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Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill

I hesitate to cross swords with such an eminent legal lecturer, professor or whatever as the hon. Member for Cambridge (David Howarth) was but probably no longer is—I do not think he is moonlighting—but I shall charge in none the less, and no doubt he will intervene on me if I get it wrong. I start by pointing out that when moving the amendment, the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr. Heath) elided constitutional matter and constitutional significance. As so often in our constitution, it is difficult to define these things, which is a weakness. Without readily being able to come up with an example, I suggest that not all constitutional matters are constitutionally significant. One has to be careful about eliding those two, as I think the hon. Gentleman did. The hon. Member for Cambridge, while putting forward what may appear to him, though not to me, a sound academic argument and quoting jurists from centuries ago, rather overlooked the locks elsewhere in the Bill which have been the subject of much debate—the multi-stage process that we debated at length on Second Reading. I stand, not surprisingly, with my hon. Friend and neighbour the Minister in wishing to assert ministerial accountability over judicial accountability, to use the kind of phrase that has been used. I shall expand on that a little. This brings us to the beloved case, which is well known to the Minister and me because it is a west midlands case, of Associated Provincial Picture Houses v. Wednesbury Corporation, which was decided in 1932, I think—