---

Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill

During this short debate I felt a moment of sympathy for the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, in having to deal with toys, asteroids, motor-cycles and ladders—and this is only the warm-up session for the Bill. The reason this debate is so wide and so unstructured—and will continue to be so throughout the passage of the Bill—is that the Bill is drawn to affect every single piece of legislation on the statute book. Therefore, I suspect, the noble Lord will have to come to the Dispatch Box with a very deep briefing folder in order to deal with all the examples that will be thrown at him. On a serious point, this re-emphasises the ridiculous breadth of the Bill. We will seek to narrow it at every possible opportunity.