Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill

Public Bill Committee, 28 February 2006.

Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill - Standing Committee A

Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill

Nicholas Winterton (Conservative, Macclesfield)

I shall make some preliminary announcements relating to the Bill. I remind the Committee that there is a money resolution in connection with the Bill, copies of which are available in the Room. I also remind Members that adequate notice must be given of amendments; as a general rule, my co-Chairman and I do not intend to call starred amendments. Finally, I ask all Members to ensure that mobile phones, pagers and other electronic devices are turned off or are in silent mode during the Committee’s sittings.

Christopher Chope (Conservative, Christchurch)

On a point of order, Sir Nicholas. May I say what a pleasure it is to serve under your chairmanship?

The point of order arises from something that the Minister said to the Procedure Committee on 7 February. Asked when he would respond to the Regulatory Reform Committee’s recommendations, he said:

“We will be in a position whereby we will produce our response in good time in advance of the Standing Committee beginning its work.”

It seems to me that the Minister’s undertaking has not been met. I therefore wonder whether the Committee should adjourn consideration of the Bill until that ministerial undertaking has been satisfied.

Nicholas Winterton (Conservative, Macclesfield)

I am not responsible for what the Minister may say to a Select Committee. However, I am sure that the Minister has heard those remarks, and he may wish to comment. I suggest that he does so when we deal with the programme motion. The hon. Gentleman raises an important issue that is of relevance to our debates. I hope that the Minister will take on board what has been said.

There seems to be some confusion. The Treasury ministerial team should be sitting on my right, but it is not. I hope that this will be a well-administered and constructive Committee, so I suggest that those in the ministerial team take their seats. This is abnormal; in all the years during which I have been a member of the Chairmen’s Panel, it has never before happened that the ministerial team has not been present at the appropriate time.

I welcome all Members to what will clearly be an important Standing Committee. The Bill has raised a great deal of interest not only in Parliament but in the country. If the Programming Sub-Committee, which met last night, is indicative of what is going to happen, I am sure that our debates will be good, ordered and disciplined, and I hope that Members on both sides of the Committee will participate.

We now come to the programme motion, which may be debated for up to half an hour.

Jim Murphy (Labour, East Renfrewshire)

I beg to move,

That—

(1)during proceedings on the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill the Standing Committee shall (in addition to its first meeting on Tuesday 28th February at 10.30 am) meet on—

(a)Tuesday 28th February at 4,00 pm;

(b)Thursday 2nd March at 9.00 am and 1.00 pm;

(c)Tuesday 7th March at 10.30 am and 4.00 pm;

(d)Thursday 9th March at 9.00 am and 1.00 pm;

(2)the proceedings on the Bill shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion at 4.00 pm on Thursday 9th March.

I understand that I am allowed to make some general points at the start of our deliberations. I start, Sir Nicholas, by welcoming you as co-Chairman, a role that you share with Mr. Caton. I think that that is the correct way to put it; I do not want to create any sort of hierarchy between you. I served previously under your chairmanship when I had the role of Government Whip, currently performed by my hon. Friend the Member for Gloucester (Mr. Dhanda).

I welcome hon. Members from all parts of the House to the Committee. I know from discussions that I have had, and from the deliberations of the Programming Sub-Committee yesterday, that there is a genuine desire to have a detailed discussion about all aspects of the Bill, and I am happy to enter into that. If the spirit of yesterday evening’s discussions is anything to go by, I think that we shall have a high-quality debate.

There are no knives in the programme motion. That is because the Government want to allow the debate to be free-ranging, within your strictures, of course, Sir Nicholas. We believe that there will be ample time in eight sittings to consider the detail of the Bill and I understand from the usual channels that there is no disquiet about the number of Committee sittings, and that the fact that there are no knives has been welcomed.

The Bill builds on the Regulatory Reform Act 2001. It aims to deliver on the Government’s agenda of better regulation. As part of that, however, we need to ensure through our deliberations in these eight sittings that there is a correct level of effective parliamentary scrutiny. Ultimately, however, the Bill is intended to maintain the UK’s competitiveness, free up public sector workers and others from bureaucracy, and remove unnecessary regulation. It has already been discussed with the Regulatory Reform Committee and with the Procedure Committee. In light of the substantial discussion in advance of the Bill’s introduction, and the discussion of its detail, together with the broad agreement on the number of sittings and the fact that there are no knives, I hope that the Opposition parties will not press a division on the motion.

Christopher Chope (Conservative, Christchurch)

I thought that the Minister was coming to an end and I was concerned that he had not responded to the point of order that I made earlier. Will he respond before he sits down?

Jim Murphy (Labour, East Renfrewshire)

I am happy to respond, Sir Nicholas, though it was not a point of order. My response will be part of our half-hour debate on the programme motion despite it not having anything to do with that motion. But, Sir Nicholas, if you allow me to respond and develop bad habits at this early stage, I am happy to do so.

Nicholas Winterton (Conservative, Macclesfield)

Order. In my reply to the point of order earlier, I said that the Minister might wish to respond to the matter in his interim remarks.

Jim Murphy (Labour, East Renfrewshire)

Thank you, Sir Nicholas. The specific point raised by the hon. Member for Christchurch (Mr. Chope) was about the response to the Regulatory Reform Committee’s substantial and excellent report, and its recommendations. That was a report by the Committee, and its Chairman, to me. I undertook to respond and did so, on Friday last week, directly to that Committee, as I believe was correct and appropriate.

