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Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill

My Lords, I serve as a member of the Merits of Statutory Instruments Committee, which this year published a report on the management of secondary legislation. Sometimes in my industrial past, when negotiation had reached a point of disarray we enjoyed a cooling-off period. We were given time to reconsider and to ask ourselves how we came to be where we were. How do we come to be where we are? In essence, this Bill started as a response to awareness in Whitehall and Brussels that the over-regulation of business was weakening British and European ability to compete in the global market. That was the thrust behind the two reports referred to often this afternoon, Less is More and the report of the Hampton review. Both focussed on business and the removal of burdens to enhance its ability to compete. It was the recommendations of those reports that led to the proposal in the Queen’s Speech to ““streamline regulatory structures””—a phrase that could have come straight out of the Hampton report—and to,"““make it simpler to remove outdated or unnecessary legislation””," which could equally be attributed to Sir David Arculus in Less is More. Therefore, it was reasonable to expect that there would be proposals to deregulate business with transparency and in an accountable, proportionate and constituent manner. Instead of a focused policy to improve the position of business, this enabling Bill appeared. The argument put in its defence started from a narrow base. The view was that business needed deregulation but it was impossible to describe how that would be achieved and that, nevertheless, Ministers needed much greater powers than those in existing legislation—and that, by the way, the 2001 Act had not been made to work, because there had been only 21 regulatory reform orders. Existing legislation was thus blamed for failing to achieve objectives that had not been government policy until very recently. Just a year ago, the Chancellor drew attention to the Victorian regulatory model that contained ““the implicit regulatory principle””, which,"““has been 100 per cent inspection of premises, procedures and practices””." He went on to sketch out a risk-based philosophy for business regulation that valued transparency and the ““light touch””. Policy change was in the air, but this Bill does not logically follow from what has been said, any more than it follows on from the Queen’s Speech. We need a much clearer idea of political direction and of how what is to be done can most effectively be done. For that to happen, we need to recognise that the regulatory position is more complicated and controversial than the Government have argued. The first issue is the volume of regulation and recognition of the total stock of regulation. Today, the Merits Committee considered some 30 statutory instruments, which is the weekly average, out of an annual total of 1,200. Clearly, the Regulatory Reform Act 2001 is almost irrelevant in its effect on the totality of regulation, and it is illogical to argue that policy direction has changed today as a result of the 2001 Act. A different analysis is needed, commensurate with the size of the issue. Secondly, there is the discussion of the phrase ““highly controversial””—two subjective judgments in one. About half the 1,200 annual statutory instruments would be judged controversial by one stakeholder or another, and with good reason. Nor do many of the 1,200 directly affect global competitiveness, a point made by the noble Lord, Lord Macdonald. For example, an affirmative resolution is needed to rebalance the respective rights of those who permanently occupy mobile homes that are parked on protected sites. Between 120,000 and 200,000 occupiers are affected on some 2,000 sites. Why do we need to give Ministers the opportunity to override the present procedure for regulatory change? Recently, instruments have been laid in preparation for an outbreak of avian flu among poultry. Powers are in place to gas, or to shut down ventilation systems in, poultry houses. It is unlikely that the ““light touch”” concept is helpful in assessing emergency appropriateness, and in what way would the Bill improve accountability in that situation? Thirdly and finally, instruments are being considered by Parliament on the donation of bone marrow and stem cells. No complicated medical procedure is immune from controversy and change. How would this Bill improve accessibility and ensure transparency? Regarding the Law Commission and the common law, I say only that the Bill seems to represent the seizing of an opportunity to assuage the commission’s understandable frustrations, but it would make no sense to argue that the commission was dealing with uncontroversial matters. How about one page in the annual report on property and trust law on the subjects of compulsory purchase, termination of tenancies for tenants in default and trustee exemption? This enabling Bill does not result from close analysis, has had no pre-legislative scrutiny and is not clear in its policy objectives. Instead, it is a response to frustrations—not least those that afflict Ministers and, as usual, the principal frustration is a perceived lack of parliamentary time. As Ministers have said, slots are not available. When in a charitable mood, we might conclude that the perceived shortage of parliamentary time was the reason for this Bill. The trouble is that that would be an inadequate reason. Other legislation and ways of proceeding are available. The Bill, as amended, contains inappropriate powers and its policy objectives are uncertain. I look forward to Committee, but wish that this Bill would go away. We do not need it, and we would save time to do other more mundane but more practical things.