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Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill

As the hour is late, I shall edit my speaking notes, for which I am sure the noble Earl, Lord Onslow, will be grateful. I shall not criticise the drafting of the amendment; it is a credit to the noble Earl that he has tabled the amendment in the form in which he has. If my recollection is right, at Second Reading the noble Earl questioned fairly repeatedly why changes to primary legislation would be needed to get rid of regulation. There may be confusion over the word ““regulation””, since regulations are a type of secondary legislation. However, the order-making power in Clause 1 is a power to remove or reduce burdens or regulation by amending or repealing either primary or secondary legislation. The power to amend or revoke secondary legislation is less important, as departments will always have a power to do this in any event. All Governments have benefited from that, or enjoyed the disbenefits of it. The main benefit of this power is the ability to amend primary legislation. It is unlikely that a department would propose to use an order under this power unless it needed to amend or repeal provisions in primary legislation, and it may wish to amend or revoke secondary legislation at the same time. The noble Earl may be reading more into the language of this provision than he needs to. I understand his caution. I have heard him say on many occasions that he does not like giving Ministers too many powers. However, we have tried to balance as best we can the deregulatory drive that underpins the legislation—clearly, that objective is shared across the parties to a greater or lesser degree—with the need to ensure that there are adequate procedures and proper means to hold the Executive to account in bringing forward regulatory reform orders. I know that the noble Earl does not trust any Government to do that, but so far the evidence regarding the 2001 Act is that progress can be made in that regard. There have not been any judicial reviews of regulatory reform orders brought forward through that process. However, there have been constraints on it, which have defeated some of the better intentions of the Government and of officials as they highlight some of the less useful aspects of certain regulations. I hope that that response helps the noble Earl. It is certainly designed to do so. I understand why he has tabled the amendment, but I argue that it is not necessary because there are adequate protections.