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Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill

moved Amendment No. 6: Page 1, line 8, at end insert ““made under powers granted by the European Communities 1972 (c. 68)”” The noble Lord said: This is what I would describe as a sporting amendment. Although it consists of only nine words, it would have a substantial effect on the Bill and would, if accepted, require substantial consequential amendments. However, if the Committee were to agree to its intent, I do not think that it would be too technically difficult to produce those amendments in time for Report. The strongest and most well-founded criticism of the Bill is that it would, particularly in the form in which it was introduced in another place, give excessive powers to Ministers to repeal, amend or enact primary legislation without gaining appropriate parliamentary consent. Indeed, it came pretty close in its original form to being a Bill to enable Ministers to take such powers to do such things as they thought they should do without any debate or parliamentary consent. I am sure that all of us who have been Ministers have dreamt quietly at some time in our offices of having such powers. However, in my view—this view also came over very much in the speeches earlier today of my noble friend Lord Jenkin and others—the Bill is still too wide and too deep in its coverage and it would give more power to Ministers than Ministers should really have. The intent of the amendment is to restrict the powers of Ministers under the Bill to amend, annul or create regulations and legislation to those regulations and legislation that have been created under the powers granted by Section 2 of the European Communities Act 1972. As I mentioned today, those powers are enormously wide. There is not much doubt in my mind, or in most of our minds, that most of the mischief that Ministers say needs to be addressed by this Bill derives from Brussels. That is where most of the irksome, burdensome regulations have come from. The Bill, as I would amend it, would leave those powers there to deal with that Brussels legislation. However, it would deny the powers that the Government have sought to amend primary legislation—and, indeed, regulations—without normal parliamentary procedures. In my judgment—which I think my noble friend Lord Onslow shares—giving such powers to the Executive is really like offering free intoxicating liquor to alcoholics: they will take it—they will grab it—and they will use it. My amendment would also remove powers, which might still remain in the Bill, to repeal, make or amend secondary legislation made under Westminster primary legislation. I do not think that Ministers can object to that. They always say that the regulations that they have made are wise, sensible and needed, and that they have not really made very many of them, so it would not be very often that they would want to replace them. It seems to me quite reasonable that when they do want to replace or amend such regulations, they should use their existing powers to deal with them. Wherever a regulation had been made, they would have a power to unmake it. If they deemed that those powers were inadequate, they could argue for them to be increased—perhaps, as was suggested earlier, in a Bill to amend the 2001 Act to make it more convenient to use. I hope that the simplification of the Bill will appeal not least to the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, and even more to my noble friends on the Front Bench. I am sure that they will be attracted to restricting the Bill solely to dealing with regulations and other legislation made under the 1972 Act. I can see that my noble friend Lord Waddington is anxious to remind me of his amendment, which comes later. I beg to move.