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Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill

My Lords, I agree with the points made by the noble Baroness, Lady Harris. I do not support this amendment because the list is too short and it would probably be impossible to write a long enough one to satisfy me. The major statutory regulators, for whom independence is important, also deserve some protection from major interference with their roles and purposes—indeed, with their very existence—by secondary legislation. The Minister judged that my previous intervention on this issue—in Amendment No. 9—was not at the right point. I hope that this is the right point and that he will give me the assurance that I sought then that order-making powers are not intended to erode the independence, the role or the existence of major regulators that were established by primary legislation.