Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill

The intervention from the hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Rob Marris) drew attention to the words ““necessary”” and ““reasonable””. I have always felt that I am necessary and reasonable and that what I want to put into a Bill is necessary and reasonable, although I understand that that might engender debate. In this instance, we need not be very concerned. There should be a mechanism for getting Law Commission proposals into law expeditiously and effectively. The first difficulty is ensuring that it is not abused to bring forward matters that are not non-controversial in any way, but that have important impacts with which many would disagree. The second difficulty is avoiding a Government either amending or cherry-picking those proposals along the way, so that what is enacted is different from what the Law Commission proposed. The third is ensuring that, wherever possible, a primary legislative route is used in preference to an order of this kind. I take seriously the point made by the Chairman of the Procedure Committee about the application, or lack of application, of Standing Orders. It seems preposterous that the Government say that they have had no opportunity to enact the long queue of Law Commission proposals when they have not used the mechanisms available in the House to do that. It beggars belief to say that there is a lack of legislative opportunity to introduce Law Commission proposals, especially with regard to criminal law, but even with regard to civil law. There is a criminal justice Bill every single year, as I know to my cost because I have served on the Standing Committees on most of them. There is an immigration and asylum Bill every year, without fail. Sometimes, a couple of terrorism Bills are introduced in a single year. There is a queue of legislation coming from the Home Office and the Department for Constitutional Affairs, and it does not take a great deal of ingenuity to attach Law Commission proposals to those Bills. Everything else is attached—criminal justice Bills often look like Christmas trees with the number of baubles attached because they are thought worthy of a few column inches in one of the papers. There are other difficulties. When is a Law Commission recommendation a Law Commission recommendation? I never had that satisfactorily explained by the Minister in Committee. Is it the original recommendations, the draft Bill that the Law Commission will produce, or either one? If it is the recommendations, the point made by the Under-Secretary of State for Constitutional Affairs, the hon. Member for Lewisham, East (Bridget Prentice) about a difference in drafting between parliamentary counsel and the Law Commission is of no importance whatever, as the recommendations are what matter. We need clarity on that. With regard to amendments (a) and (b) to the new clause, we are still wary about giving Ministers the capacity to introduce changes to Law Commission proposals. We asked time after time in Committee why the Minister needed that power. He repeated five times—I have looked at Hansard to confirm it—that he needed the power for one reason only: to deal with a situation in which a Law Commission proposal had been hanging around for some time, a substantive development in the law had taken place since the time that the recommendation was made, and there was a need to reflect that. That is why we formulated our amendment (b) exactly as the Minister had said at the time that he wanted it to be formulated. We formulated it in that way to meet his requirements: we had no other reason to do so. Some Governments are very hard to please. They tell us exactly what they want, we table an amendment to that effect, and then they want something completely different. There are other reasons for which they want to be able to change recommendations, and it is those other reasons that give us cause for alarm in this instance. If the intention is to implement some recommendations and not others, that may completely change the complexion of what the Law Commission proposes. Is the Minister proposing to cherry-pick certain proposals? Are proposals going to be tweaked to make them more acceptable to Ministers or, indeed, Select Committees? I have worries about that as well. The issue should be put before the House so that everyone has a choice to take part in the discussion, not just a select few. If the Bill is to contain the mechanism described by the Minister for the fast-tracking of Law Commission proposals—there are new caveats that I welcome, given their applicability to later amendments—it must also incorporate amendment (b), which limits the ability to change the recommendations in a way that the Minister specifically identified in Committee as a necessary prerequisite for effective working of the legislation. If the Chairman of the Procedure Committee, the right hon. Member for East Yorkshire (Mr. Knight), presses his amendment, we will support him. I merely ask him to reflect on whether our amendment would not only do the same as his, but allow a small concession to Ministers in the context of what they sought in Committee. In the light of that, he may prefer to support our amendment. In any event, the House should divide on one of the amendments. I must add that if the Procedure Committee, a Select Committee of the House, is to be ignored by Ministers, it sets a poor precedent for the working of the Bill.