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Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill

With leave of the House, I shall respond to the points raised. To some extent, this debate illustrates a problem for Government in general. On one hand, if we introduce a Bill and resist all amendment to it, we are criticised for not listening to debate, for being inflexible and for ramming things through using the will of the parliamentary majority—or at least a House of Commons majority. On the other hand, if we amend a Bill, we are accused of admitting that the original version was flawed. I am grateful to the right hon. Member for East Yorkshire (Mr. Knight) for his comments on that point. It strikes me that I have been remiss in not thanking the Opposition Front-Bench spokesman, the hon. Member for Isle of Wight (Mr. Turner), and in not welcoming him to our deliberations. I can only say that he has missed a great deal of fun. To return to the dilemma that amendment poses for a Government, we added the measure to the Bill because the Government recognised—as did hon. Members on both sides of the House, as has been mentioned—that there is a problem: Law Commission recommendations have been piling up, but parliamentary process being what it is, they often do not make the final cut when the Government decide what should be included in the Queen’s Speech.