Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention, and for what I think was a compliment. Unfortunately, I was unable to take part in yesterday’s debate on the Bill because I had already organised a full day’s meeting of a number of veterans’ organisations, at which we discussed very important policy matters. The hon. Gentleman is quite right: the new clauses would affect simply part 1 of the Bill and would not cause any measures passed under the Bill to fall. If Members want to achieve that objective, they will need to make further changes. The advantage of new clause 24 is that it would allow Parliament regularly to reassess the effectiveness and proportionality of the part 1 order-making powers without creating an insurmountable hurdle to the Government’s better regulation agenda. It would also provide an excellent opportunity to reassess just how successful the Government have been. In Committee, Members and the Minister referred many times to the 2001 Act being something of a disappointment in practice, saying that it had not been as successful in allowing deregulation as they had hoped. It would therefore be sensible to use this Bill to put on the statute book provisions compelling Ministers to come to the House more regularly, so that we do not have to come here yet again in four or five years’ time—under a different Administration, hopefully—to discuss another Bill to reduce the burdens on business.