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Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill

I encourage all those who are making such deliberations. That is extremely good news, but I hope that when the Minister thinks further about the matter he will take on board the problem that the traditional balance between primary legislation and statutory instruments is being eroded, and that more and more weight is being put on the statutory instrument. Often, nowadays, there are truncated guillotine debates—albeit rather longer debates, with the opportunity to amend and probe—on primary legislation, in which we are told that all the interesting things about which we want an answer will become apparent only under the secondary legislation that will follow. That means that debate is not only truncated but hollowed out, because we do not know in principle whether we would like to adopt the measure, as all the interesting detail is left out. There is a real muddle; we should allow the House to do its job, but we should accept that there are time pressures. We should make sure that the job is done really thoroughly only when we are dealing with matters of great significance or controversy—but on those occasions, we would appreciate the right to be thorough. It is the duty of the Leader of the House to speak for the whole House on such matters, and to protect the rights of the minority, so that when that minority has a legitimate reason to disagree, the House can at least have it out in proper debate, before the Government use their majority to get their way, if they see fit. I am happy with the recommendation to remove clause 3, but I hope that something much more substantial and comprehensive will result from the rethink, so that we can legislate better across the piece.