Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill

The hon. Gentleman is entirely right. The fact that it feels so much like a Second Reading means that the Bill is almost calling out for further scrutiny. We have seen a number of the amendments for the first time in the course of the past week. They need further debate and consideration and it is unfortunate that this House will not consider the important new changes; it will be the other place. We will not have an opportunity to influence that debate, because we do not have seats in the other place. I hope that when the Bill returns to this House, we will get a further opportunity to look at some of the measures. Hopefully, when it returns to us, it will be a better Bill for us to consider. We have a whole new raft of amendments and new clauses to address. In the main, I concede that most of the concerns have been addressed, but there are still issues and outstanding points that have to be looked at. That is why today’s debate has been so important. There is no doubt whatsoever that new clause 19 is an improvement on the former clause 1, but there are still concerns and ambiguities. There are still lots of questions for the Minister to answer. For instance, in the case of new clause 19, what constitutes a reduction in burdens remains totally ambiguous. I know that the Government give a list in subsection (3), but when we start to unravel it, as we have done today, we can see that there are issues and problems. We have to address what we should call the Rushcliffe question—after the question that the right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe (Mr. Clarke) put to the Minister today. We could be talking about something that applies to the climate change levy. We have had no satisfactory response from the Government about controversial legislation being addressed through orders under the Bill. The Rushcliffe question deserves an adequate response from the Minister.