As a consequence of the hon. Gentleman’s comments, however, I ensured yesterday that copies of my response were made available to this Committee. Nevertheless, as I say, the Regulatory Reform Committee’s report was by the Chairman of that Committee, and I believe it was appropriate to respond to the Committee through the Chairman and the appropriate channels.

Oliver Heald (Conservative, North East Hertfordshire)

I start by joining in the welcome to you as Chairman, Sir Nicholas. I have been under your tutelage before and I know that you will be firm but fair. We all look forward to serving under your Chairmanship and that of your brother Chairman, Mr. Caton.

The motion is unacceptable to the Opposition, and I believe to all parties apart from the Labour party. Part 1 of the Bill is of such constitutional importance that it should be considered on the Floor of the House. I made that point on Second Reading and by point of order in the House on a number of occasions. I do not intend to derogate from the opinion now, so we will divide on the motion as we did last night. It is worth recording that although the Minister and I, and indeed all members of the Committee, have a constructive relationship, we did not agree to the programme motion last night and we are not starting to do so now.

The nub of the question is whether there is enough time allowed by the motion to consider the important issues involved. Under the motion, we would have the opportunity today to turn the Bill from one that allows almost any change in the law to be made by Ministerial fiat and without proper debate into one that we could support with proper safeguards.

The first group of amendments that we would consider are those in my name and the names of my hon. Friends the Members for Christchurch and for Forest of Dean (Mr. Harper). They would turn the Bill into one about deregulation, with proper safeguards to ensure that only in the least controversial matters would the law be changed by order-making power under part 1.

In deciding whether the motion provides adequate time for consideration, the Committee will want to weigh up whether eight sittings of the length described, without a guillotine, will be enough. The Bill raises profound issues about how Parliament works. Part 1 will give Ministers a wide power to amend, repeal or make law by order without the safeguards of full debate or, in many cases, even the option of amending Government proposals.

Together with the Government of Wales Bill, currently before the House, and the Company Law Reform Bill, currently in another place, the Bill makes a major move away from primary legislation towards government by Ministerial edict. Amendments, repeals and new laws will not have to be of a deregulatory nature, which was always the excuse and reason for having an order-making power that could simplify and reform legislation. The Bill could be used to add to regulation and legislation in a way that amounts to Parliamentary corner-cutting.

Nicholas Winterton (Conservative, Macclesfield)

Order. The hon. Gentleman is making an excellent case. Could he please associate it rather more closely with the programme motion and the time that the Committee will have to consider this important measure?

Oliver Heald (Conservative, North East Hertfordshire)

I am grateful. I was considering what we would do under subsection (1) of the programme motion, which deals with this morning, and subsection (1)(a), which deals with this afternoon, and whether there would be adequate time to consider the amendments tabled to clause 1 in the first and third groups. There may not be, and it may be necessary for us to spend some of our other sittings dealing with the important questions about part 1 of the Bill. To put my overall point in context, part 1 is so important that it may take up as many as six of our eight sittings. In deciding whether eight sittings will be enough, which is the nub of the issue, it is important to ask whether the remaining two will be enough to consider the rest of the Bill.

If one asks who the winners will be under the Bill, the answer is civil servants and Ministers. The great difference from the 2001 Act is that that was about deregulating and trying to help business. In this Bill the main winners will be Ministers, because for the first time it will be possible to use the procedure in question to remove burdens from Departments.

One has to ask: are we and the public prepared to accept to accept a situation where the traditional way in which our democracy operates is changed just to make life easy for Ministers and civil servants?

Another point that we must consider in these first few sessions is whether allowing changes to the law by way of Law Commission Bills should be done willy-nilly or whether there should be some protection to ensure that such Bills are genuinely not controversial. The Law Commission is currently working on proposals about the rights of cohabitees to occupy property, so-called palimony; provocation as a defence to a murder charge in the context of domestic violence; and how tenants’ rights could be ended or how termination of tenancies could occur. Those are all matters that the House would normally expect to debate fully in the Chamber. There is nothing in the Bill to say that these matters should be dealt with under the normal procedures for the House. Will they be dealt with under this order-making power without proper debate? That question would obviously take a great deal of time to consider.

It has been widely said that the Bill is drawn in a way that is unsatisfactory and that there should be protections and safeguards. We agree with that. That is not just the view of the Conservative party. It is also the view of other parties and even of the TUC. Sarah Veale, the head of the TUC’s equality and employment rights department, recently said:

“The current government has undertaken not to use RROs for measures that are ‘large and controversial’, but this will not apply to future governments. Future governments will not be detained long by safeguards that are tested by standards that are matters of judgment and not objective.”

When the House has given up its rights in the past for the convenience of Ministers it has found that it has lost those rights permanently. When Standing Committees started dealing with delegated legislation, we were promised that that would be purely for convenience and that if any Member ever wanted to debate the matters seriously, he or she would be allowed to do so. Of course, now it is almost impossible to do so.

