UK Parliament / Open data

Enterprise Bill [HL]

Proceeding contribution from Lord Mendelsohn (Labour) in the House of Lords on Wednesday, 25 November 2015. It occurred during Debate on bills on Enterprise Bill [HL].

I thank the Minister for that. Indeed, it made the case for a very large part of the speech that I made earlier about the importance of regulation. I am not suggesting for one moment that there is no case for regulation: I hope that I was making quite the opposite case. In establishing a regulation to deal with the consequences of the financial crisis, I happen to think that it is a particularly good form of regulation. Overall, however, if you can calculate the number—whatever its merits or demerits—the Government should be establishing themselves as promoting a net-negative figure rather than accepting that whatever they do in their own right is sufficient.

I thank the noble Earl, Lord Lindsay, for his support, and I tend to agree with him. An annual health check is a much better idea: we were trying to be reasonable, but that is the best idea. I also thank him for an even better idea—that, rather than the RPC, the Better Regulation Executive is a much better body to take on that role. When drafting the amendment, we were just trying to make sure that we did not add anything to the Small Business Commission in case the noble Lord, Lord Cope, got even more exercised at the breadth and range of activities that we were proposing to give it, but I think that the Better Regulation Executive is the right body. To the Minister, the noble Earl and the noble Lord, Lord Curry, I say that if we can make a modicum of progress on some of these matters—if there were some measures that would enhance our deregulatory shift—I would be very happy to support what the Government might bring forward at Third Reading. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

About this proceeding contribution

Reference

767 c759 

Session

2015-16

Chamber / Committee

House of Lords chamber

Subjects

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