Companies Act 2006 (Part 35) (Consequential Amendments, Transitional Provisions and Savings) Order 2009

I thank the Minister for introducing the order and the regulations. I welcome him to his new department. The SIs are not particularly controversial, so I shall not detain your Lordships long, but perhaps I may ask a couple of quick and rather more general questions of the Minister. The order is an amendment to Part 5 of the Companies Act 2006. If it has taken the ever-growing Department for Business, with all the resources at its disposal, until 2009 to work its way through the complexity and conclude that there is a need for it, one has to ask what hope there is for the small businessman trying to go through the entire pile of regulation and work out whether and how each item of it affects him. The Explanatory Memorandum to the order says, under "Matters of special interest to the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments", that, ""the Order amends Part 35 itself"—" that is, part 35 of the Companies Act— ""instead of making amendments to various pieces of legislation which contain functions of the registrar in relation to bodies other than companies"." Is it easier for the layman if it is done that way rather than by amending the various pieces of legislation? If so, it would be helpful to understand why in a little more detail. I do not ask that with any formed opinion; I would just like to know, because it is important that steps should be taken to ensure that legislation and regulation are accessible and understandable to those being regulated. With that in mind, my final question is rather more general. What steps are being taken to codify the huge volume of extant legislation and regulation so that a layman stands a chance?