Time is needed to consider these important constitutional issues. But there are also issues relating to business. The House supports deregulation. The Conservative party supports it. The Bill could be turned into a useful piece of legislation if it were about deregulation. The British Chambers of Commerce’s burdens barometer has increased by £40 billion since 1997. We have dropped down the competitiveness league table from fourth to 13th over that period. We will want to achieve, in the time allowed—

Nicholas Winterton (Conservative, Macclesfield)

Order. Again, I am listening to the shadow Minister extremely carefully. This appears to be a Second Reading speech, not entirely related to the programme motion. I appreciate the importance of what the hon. Gentleman is saying, but I would remind the Committee that this matter must be decided by four minutes past 11 and other Members wish to speak.

Oliver Heald (Conservative, North East Hertfordshire)

As ever, I am grateful. That is very helpful, Sir Nicholas. Perhaps I can sum up the question of the amount of time to be allowed. We want to achieve two major aims with part 1 of the Bill. We want to make it apply to deregulatory measures only. We want to limit its operation to non-controversial maters in so far as it deals with new laws by the Law Commission. On balance the time allowed to do that is probably adequate, but the point of principle that a constitutional measure should be dealt with on the Floor of the House is so important that we should not support the motion today.

David Heath (Liberal Democrat, Somerton and Frome)

I welcome you to the chair, Sir Nicholas. It is a pleasure to serve under you again and under your co-Chairman, Mr. Caton. This is, on the face of it, a Bill that ought to command the support of all parts of the House. The fact that it does not is due to part 1, to which I shall return in a moment.

I welcome my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge (David Howarth) to the Committee. The wisdom of the House has so arranged matters that I have to attend other Committees during the course of our proceedings; that is a great misfortune to me, although perhaps not to the Committee. I am delighted that my hon. Friend, with his encyclopaedic knowledge of constitutional law, will be here to assist the Committee’s deliberations.

I agree with the hon. Member for North-East Hertfordshire (Mr. Heald)—apparently I always get his part of Hertfordshire wrong—about the general nature of the motion. Part 1 of the Bill is clearly of major constitutional importance, and it has long been the tradition to take such matters on the Floor of the House. We do that because they are matters that affect every Member’s future work and the way in which they are able to represent their constituents. It is entirely proper for every Member to have an opinion on the matter before us and to express it. That cannot happen when discussion takes place within the limits of a Standing Committee. That is why I, with the hon. Member for North-East Hertfordshire and others, was so clear on Second Reading that the matter should have been put before the whole House; although not the entire Bill, as parts of it are clearly not constitutional in aspect. We understand that.

As far as timing is concerned, I do not believe that we will have any difficulty in dealing speedily and effectively with the deregulatory aspects of the Bill in respect of business and European legislative reforms. Those issues are important, as will be some of the amendments on those aspects, but they need not detain us. However, that is not the case with part 1, which simply will not do in its current form. It will transform the way in which Parliament deals with primary and secondary legislation, and it will give powers to Ministers that they should not have. That is why we must explore, with the Minister, how we can radically reform part 1. and we must have the opportunity to do so.

This is one of those Committees in which I hope—a forlorn hope, because of the pressures that are exerted—that Government Members of the Committee will feel able to contribute to the discussion. The Bill will affect them as much as us in the way that we represent our constituents. They will not always be on the Government side of the Chamber.

Andrew Love (Labour, Edmonton)

I note a little déjà vu today; major concerns, along the lines suggested this morning, were raised about the two previous Bills that tried to deal with the issue. Does the hon. Gentleman accept that if we are to have a major deregulatory measure, the ideas in the Bill need to be tested in Parliament?

Nicholas Winterton (Conservative, Macclesfield)

Order. I hope that the hon. Gentleman’s reply will be brief because, again, the intervention had nothing directly to do with the timetable motion.

David Heath (Liberal Democrat, Somerton and Frome)

I accept your ruling, Sir Nicholas, but I hope that we have the time to do exactly what the hon. Gentleman said and test the propositions.

To accept assertions or undertakings from the Minister will not be good enough. Our responsibility is to ensure that the statute reflects what we want in the way of future Government mechanisms. The Minister was very conciliatory on Second Reading. He made a clear pitch to Members from all parties who expressed concerns, including the Father of the House (Mr. Alan Williams) and the Chairman of the Public Administration Committee, the hon. Member for Cannock Chase (Dr. Wright).

The Minister said that he would listen in Committee and that he was prepared to amend the Bill to address concerns. We must have time in this Committee for the Minister to introduce his alternative proposals as he listens to what we have to say, concedes the issues that are so evident in the present structure of the Bill and attempts to find the consensus that he said he wanted. It is entirely right that we should reach consensus. All that will take time.

I echo the point made by the hon. Member for North-East Hertfordshire. We should not artificially restrict and restrain our discussions on the early part of the Bill, because that is its crux and essence. If it takes four, five or six sittings to discuss it, it is right that we should do so. That is what the rest of the House and the country looking on will expect us to do to improve the Bill, so that we have amendments that fundamentally alter its present structure, enabling my party and the Conservative party to support it on Third Reading. Otherwise, we shall be forced to vote against the Bill, because we cannot accept what is presently in it.

Nicholas Winterton (Conservative, Macclesfield)

There are eight minutes before I need to put the question.

Christopher Chope (Conservative, Christchurch)

I thought that the Minister’s response to my point about the umbrella of a point of order was hopelessly inadequate. During discussions on the issue with the Select Committee on Procedure, he said that he would probably introduce amendments at this stage. We have no Government amendments, and now we see that we will have such a truncated programme that it will be almost too late for the Government to table amendments to the first part of the Bill; they will be starred amendments and will not be accepted.

