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Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill

The hon. Gentleman was present at most of the deliberations in Committee, so he will be aware that the then Minister gave an undertaking that"““a Minister of the Crown will report to the House no less than five years after enactment on the operation of the proposed Legislative and Regulatory Reform Act.””—[Official Report, Standing Committee A, 9 March 2006; c. 289.]" The then Minister conceded that reporting back to the House after a certain period was reasonable, but five years seems far too long—hence new clause 2, which requires an annual report to the House. It would probably be helpful when the Minister speaks to the new clause if he could confirm the commitment given by his predecessor and make that clear. On the time that we are talking about, the previous approach—the 2001 Act did not contain a sunset clause—does not seem to have spurred a culture change in the civil service and the Government for urgency. If the legislation was in force for a fixed period, it would give the Minister the opportunity to say to civil servants, ““We’ve got a limited period to act and I want to see firm proposals””—