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Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill

My Lords, I am in a quandary in relation to Amendment No. 9. I apologise for my late involvement in the Bill, which was caused by ill health. Generally, I applaud the intention of the Bill, but it is poorly served by the sweeping nature of some of its contents. I declare an interest as chief executive of a regulatory body—the Environment Agency—although the Bill goes much wider than simply environmental legislation and regulation. I had hoped that when the Minister rose to explain the dropping of subsection (7)(c) he would say that it indicated the Government’s commitment to not using this legislation to substantially alter the powers of statutory regulators—or, indeed, to abolish statutory regulators—through secondary legislation when they had been set up by primary legislation, often after considerable debate. I know that the Government have given assurances both in another place and in this House at earlier stages of the Bill about not using this legislation to abolish regulatory organisations set up by statute. I was pleased to see a letter from the Parliamentary Secretary at the Cabinet Office to the chairman of the Food Standards Agency, which states: "““You will be aware that the Government has stated during the passage of the Bill that it is not our intention to erode the independence from Government of those regulators set up by statute””." I know that the Government have also given assurances about full consultation if proposals significantly alter—