The Minister said blandly that eight sittings should give us adequate time, but we could have had 12 sittings under the terms of the order of the House. I do not know whether it is due to the usual channels—I am not party to them—but I should have thought that we could have spent 12 sittings examining a Bill of such significance. One of the leading newspapers of our country has described it as outrageous that the Bill is proceeding in this form. It is demanding that Members of Parliament should have a veto over the fiat of the Executive.

I am surprised that we have already lost four sittings, and I am disappointed that we shall not have more time to consider the important points and to challenge the Minister to make his undertakings a reality. We shall come back to that during the substantive debate, but I feel that the timing is inadequate. I add as a small point that it is indigestible that the Committee should meet at 1 pm on a Thursday and carry on until 4.30, rather than having a more civilised time to consider it.

David Howarth (Liberal Democrat, Cambridge)

I fully accept the point made by the hon. Member for Christchurch. It is a rather uncivilised time to start a Committee.

I shall add to the points already raised about whether there is enough time adequately to discuss part 1, which grants the Ministers extraordinary powers; powers unprecedented in peacetime in this country. Not only should part 1 have been discussed on the Floor of the House, it should be given maximum time for discussion in Committee. The reason that I would add to those already given is that the Committee needs time to discuss the various ways that that extraordinary power might be limited. I hope that there is consensus among all parties that the power in part 1 ought to have limitations. Three separate sorts of control might be tried, and each of them needs time for separate consideration.

The first is to limit the purpose for which the power in part 1 could be used. We shall discuss one of those possibilities later today. The second is to try to control the subject matter to which the Bill applies. Indeed, there are two ways in which that could be done. One can try to mention specific Acts of Parliament to which the Bill should not apply; we will put forward a preliminary list of those, including, most crucially, that the Bill should not apply to itself. Otherwise the Government can use the procedure in the Bill to remove any of the safeguards in the Bill. That is a crucial point that we need time to discuss.

The second way in which subject matter restrictions might be put in is to cover particular areas of law, such as civil liberties law, extradition and matters relating to property contract. The third technique is to control the Bill through procedure. There is a already a provision in the Bill for Committees of the House to change the sort of statutory instrument that the Bill will use, to drive it up from negative to affirmative and from affirmative to super-affirmative. But there is no provision in the Bill to allow a Committee of the House, or indeed the House by resolution, to remove an order from the Bill itself and to require primary legislation.

That is one way in which there could be a procedural change, but there is a separate sort of procedural change that the Committee needs time to discuss. Could a certain number of Members, perhaps 50 Members across the House, write to the Speaker objecting to the use of this Bill for a particular order and thereby call the order in and require the Government to use—

Nicholas Winterton (Conservative, Macclesfield)

Again, as I have said in respect of the shadow spokesman, the hon. Gentleman is going beyond the programme motion. I am sure that his arguments can be used in later debates.

David Howarth (Liberal Democrat, Cambridge)

The point that I was trying to make was that these separate techniques are so different that they require separate time to be discussed. Finally, there are other matters beyond those controls that need to be discussed as part of our deliberations. There is the problem of sub-delegation—the provision in the Bill allowing any person to be given legislative power. That is an extraordinary provision.

Finally, there are the clause 3 tests, the questions that the Minister must ask himself before proceeding. There is an important question there that needs separate time: whether the tests should be drafted subjectively, as they are now, or objectively, and the extent to which judicial control should be part of the way in which the Bill should work. For those reasons, Sir Nicholas, I doubt whether there is enough time for the Committee even to discuss part 1.

Mark Harper (Conservative, Forest of Dean)

To follow one of the points that the hon. Member for Cambridge just made about the scope of the Bill and the amount of time that we need, another aspect that will take an extraordinary amount of time is looking at the Acts to which the Bill might not apply. As well as general, public Acts, there are a number of geographically related local Acts. My constituents have drawn my attention to at least 21 Acts that specifically pertain to the constituency; they are keen that the Bill should not apply to those Acts. If we were to end up discussing a list of Acts that applied generally and to specific geographical regions, it would take an extraordinary length of time. There is a serious concern about the time available for us to consider that. I will not detain the Committee with a full list of the Acts, but it is something that we will need to do when we get on to the substantive debate.

Nicholas Winterton (Conservative, Macclesfield)

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his co-operation in sitting down in the nick of time.

Clause 1 - Purpose

Oliver Heald (Conservative, North East Hertfordshire)

I beg to move amendment No. 20, in clause 1, page 1, line 7, after ‘legislation’, insert

‘for

(i)the removal or reduction of any burden,

(ii)the re-enacting of provision having the effect of imposing any burden, in cases where the burden is proportionate to the benefit which is expected to result from the re-enactment,

(iii)the making of new provision having the effect of imposing a burden which—

(a)affects any person in the carrying on of the activity, but

(b)is proportionate to the benefit which is expected to result from its creation, and

(iv)the removal of inconsistencies and anomalies.’.

Nicholas Winterton (Conservative, Macclesfield)

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:

Amendment No. 29, in clause 1, page 1, line 9, leave out ‘with or’.

