---

Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill

I, too, have questioned the clause’s necessity, and will certainly not repeat the arguments I adduced both at Second Reading and when I spoke on the Motion to go into Committee. The noble Lord, Lord Goodhart, was kind enough to say that he agreed with everything I said but that he could not support me. That is a familiar syndrome from those Benches. The problem we face—certainly on this side of the Committee—is that, in crude terms, the Government have form on enabling legislation. That is why my noble friend Lord Onslow, who will no doubt be joining us at some stage, has said that he deeply mistrusts giving these legislative powers to Ministers to be exercised by order. When one adds the powerful arguments of my noble friend Lord Norton on why we have not yet been told what the urgency for the Bill is, I maintain the view that the Government would do much better to take the Bill away. After all, it has had a pretty chequered passage in another place. When we discuss the amendment of my noble friend Lord Waddington, we will come to some of the arguments adduced on his case: the Government have had massive changes of mind—not just once, but twice and three times—on what they want to see in this Bill. The clause contains a dangerous power: the power for Ministers to legislate, and to repeal and amend existing legislation, by order. To my mind, it is incumbent on this House to demand a clear exposition from the Government—a much clearer one than anything we have had from the Minister—justifying the immediate need for it instead of a much simpler, shorter Bill, amending the 2001 Act, as the noble Lord, Lord Goodhart, said. We are faced with the demand that this legislation should be rushed through in this Session of Parliament. The Report stage will be in October on the timetable scheduled for the Bill. It will then have to go back to another place for consideration of the substantial amendments that will have been made here, not least by the Government. This is the classic example of the Government making the mistake of, first, trying to pass too much legislation and, secondly, when the legislative programme becomes severely congested, trying to rush things through in order to achieve what they see as their parliamentary objectives. I believe that this Government would, after the changes made in the Commons, have taken the matter away were it not that this would have been seen as a most tremendous loss of face. One thing that the Prime Minister in particular and his Ministers in general simply cannot abide is any thought that they should lose face any further than they have already. I totally support the case made that we should not let this clause go through.