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Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill

Since there is no such thing as a free lunch, it is always possible that you can satisfy the condition that the net burden will be reduced, but you can never satisfy that the gross burden will always be negative for everybody for whom you legislate. If this condition were to be put, it would make all regulatory orders impossible. I take it that it is a probing amendment, but in proposing it the noble Lord has answered his own question—obviously common sense tells us that in legislation like this what we mean is that a net burden will be reduced, not a gross burden. Reducing a burden on someone can be interpreted by the person on the other side as increasing his burden. That could be easily argued. What we are saying is that, at the end of the day, some burden will be increased. For example, if I put in a regulation about banning smoking in some place, or for something like a pub opening, somebody will say that this is increasing my burden, but for the community as a whole the burden will be reduced. This is a nice amendment—a good probing amendment—but surely common sense tells us that it should never be in a Bill.