New clause 1—Annual report to Parliament about section 1 orders—

‘A Minister of the Crown shall annually lay a report before Parliament detailing, for each government department that made an order under section 1 in that year—

(a)what burdens have been removed,

(b)what burdens have been simplified,

(c)what burdens have been imposed, and

(d)what has been the impact of each order.’.

New clause 4—Definition of ‘burden’—

‘In this Act “burden” includes—

(a)a restriction, requirement or condition (including one requiring the payment of fees or preventing the incurring of expenditure) or any sanction (whether criminal or otherwise) for failure to observe a restriction or to comply with a requirement or condition,

(b)any limit on the statutory powers of any person (including a limit preventing the charging of fees or the incurring of expenditure), and

(c)any matter which in the opinion of a Minister of the Crown causes inconvenience or imposes cost.’.

New clause 5—Small business—

‘(1)An order made under section 1 must, where its application extends to small businesses, make specific provision to reduce the regulatory impact on small businesses where appropriate.

(2)In this section, the meaning of “small business” is the same as in section 249 of the Companies Act 1985.’.

Oliver Heald (Conservative, North East Hertfordshire)

I agree with the hon. Member for Cambridge about providing adequate safeguards; it is right to look at the purpose of reforms of the law. This first group of amendments, tabled by my hon. Friends the Members for Christchurch and for Forest of Dean and me, is about focusing the order-making power on deregulation, and, for Law Commission Bills, restricting the power to Bills that have been drafted in a particular form, and not allowing the Government to expand them into other areas.

It may help if I explain that new clause 2 and new schedule 1 deal with the second limb, restricting the Government’s order-making power by subject matter. We may reach that point this afternoon. The procedural way of tackling it—a veto to stop inappropriate measures being taken through the order-making power—is dealt with in new clause 3. On the overall question of whether such order-making powers should be allowed to continue for ever, we suggest in new clause 6 a sunset provision that would limit it to five years. Amendment No. 33 to clause 2, which we may reach later today and which was tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch, would not allow sub-delegation.

There is a measure of agreement between the official Opposition and the Liberal Democrats about the way in which we should be looking at these particular issues. I note that some starred amendments focus on the same basic structure.

I start with amendment No. 20 and new clause 4. Amendment No. 20 is designed to focus the order-making power on the removal or reduction of burdens, and the other references to burdens in the Regulatory Reform Act 2001. If the amendment were to be accepted, subsection (1) would read as follows:

“A Minister of the Crown may by order make provision for either or both of the following purposes—

(a) reforming legislation for

(i) the removal and reduction of any burden,

followed by other provisions in the amendment, which are taken from the 2001 Act. To put it in common parlance, it would focus on reforms of the law that have a deregulatory effect.

New clause 4 defines burden more widely than the 2001 Act, because the consultation exercise that took place after the review of that Act made it clear that its definition of burden was too restrictive. We have gone with that logic. Yes, we should remove burdens but we should also widen the ambit of the word to include the inconvenience and the administrative costs that can be imposed on businesses as a result of regulation. New clause 4 and amendment No. 20 go together.

David Howarth (Liberal Democrat, Cambridge)

The hon. Gentleman is proposing an amendment similar to one that I would propose, except that it seems to offer one extraordinary olive branch to the Government: the restriction in the 2001 Act to do with burdens on Ministers of the Crown does not seem to be present. Will he address that point?

Oliver Heald (Conservative, North East Hertfordshire)

That is a very fair point. The point made during the consultation exercise was that there are burdens on Departments that could be lifted in a worthwhile way, but if the hon. Gentleman said to me, “Look, we could make common cause on this if we don’t give the Government the benefit of this chance to remove burdens on Departments,” then I would certainly be prepared to talk. As the Bill progresses, perhaps on Report, we might be able to reach agreement on that.

I think that the hon. Gentleman would agree that there will be great advantages if we can focus on removing burdens and making the Bill genuinely deregulatory. During the review process after the 2001 Act and the consultation that took place on that Bill, the Government consulted on continuing with a deregulatory, burdens-removing prong to the legislation. It is extraordinary that they should have consulted on that basis and then produced in the Bill a wide-ranging order-making power that could be used to change any law in any way. I think that we might be able to make common cause on that point.

Amendment No. 20 sets out our principle that Ministers may possess and use powers to make orders for specified purposes in a way that curtails the right of debate that the House traditionally has, but only if the orders are deregulatory. The first time that we gave such order-making powers, in the mid-1990s, it was specifically on the basis of deregulation. In 2001, such powers were again given on the basis that they would be used for better regulation. It was always limited; the House gave up its power to scrutinise a Bill in the normal way only on the basis that it would be possible to help business and improve British competitiveness as a result.

Now the Government are taking liberties in a very real sense, because they are saying, “Instead of this having to do anything to do with deregulation, we will just be able to change any law we like in any way we like, unless it is what we describe as ‘highly controversial’.” When we ask the Minister what is highly controversial, he refers to the most serious matters that one could imagine: terrorism and Parliament itself. He is leaving a massive area open to orders under the Bill—not just palimony or the sort of point that I made about tenants’ rights, but literally anything below the very high threshold that he has set. He must give us some safeguards and pull that threshold down a bit if he wants the Bill to become law.

