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Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill

My noble friend's sporting amendment, as he referred to it, is typically ingenious and provocative. He is right to draw attention to the fact that, as things now stand, bureaucrats in Brussels may make orders that bind the Parliament of the United Kingdom without this House having any effective power to stop them, while there would be cries of outrage from Europhiles that any parallel order-making power might be conferred on our own bureaucrats to make orders to do away with European Union legislation. That goes to show that there is a one-sided relationship between the United Kingdom Parliament and the European Union bureaucracy, to which the Government would do well to give more serious attention than they have in the past nine years. Indeed, in the past nine years it has seemed as if an unofficial competition has been running between government departments, not about which could remove most EU regulation, but which could gold-plate an EU regulation in the most extravagant and burdensome way. -Few things have more typified the empty spin and ineptitude of the Prime Minister than his parrot cry that the debate in Europe is coming our way, while all that really comes our way are bucket loads of new draft regulations. Most of us have given up hoping that anything will be done while the Government are in power. They have constantly spoken of deregulation, but all they have done is regulate, regulate, regulate, with gold-plating of EU directives at the heart of it. I regret to say that this is the fault not only of Ministers but of Permanent Secretaries in departments that have failed to get a grip on the regulation mania that seems to beset public administration in Europe, slowly but surely strangling our international competitiveness. It is high time that some kind of limit was placed on the amount of legislation and regulation that each department can pass. A little less thoughtless regulation and a little more thoughtful administration would do us all a power of good. I agree with the basic spirit of my noble friend’s amendment, but I am sorry to say that I cannot support it. As drafted, it confines the deregulating powers to dealing with EU legislation only; whereas if we can agree an acceptable mechanism subject to proper parliamentary control, it should apply to UK regulation as well. Furthermore, I do not think that an order-making provision of this kind would ever be used by the current bunch of Ministers. Can you image our Prime Minister going into the European Union Council with 10 draft orders under his arm, warning the assembled heads of government that unless they stop trying to control our immigration policy, he will lay an order legalising the use of pounds and ounces in Sunderland market? He would make no such orders. When he goes to the Council, he is too busy making concessions. Despite my sympathy with my noble friend, therefore, any change in our workings within the EU and its legislative powers should follow specific parliamentary debate on primary legislation. In conclusion, however, I ask the Minister not to brush aside the issues underlying an important amendment. I ask him to tell the Committee frankly whether he is satisfied with the current weight of EU regulation and our capacity to deal with and scrutinise it, and, if he is not, what he is going to do about it for us. As part of that, will the Minister tell us how many EU regulations he has managed to have repealed in the past six months? His officials will no doubt be able to supply that information before the end of the debate. I have asked for information on only six months, as it is those triumphs that will no doubt be uppermost in the Minister’s mind as he rises to speak.