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Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill

My Lords, the noble Lord obviously knows a great deal more about legislative slots than I do. He was a Minister in a powerful Government with a large majority. I have no doubt that he argued passionately at each instance for the measures that he believed were right and I have no doubt that he added to the burden of legislation. That is why we need this piece of legislation, just as the Conservative Government in the early 1990s thought that they needed legislation to improve the quality of regulation. I take very seriously the question, ““Could we not simply reform the 2001 Act?”” That observation was made the noble Lord, Lord Goodhart, and was echoed from the Benches opposite. What we say about the 2001 Act is simply this: we wish to build on the Act. It has proved useful to an extent. The statistics on its operation show that 28 useful reforms have been delivered by the regulatory reform order process, which is the order-making power contained in the 2001 Act. But that process has proven to be too technical and complex, which has meant that many worthwhile reforms could not be delivered and that those that have been delivered have involved a disproportionate amount of legal analysis in their preparation. My noble friend Lord Desai told us how many—