The extraordinary thing is that although the Bill says nothing about deregulation, all the ministerial spin is along those lines. When the Bill was mooted in the Loyal Address following the general election in May last year, all the talk was about cutting regulation. The Financial Times reported that the Government planned to

“slash the estimated £100 bn cost of regulation on business”

with the Bill. But when it was published it contained nothing about deregulation, which they have abandoned in favour of very wide powers. Amendment No. 20 is a desirable change that would limit the power under part 1 to the removal or reduction of a burden, re-enacting a provision that imposes a burden in a proportionate way, creating a new burden proportionate to the resulting benefit or removing inconsistencies and anomalies—a similar approach to that in the 2001 Act.

The difference is, however, that new clause 4 seeks to work in conjunction with amendment No. 20 to impose a specific deregulatory focus that is a bit wider than the one allowed for by the 2001 Act. My new clause draws a relatively wide definition, which includes

“a restriction, requirement or condition ... or any sanction”.

It would also allow Ministers to say that, in particular cases, they believe that a measure would remove an inconvenience or something that imposes a cost.

I believe that it is right to widen the definition in that way. If the Minister wants to say to me, “Look, it has been widened a bit too far”, or, “We would like a different form of wording for what a burden should be”, we would be happy to discuss that. The Bill should be about removing burdens, not just any change to the law that the Government want. We have tried to make our new definition of “burden” as wide and flexible as possible. I believe that those proposals are sensible amendments to an important aspect of the Bill.

New clause 1, which stands in my name, aims to inject a shot of transparency into the Bill. It follows on from the second recommendation of the Regulatory Reform Committee’s report on the Bill:

“We reaffirm the recommendation of our predecessor Committee that Departments should be assessed on their progress in removing unnecessary regulations and controls and not simply on their progress in simplifying measures. We recommend accordingly.”

We all agree on transparency. To allow the greatest possible visibility for a process encourages good government and sound decision making. To allow provisions to be made behind closed doors in Whitehall would have potentially the opposite effect. Deregulation and better regulation are important matters, and the Government have set them out in agendas of great importance. We think that we need to shine the light of scrutiny into the dark recesses of ministerial decision making.

The new clause would require an annual report to Parliament that would set out what each Department has done to remove, simplify and impose burdens, and the impact of each of those orders. At the moment, we have regulatory impact assessments before orders are made, and the Government always make great claims that they are going to transform regulation in particular areas with particular orders. Great claims are made, but nothing is ever done to audit those claims. One has a suspicion that things do not change as much as one might have hoped when reading the regulatory impact assessment. The provision in new clause 1 means that there would be an annual report that would set out the actual impact of those so-called deregulatory changes.

The Regulatory Reform Committee suggested that one of the key reasons why regulatory reform orders, which were introduced in 2001, have been far from successful is a lack of political will in Whitehall. I was struck by what the Minister said when he gave evidence to the Procedure Committee. He made the point that often a Minister or civil servant who is a deregulator does not get promoted—often it is the opposite—and that to lead a Bill team and to make law is seen as more prestigious than to remove law.

New clause 1 will allow for an annual report, in which Departments can take credit for their deregulatory achievements and show the impact of their changes. We are hoping that that will bring a little change of culture—in fact a major change of culture—because that is what is needed. Creating new regulations and legislation should not always be preferable to tidying up existing laws and scrapping obsolete or disproportionate burdens. I hope that the new clause might help to bring about such a culture change.

New clause 5 tries to help small business by requiring the impact on it to be taken into particular account:

“An order made under section 1 must, where its application extends to small businesses, make specific provision to reduce the regulatory impact on small businesses where appropriate.”

A plethora of exemptions are made for small business in different provisions—everything from square footage to the number of employees. However, it would be helpful if Government took a more structured approach to helping small business, and new clause 5 provides a mechanism whereby Ministers must consider the interests of small business every time that they want to make an order under part 1. The new clause aims to ensure that small business, which is the key driver of our economy, can continue to thrive and further boost the economy in a light-touch regulatory environment, rather than always being considered in exactly the same way as large business.

The other amendment in the group was tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch, and I shall leave him to explain what he proposes; I have alluded to it already, and we greatly support it.

Alison Seabeck (Labour, Plymouth, Devonport)

I apologise for standing late and for raising an issue that relates to clause 4, but I am new to the Committee and my brain is working slowly.

The list of burdens does not mention health and safety-related issues and the potential impact on employers or employees. I should welcome comments on why that appears to have been omitted, or whether the hon. Gentleman’s list is so loose that it could include health and safety, perversely, as a perceived burden.

Oliver Heald (Conservative, North East Hertfordshire)

The definition of “burden” is very wide, so if a requirement for protection in health and safety legislation is being implemented in a particularly bureaucratic or heavy-handed way, the definition could cover it. The hon. Lady should not think that there is anything sinister in the new clause’s definition, however, because proposed subsections (a) and (b) are exactly the same as in the Regulatory Reform Act 2001. The Government have agreed to those requirements.

Proposed subsection (c) adds

“any matter which in the opinion of a Minister of the Crown causes inconvenience or imposes cost.”

That is designed to deal with cases where the administrative burden on business is not a duty but the simple fact of the regulation’s existence. That was pointed out by business during consultation and accepted by the Government as a particular problem. The new clause widens the definition, but the hon. Lady need not worry. It is exactly the same format as the previous legislation, with the addition of the ability to tackle administrative burdens.

