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Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill

I support both these amendments. The economic regulators clearly fulfil a very important role in our society today, especially the five economic regulators that are identified in the amendment tabled by the noble Baroness, to which the noble Lord, Lord Norton of Louth, has added a sixth. They also have great power. If they are to do their job properly it seems to me that they must be free of all government interference. They must not be lent on to reach any particular decision in any particular case. Their independence must be plain for all to see. I suspect that is agreed on all sides of the Committee. When we were considering the Constitutional Reform Act, we wrote into Clause 1 that all Ministers must uphold the independence of the judiciary. Those were the very words that we put into Clause 1. Obviously, regulators are not judges in the ordinary sense, but they fulfil a quasi-judicial role. For that reason they must not only be independent, which I am sure they are, but they must also be seen to be independent, to use that well worn cliché. That is why, of the two amendments before the Committee, I prefer that of the noble Lord, Lord Norton of Louth, because the clause heading in his amendment refers specifically to ““Independence of economic regulators””. I would go rather further than the noble Lord and I would spell out in clearer language in the body of the clause itself what it is we want. We should say in simple terms that an order under Part 1 of the Bill shall neither restrict the jurisdiction nor undermine the independence of the economic regulators. That is quite simple and short. It would do the job and I would leave it at that. The amendment of the noble Baroness does not go far enough, because it does not refer in any way to the independence of the regulators. That of the noble Lord, Lord Norton of Louth, is better, and does at least refer to independence, but I would sooner see it in the body of the clause rather than in the clause heading.