---

Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill

If that is what the Minister thought, he was right. New clause 19(2) describes the purpose that the Minister would have to establish as one of"““removing or reducing any burden, or the overall burdens, resulting directly or indirectly for any person from any legislation””." In my reading, provided that the Minister can establish that the purpose is to remove a burden from one person, even though that would increase the overall burden for 1 million others, there is no reason why he should not use the truncated procedures in the Bill with the limited safeguards that we have debated. The title of the new clause—““Power to remove or reduce burdens””—is disingenuous, and we should add the words, ““or increase overall burdens””. The Government say that they wish to reduce the overall burden, but if that is the case and they do not have a sinister purpose in the Bill, they should accept my amendment (b).