David Howarth (Liberal Democrat, Cambridge)

Perhaps the hon. Gentleman might consider giving the hon. Lady the answer that his new clause is a restriction on the powers in the Bill. The drafting of the Bill at the moment would allow the Government to remove by order the whole of this country’s health and safety legislation.

Oliver Heald (Conservative, North East Hertfordshire)

The hon. Gentleman is exactly right. That is the concern that the TUC expressed in the quotation I gave earlier from Sarah Veale, who is in charge of such matters. It is clever to have achieved a Bill that is equally alarming to the TUC and to employers, once they understand the detail of it.

As the hon. Gentleman and the hon. Member for Plymouth, Devonport (Alison Seabeck) recognise, all the health and safety legislation in the country could be removed just like that, but at the same time, all sorts of new rights and duties on business could be introduced in the same way. The EU charter of fundamental rights includes a whole raft of social rights that are not in force at the moment in this country and which could be introduced through the back door using the proposed procedure. That could be done at a stroke.

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. I am trying to restrict the ambit of what the Government could do under the Bill so that they would be limited to removing burdens on business. My hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch has a proposal which would tighten up on what could happen regarding the Law Commission.

Nicholas Winterton (Conservative, Macclesfield)

May I say that I should like to call those who are directly involved with an amendment—particularly a lead amendment—before other Members intervene?

Christopher Chope (Conservative, Christchurch)

Thank you, Sir Nicholas, and I shall follow that by referring to amendment No. 29 in my name.

Like so many of the other amendments that the Committee is considering, amendment No. 29 is designed to rein back the power that is given to the Government under the Bill. In essence, it would enable Law Commission recommendations to be implemented in full, but not in part or with amendments. I have tabled another amendment that would remove the whole issue of allowing the Law Commission to make amendments to legislation, but amendment No. 29 is intended to make restrictions in the particular respect that I have mentioned.

If a piece of legislation is introduced, it should be open to everybody to consider whether it provides the right answer, whether it is adequate, and whether there should be recommendations, additions, deletions or modifications. The Bill says that if the Law Commission makes a recommendation, the Government will be able to implement it using the accelerated procedure. The recommendation might include a change in the common law from the way it has been for time immemorial, or any number of things.

The Government say that they do not believe the Law Commission to be Solomon embodied in a group of people largely appointed by the Executive. They say that the Law Commission may be right or wrong, and they want the power to second-guess its recommendations. If the Government have that power, why should everyone else not have it?

David Heath (Liberal Democrat, Somerton and Frome)

A thought occurred to me while I was listening to the hon. Gentleman. We may need a definition of what comprises a recommendation from the Law Commission, because the Law Commission makes interim recommendations and then normally, in its final recommendation, it proposes a draft Bill. There is no such definition in the current proposals, and therefore the word recommendation could be interpreted in one or more ways.

Christopher Chope (Conservative, Christchurch)

The hon. Gentleman is right. The explanatory notes say only that

“the power enables a Minister to implement a set of recommendations, in full or in part, and for the provision made by the order to depart from the recommendations.”

The hon. Gentleman makes the same point as we do. It is a power too far for the Government. One way of restricting that power slightly, as the amendment seeks to do, would be to say that if there is a non-controversial Law Commission recommendation and it is to be implemented in full, it can be made subject to the accelerated procedure. If, however, it is not accepted in full, by definition there must, in the Government’s eyes, be a defect. If there is a defect, how can we be sure that it is not something that is controversial or that needs discussion in a wider forum? If the Government have the power to amend Law Commission recommendations and then bring forward the ensuing legislation under the accelerated procedure, why cannot other interest groups or, to use that ghastly expression, other stakeholders? For this purpose that means everyone else who is a citizen of the United Kingdom. It is a short point that does not need to be laboured, but the Minister conceded during his discussions with the two Select Committees, to which I referred, that the powers being taken were unnecessarily wide. Accepting the amendment would demonstrate his willingness to listen to these concerns.

Amendment No. 20, in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for North-East Hertfordshire, goes to the heart of the issue before us. If the legislation is confined to legislation that would remove or reduce burdens there will not be much concern. But it is very concerning that despite having repeated the reference to burdens in the consultation document that led up to the Bill, that has now been quietly dropped. I do not think that it is an exaggeration to say that the British people are getting rather alarmed about this. I shall quote briefly from a letter from a constituent, who happens to be a justice of the peace and whose identity I will therefore not disclose for fear of reprisals. The letter reads:

“If this is allowed does this mean we become a republic, via the back door? I do not think that this Government should be allowed to do this without public debate. This government has said in their speeches that they will not use these powers, if that is so why put them in? Does this sound a bit like Germany in the 1930’s?

To write to you or anyone else is something I have never done before, so I hope you will understand just how strongly I feel about this, and I hope that you are inundated with letters on this subject.”

My constituent was taking up a point that was raised in one of our leading newspapers about the implications of the Bill. She had been reading, as I had, the editorial in the Daily Mail of 23 February, which states:

“For nearly nine years New Labour has behaved with autocratic arrogance, treated Parliament with contempt, politicised the civil service and emasculated the Second Chamber.

It chills the blood that this legislation gives them power to change laws at the stroke of a pen.

The Commons must have an absolute right of veto over any ministerial diktat—and that should be explicit in the Bill.”

