---

Merits of Statutory Instruments Committee: Secondary Legislation

My Lords, I thank my noble friend for his response. He knows, as I do, that the trouble with being a government Whip is that you are expected to read out the stuff that they put before you. The most generous comment that I can make is that there has been a considerable consistency between the Government’s written response and the response from the Dispatch Box. That has been characterised—and I shall choose my words as patiently as I can—by an analysis of the problem that basically listens to what the departments say. The response was the expression of a lowest common denominator of the individual views of departments. It lacked any central sense of a guiding intelligence, energy, commitment or force to own the problem or to do anything about it. I hope that I am wrong, but we shall wait and see. The committee will be vigorous in watching whether there will be clear evidence of change, because the Government have said that they abide by these standards, so we do not need to worry our heads about all the mechanisms that we have sought for getting progress on these issues. I am further surprised by the Government’s response because what we are asking for is perhaps the most trivial thing that you could ask a Government to do. We are not asking them to make people happy or stop crime or make a happier world; we are asking them to deal in a fairly straightforward way with some processes and good administrative practice across government. I think that I expected more from my Government in their response to this pretty trivial request. We will wait and see, but we will not wait passively; we will monitor the process actively and, if we find it lacking, will come back again with further action—and we will look for the support of the House in so doing. On Question, Motion agreed to.