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Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill

I am not quite sure where to start. I have a great deal of respect for traditional values in British life. I was brought up in a village community by a mother who was a member of the British Legion and the WI. When she put her jam in pots and sold it at fetes and bazaars on the village green, she did not feel the heavy hand of the regulator leaning on her shoulder. In essence, I see where the noble Lord is coming from. But I do not see why we need an amendment to a Bill on regulation in order to secure the warm beer Nirvana the noble Lord is seeking to reconstruct. The things the noble Lord is talking about are covered using the powers in Clause 1. If traditional products and our way of life are interfered with in the way the noble Lord suggests, Clause 1 is the appropriate part of the Bill that may be used to lighten any excessively heavy hand. While it is true that from time to time we hear of licensing laws being enforced perhaps too rigorously—and I am aware that for a time in the 1990s the WI felt that food safety legislation was giving it a hard time—the complaints seem to have evaporated over the years. The noble Lord says that district councillors are not able to represent their constituents well. I have been a district councillor, although never a parish councillor, but I did not feel deprived of the opportunity to represent my constituents save where there was a conflict of interest. I think that I dealt with church organ pipes at Second Reading and dispelled that myth. On blue Stilton cheese, I cannot say anything serious about it because I am not aware of the minutiae of the issue. However, I do not think that regulation is putting blue Stilton cheese makers out of business. Again, this is an issue of local enforcement and the approach taken by local environmental health and trading standards officers. This Government have attempted to protect through Europe the local names ascribed to important British products, and from my own experience I am not aware that it is a big problem. On imperial measurements and criminal offences, we have been moving away from imperial measures for the past 30 years and more. Both the noble Lord’s party when in government and my own party have played their part in that shift. The noble Lord will appreciate that it is to develop a degree of uniformity across the single European market, but it does not prevent people co-describing measurements in most instances. A pinta still appears on my doorstep and my pint in the local pub is protected. I understand the irritation behind the amendment, but on its substance, I am afraid that I cannot agree at all, save to say that in Clause 1 we have provided in general terms to lift excessive regulation and have set out a procedure and method to ensure that that is the case. While I sort of understand the noble Lord’s argument, this is not the way to achieve it.