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Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, for moving the amendment. I am slightly intrigued, as I thought that the noble Lord, Lord Kingsland—who is not present at the moment—was rather keen on this provision, but I let that rest. The amendment would rule out altogether orders being able to remove or reduce burdens that affect only a Minister or government department. Clause 1(4) makes it clear that burdens that fall only on a Minister or government department may be removed only in the narrow situation where the burden affects the Minister or department in the exercise of one of its regulatory functions. The provision is therefore a safeguard that ensures that, for instance, it will not be possible to make an order that reforms the provision of public services such as healthcare or education because it is considered a financial cost and therefore a burden on the Government. It is right that orders should not be able to make such reform of the provision of public services. However, I cannot see that it is sensible to prevent orders from making sensible reforms in relation to those regulatory functions that government departments exercise. As the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, knows, departments carry out a number of regulatory functions, such as the company law regulatory functions within DTI, or the regulatory functions exercised by the Pesticides Safety Directorate as part of Defra. It is the Government’s view that their regulatory functions should be conducted in as cost-effective and efficient way as regulatory functions exercised by other independent regulators are. The Government believe that orders should be able to remove or reduce burdens from departments where they are carrying out regulatory functions, in the same way as orders can for other regulators. So, for instance, it should be possible for orders to make changes that reduce the cost or administrative inconvenience for a department exercising its regulatory functions. Where there is a need to make regulatory functions more efficient or to reduce administrative burden and costs for them arising from legislation, it should be possible to do that by order. Whether or not the particular regulatory function is part of a department should be irrelevant. For example, it should be possible to remove an obstacle to the efficiency of Companies House by order, just as it would be possible in relation to the efficiency of the Environment Agency. In summary, making an arbitrary distinction between regulatory functions exercised by government departments, where the Government are the regulators, and those exercised by independent regulators, as the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, proposes, cannot logically be right. For those reasons, I suggest that the noble Lord might consider withdrawing his amendment.