---

Housing and Regeneration Bill

The letter proposing the amendment to the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee, of which I am a member, arrived this morning; by chance we were having a meeting, as we frequently do on Wednesdays. The letter arrived just in time—I think that that would be the friendly way to describe it. Justifying the clause, it says: "““In the case of the Regulator, it is considered that it would be impossible for it to begin exercising all of its new regulatory functions for a considerable period of time (because of the requirements for consultation in relation to setting standards under Clause 191) and it will therefore be necessary, in the short term, for the Regulator to exercise the Corporation’s existing regulatory powers””." I think that the Committee will completely understand that this is a practical problem, the sort of problem which arises out of the merging of bodies, with the removal of some functions from one of the bodies and their transferral to yet a third body. What does the Minister believe the phrase ““a considerable period of time”” might mean?