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Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill

The notion that the Minister cannot speak to amendments in the Lords that were tabled by a Minister in another place is a curious one; presumably they will have had some communication before this stage in the Bill. I welcome the hon. Member for Isle of Wight (Mr. Turner) to the Bill. It was immediately obvious that he had not taken part in previous exchanges on the Bill because he does not have the pachycephalus look that so many of us have; the thickening of the brow caused by banging our heads against the brick wall of the previous Minister’s inscrutability. This Minister, I hasten to add, has been a breath of fresh air in our proceedings. We were quite incapable of getting over the simplest point in Committee but, following more careful consideration, this Minister and his colleague in another place have tabled amendments that are almost identical to those we requested. Let us not look a gift horse in the mouth; let us accept that the Minister has been persuaded. The Minister said that the view expressed previously was the ““better legal view.”” I have to say that the ““better legal view”” is one that has been tested in the courts and found to be the correct legal view, other than which it is simply an alternative legal view. I am glad that the Minister has now accepted our view that there was an obvious ambiguity in the previous wording of the clause. It was wrong even to give the impression that it was possible to allow secondary delegation of legislative powers. That was our concern. As the Minister has said, we have now removed the off-stage hordes and characters such as President Bush and ex-Prime Minister Berlusconi. Would that it were that simple to remove them in real life; at least they are no longer in consideration under the Bill. I thank the Minister for agreeing to the change. It was important to specify how the delegated legislation-making powers were to be affected, to whom those powers could be delegated and, more importantly, to whom they could not be delegated. I simply wish that when we raised the issue before, we did not have to strike our foreheads against a brick wall so often. At least now it has been demolished.