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Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill

The noble Viscount, Lord Bledisloe, makes a very good point and no doubt we shall wish to return to it. It is not only Ministers and government departments who will need the information my noble friend’s amendment would provide, but also all those from whom burdens will have been lifted—notably those in industry and commerce, which are the bodies calling for more deregulation. My mind was drawn back to the speech made at Second Reading by my noble friend Lord Sainsbury of Preston Candover who, when he was describing his experience in 1993, said: "““I suggest that it needs the input of industry, commerce, small firms and large companies. They are better placed to assess the priorities of deregulation than are government departments””.—[Official Report, 13/6/06; col. 140.]" One of the effects of my noble friend’s amendment—and I can understand why the Government may hesitate to accept it—will be to reveal the paucity of reports that are likely to come forward as a result of anything in the Bill. The Government will not want to advertise that. The people who need to know what is being done are those who are enduring the burdens of over-regulation. As the noble Lord, Lord Goodhart, and others have said, we are all in favour of dealing with this mass of over-regulation with which we seem somehow to have saddled ourselves. We will need to know what has been achieved— which, I think, is at the heart of my noble friend’s amendment—and, as the noble Viscount, Lord Bledisloe, said, what has not been achieved. I hope we shall return to the very interesting response that the noble Lord, Lord Bassam of Brighton, gave to an amendment brought forward by my noble friend Lady Wilcox on the first day in Committee. He said that perhaps we should have some sort of procedure by which those who are subject to burdens can initiate a process to make sure they are properly considered. The noble Lord, Lord Bassam, is nodding that that is what he implied. I thought that was one of the most hopeful things to come out of last Monday’s debates and I hope we shall hear more about it. But it will need both sides. We may not have achieved very much and very much more still remains to be achieved. It seems to me that our old friends, openness and transparency, require the Government to accept the amendment.