulation Bill with nothing in it? Are we to have yet more words and no action? Are we to have deregulation in the title, but nothing actually deregulated? That is very new Labour—very fashionable circa 1997—but perhaps not in the spirit of the modern world. In the motion, I encourage the Government"““to table a programme for the UK Presidency of lesser and better regulation for the EU as a whole””." Surely they can assent to that very modest proposition. I wanted to include a list of all the regulations that we want repealed—[Hon. Members: ““Go on.””] Well, we might do that later, if time permits. I thought, in order to be in sympathy with the Government, ““Better the sinner who repents.”” I thought that they had realised that they passed too much regulation in their first eight years, and that they might agree to table a paper for the EU presidency that contains positive proposals for deregulating the EU. But no, I see from the stony faces of the Government Front Benchers that there is no wish to table a paper setting out matters that can be repealed during the British Government’s presidency. My motion then suggests that the Government"““bring forward proposals which free professionals in hospitals and schools””." I accept that such an idea would probably put me on the ultra-Blairite wing of the rather ragged Labour coalition, but surely it is just within the spectrum. We know that the Prime Minister and the Chancellor are locking horns on this issue. The Prime Minister makes the occasional speech, or allows the occasional briefing to be made to the press, saying that our professionals in schools and hospitals need more freedoms, hence the ideas behind the early versions of foundation hospitals and special schools. We know that the Chancellor has been sandbagging those and pulling back, but I hope that the Treasury Front Bench Members—particularly the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, who may be on the Blairite wing—may be able to tell us tonight that they need to go further in freeing the professionals who are damaged by the red tape, interference and bossiness that have characterised the eight years of this long Labour Government.