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Address in Reply to Her Majesty’s Most Gracious Speech

My Lords, it is striking to think about those things that the AUT has done. My perception is that there is remarkably little support for its position within UK universities. To return to the theme of this debate, we have heard two notable maiden speeches. I particularly welcome the speech made by the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, and also the work that he is doing. I know how much he knows about schools and education. It is splendid to have someone to speak here on those subjects who brings all that knowledge. The Government have committed themselves, and thereby us, to a large package of legislation on education, health and social affairs. The list has been rehearsed by a number of noble Lords. It is rather striking, given that it is only a part of the legislative programme set out in the Queen’s Speech; namely, education, housing benefit, health improvement and protection, incapacity benefit, mental health, protecting vulnerable groups and parental rights. Then, of course, there is the NHS redress Bill, and one wonders whether it will be compatible with the compensation Bill that is to build the compensation culture down, or the corporate manslaughter Bill, which one suspects will build the compensation culture up. Are the latter two Bills compatible with one another? We shall see—there is much to look forward to. On Monday, the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay of St   Johns, remarked that the Home Office and the Department for Constitutional Affairs were to bring forward a,"““veritable blizzard of Bills””.—[Official Report, 23/5/05; col. 246.]" I fear that the stormy weather is spreading across departments and across the legislative landscape. The noble Lord, Lord Phillips of Sudbury, who is not in his place, in a notable speech whose forebodings I share, argued on Monday that we are in danger as a Parliament of mistaking quantity for quality of legislation. He noted—the statistics are striking—that in 2003 we,"““passed 13,407 pages of new law—4,073 pages of Acts, 9,334 for subsidiary legislation. That represents between 8,000 and 9,000 pages of net additional new law””.—[Official Report, 23/5/05; col.   324.]" I begin to wonder whether there is a covert target for pages of legislation emanating from each department of state at work here. I believe that the diagnosis of the noble Lord, Lord   Phillips, of the effects of this tendency, which I shall not quote, is correct. We are legislating too much and we cheerfully enact demands whose complexity defeats not only ordinary citizens, but also many who are supposed to administer the bloated system we impose, including those who work in the public sector and in the areas we are discussing in today’s debate. We may arrive at new laws openly, but they have very little chance of becoming known laws, let alone well understood and culturally accepted ones. Too often they are barely comprehensible without expensive professional advice, and sometimes I do not believe they are well understood by the professionals whose advice is sought and relied on. Not all institutions can afford to go to top QCs. I offer one illustration, and naturally I have to look to the past for it, but I think the trend we are experiencing can be illustrated in the area of education, social and health legislation by contrasting an Act of 1990 with one from 2004. I offer my apologies to the noble Lord, Lord Warner, for my choice of example. Fifteen years ago, Parliament enacted the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill 1990, a readily comprehensible piece of legislation that has provided good regulation of controversial and developing new fertility treatments, and it is widely admired internationally. Last year, Parliament enacted the Human Tissue Bill 2004 which, despite frantic amendment at every stage, has imposed obscure and ambiguous requirements on all pathology services. Legislation was needed, but the particular legislation that we now have was not what was needed. Generalising the point, I believe that an ill-structured or hyper-complex Bill, once it has been introduced, can be improved only to a limited degree by the process of amendment, however conscientiously noble Lords and Members of Parliament in the other place pursue that aim. Noble Lords reasonably objected to the Human Tissue Bill, as it then was, only to be reassured that the Human Tissue Authority, to be established by the Act, would sort the mess out. The noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, who is not in her place, has bravely undertaken the task of chairing that authority. If anyone can neutralise or undo the effects of excessive legislation, I am sure that she can. But do we really need to do things this way, and should we not perhaps take a different tack? I offer one gesture towards better possibilities. The Better Regulation Task Force recommended in its March 2005 report entitled Less is More: Reducing Burdens, Improving Outcomes—I like the title—a ““one in, one out”” rule for regulation whereby each new regulation has to be matched by a deregulatory measure. The Dutch have introduced the idea and there is a certain beauty in directing the techniques of regulation on to regulation itself, even on to legislation—and of course in particular the techniques of targeting against the excesses of the targeting culture. Indeed, there might be something to be said for going beyond the ““one in, one out”” rule. At one time in the Republic of Ireland, those who wished to open a new bar had to buy up not one, but two licences to sell alcohol. There were far too many licensed premises. ““One in, two out”” was a very good way of reducing the number of bars. I hope that the Government will bear this simple standard in mind when deciding both whether and when the Bills that we are looking at in prospect today should be brought forward. I have a set of questions on some of which I hope the Minister may be able to comment in his reply, although I realise that they run broader than the particular proposed legislation. Should consolidating legislation become our default position and aim? Should pre-legislative scrutiny be the default starting point on the journey to the statute book? Should a genuine estimate of the costs of proposed legislation and regulation, for those on the receiving end and not only those in government, be routine and even required? Should post-legislative scrutiny become routine? Should an independent report on the quality of the structure, drafting, implementation and the parliamentary contribution to legislation become a routine matter? We could all benefit from such feedback. A speech on these themes should be short, and so I shall stop at this point.