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Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill

I have anxieties about one of the government amendments, Amendment No. 38 which, as the Minister described it, refers to the ability, "““to create a new body to which, or a new office to the holder of which, regulatory functions are transferred … to abolish a body from which””," et cetera. I shall give an example. When we were debating the Human Tissue Bill a couple of years ago, which resulted in the creation of the Human Tissue Authority—certainly a regulatory body with powers to make regulations—it came out almost by accident that in the Government’s cull of non-departmental public bodies, the department had it in mind to merge the roles of the Human Tissue Authority with the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority. The result in the Committee—I do not think the patronage secretary was there at the time—was that the very experienced and knowledgeable medical Members who sit in many parts of this House were immediately alerted and outraged. They said—and I joined in the debate because, as a former Secretary of State for Health, perhaps I had some standing—that these were two entirely different bodies and it would be absurd to merge their functions into a single body. The Minister in charge of the Bill, the noble Lord, Lord Warner, was immediately aware that he had trodden on a snake in the long grass and hastened to assure the Committee that no such merger could possibly take place without primary legislation. So we subsided and said that that would be an opportunity to lay to rest what was seen by many of us as an absurd proposal. One has only to think for a moment to realise that they are two entirely different bodies with entirely different functions. After reading government Amendment No. 38, and in particular subsection (4A)(a) and (b), it seems to me clear beyond peradventure that, if it goes into the Bill in this form, the Government could achieve their aim of merging those two regulatory bodies into one by transferring the functions of both to a new body and then abolishing the old ones. I do not expect the Minister to be fully au fait with the intricacies of what was discussed in the Human Tissue Bill—now the Human Tissue Act—but it is a concrete example of what appears to be the possibility that is opened under this new clause and that ought not to be opened at all. I hope the Minister will be able to give us some reassuring words that he will be able to consult with his colleagues and say, ““Of course, this will not happen””. If necessary, we can look for amendments at a later stage which would make it perfectly clear that that, or anything like it, would require primary legislation and could not be achieved by an order under this Bill.