---

Legislative Reform (Local Authority Consent Requirements) (England and Wales) Order 2007

I congratulate the Minister and her department for being the first to come forward with an order under the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Act 2006, and welcome the start of the process of removing some of the consent requirements from local authorities. It says something about the centralised state in which we live that we regard removing the need to have the Secretary of State’s approval for hackney carriage licence changes as a step for devolution. We must accept that the four changes proposed here are a fairly modest start. I would like to say that amending Section 1 of the Local Government (Overseas Assistance) Act 1993 is a hot topic in the pubs of Needham Market, but it is not. It is interesting to reflect on the fact that when you ask why on earth this is in statute, it was a reflection of a real concern at the time: that local authorities were spending vast quantities of taxpayers’ money swanning around all over the world. It was felt necessary to curb them by having primary legislation. I do not agree with that view, but nevertheless it is interesting to reflect that there always was a reason why the burdens were there in the first place. Although I am no longer a member of the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee, I always feel comforted that it keeps a beady eye on these things to ensure that the original purpose is no longer required or that the matter is covered in some other way. Equally, I agree with my noble friend that it is important as a matter of principle that changes to primary legislation should be made by affirmative or super-affirmative procedure because many of these will have been hotly debated on the Floor of the House when the original legislation was going through. It is extraordinary that we can make changes with virtually no one being interested. I wonder whether the noble Baroness can say something about the process. While I have no comments on the issues here—certainly all the responses I have read have been in favour of these changes—I am interested in how long it will take to work through the 84 that have been identified. I recognise that that is difficult because some of them will come through as amendments to primary legislation, and some will be taken through this procedure. Can she say how long it might take? Can she also say something about the process of the Government responding to other consent regimes which people bring to their attention? I note from the responses that local authorities have raised other parts of legislation that might helpfully be removed. Finally—I say this more in hope than expectation—I wonder whether we are as confident as we can be that when new legislation is passed we are not stacking up work for the successor of my noble friend, Lord Goodhart. I can see that there is a strong tendency to introduce central control and central measures. I can understand why; there is an old proverb that says if you have a hammer all problems look like nails. We tend to get rather a lot of that and I suspect that much of what we hotly debate in your Lordships’ House now will be deregulated in a few years’ time. How much better it would be if we did not have it in the first place.