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Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill

My Amendment No. 18 is grouped with the amendment that the noble Lord, Lord Goodhart, has spoken to. The noble Lord has far more expertise in this field than I could ever muster. I was brought up to believe that there could be no better Act of Parliament than the Sale of Goods Act 1893, which is completely clear, is totally understandable by everybody and has stood the test of time. Would that there were more legislation like that these days—but sadly, as the noble Lord has reminded us, that is not the case. On the whole, I would not wish to remove the whole subsection, despite the strong arguments that the noble Lord has advanced. It seems to me that it should be possible to use the order-making power under this Bill to make sense of, and to reconcile, what might be a number of different statutory provisions without significantly altering their sense. I understand entirely the problem of rewriting Bills that may have been acted on, have had judicial interpretation and have stood the test of time, obscure though they may be. Nevertheless, in the interests of keeping the law up to date, this is a perfectly proper thing to do. I take issue with the last few words of Clause 1(5), "““(for example, where the legislation is hard to understand)””." With the greatest respect, I do not see that that adds anything of value to the preceding words. All the preceding words are saying is that, "““a financial cost or administrative inconvenience may result from the form of any legislation””." Adding the words in parenthesis makes the subsection more obscure. The courts may well have understood the measure in the past and, as has been said, have given their interpretation of it, and parties up and down the country may have acted on that interpretation. If one is arguing that the measure should be changed on the ground that lay people find the law difficult to understand, one will run into difficulties. I would not vote against the noble Lord’s amendment, which seeks to remove the subsection. If the Committee takes that view, I would certainly agree with it. But if the subsection is to remain in the Bill—I suspect that the Minister will argue that it should—I would argue very strongly that the words, "““(for example, where the legislation is hard to understand)””," should be deleted. They add a note of informality that is inappropriate in legislation of this kind. If I may say so, it is a bad example and would be better left out.