I certainly support those sentiments. One of the reasons why people are getting so worked up is that the Bill excludes all reference to the precondition that the Bill should be used to remove burdens. Amendment No. 20 seeks to address that and I hope that we can hear quite soon from the Minister about it. His response will probably set the tone for the whole of our proceedings. If he says that he accepts that there is a lot of substance in that amendment we may be able to make some progress.

The sentiments expressed in new clause 1 are excellent, but it is rather narrow. The wording seems to envisage that once a Government Department has brought forward a measure under the provisions of this Bill, it would have to report only for that year; it would not have to report year after year on previous measures. The impact of deregulatory measures is often hard to assess in the first year. We need to satisfy those watching what we do here, so that they can see that measures implemented in the past are still delivering the deregulatory impact many years later.

If my hon. Friend the Member for North-East Hertfordshire looks at the detail of his new clause, he will see that the Government could interpret it as a reason for reporting of matters only for the year in which a Department implemented a piece of legislation. However, that is a small criticism compared with the substantial progress that is reflected in that provision.

Knowing that many others want to join the debate, I shall confine my remarks to that subject. In a sense, this debate will set the scene, and I hope that the Minister will respond in good spirit and in line with the way in which he responded to the Procedure Committee. If he can deliver, we will probably be more minded to accept that Government undertakings are worth something.

At the moment, the Bill depends on Government undertakings. As I said earlier, the Government undertaking that they would respond to the Select Committee in good time for our consideration was not met. If small undertakings like that are not met, how can we accept the very big undertakings that the Minister will need to give? We need some specific safeguards in the Bill, and amendment No. 20 goes some way towards achieving that.

David Howarth (Liberal Democrat, Cambridge)

As I understand it, we are considering four separate matters. There is the matter of reinstating large parts of the definition of “burden” used in the 2001 Act. We are discussing the “with or” question in amendment No. 29, which concerns the Law Commission. We are talking about the annual report on the lifting of burdens. Finally, we are talking about the special consideration that should be given to small business. I welcome all those amendments, although I have some small criticisms, but I particularly agree with amendment No. 29, to which I added my name.

Amendment No. 20 attempts to restrict the purposes for which the Bill can be used. We hope later to suggest other ways of doing that. For example, amendment No. 55 to clause 18 would amend the definition of reforming legislation. In the debate on the programme motion, I said that there are other ways of inserting safeguards—for example, restricting the scope of the Bill and changing procedures. However, attempts to change the purposes for which the Bill can be used are not incompatible with those other methods. Indeed, all methods might be necessary given what the hon. Member for Christchurch said about the need for safeguards to be included in the Bill rather than being given in ministerial promises.

The Government’s complaints about the way in which the 2001 Act works are, first, that the definition of “burden” referred solely to activities—a restricted and restrictive way of referring to the problem—and, secondly, that lifting burdens did not apply to lifting burdens from Ministers of the Crown or Government Departments. The hon. Member for North-East Hertfordshire will correct me if I am wrong, but I understand that amendment No. 20 attempts to deal with both problems without creating a universal power to undermine and change all legislation.

First, the amendment does not repeat that part of the definition of burden in the 2001 Act that refers to carrying on an activity. The amendment specifically omits those words. Secondly, the amendment does not repeat the restriction to be found in section (6)(b) of the 2001 Act about Ministers of the Crown and Government Departments. As I said in an intervention, I would keep the restriction on lifting burdens on Ministers, although I might take a different view of lifting burdens on Departments. I make that distinction because I fear that Ministers might treat burdens on Ministers of the Crown as including the need to bring primary legislation before the House and to go through the proper stages of bringing forward a Bill. That problem would not apply to burdens on a Government Department.

That small point aside, amendment No. 20 strikes me as an improvement to the Bill. It also deals with the separate problem that the Government raised in the consultation on the 2001 Act, which was that the Act did not include within the notion of burden a regulation or law that causes inconvenience or cost. That everyday notion of a burden was not there. I understand that the purpose of new clause 4(c) is to deal with that problem, so that the definition of a burden includes

“any matter which in the opinion of a Minister of the Crown causes inconvenience or imposes cost.”

That is a way of dealing with the specific problem raised by the Government in the consultation. The rest of new clause 4 simply reproduces the provisions of the 2001 Act.

I had a similar idea, which is on the Order Paper as a starred amendment. I prefer my version for two reasons: it is drafted objectively rather than subjectively and does not refer to the opinion of a Minister of the Crown, and it makes it clear that non-monetary costs should count, such as the time and effort involved in dealing with a regulation. I suppose that that could come within the notion of “inconvenience” in new clause 4.

Oliver Heald (Conservative, North East Hertfordshire)

I think that the hon. Gentleman would agree that I have made every possible concession to Ministers, in order to lure them into doing what they said they would do in the consultation before they changed their minds for some reason and went with this.

David Howarth (Liberal Democrat, Cambridge)

Absolutely. The strategy of the amendment and the new clause—to take the Government at their word and deal with their objections to the 2001 Act—seems entirely right. The amendment goes a little too far in that direction for my taste, but I appreciate what is being tried. I hope that the Minister will accept the intention behind the amendments and new clauses, and that he will explain to the Committee why the Bill goes much further than the Government’s objections to the 2001 Act. Despite a slight difference of opinion over how it should be drafted, new clause 4 is an improvement to the Bill and should be supported.

Amendment No. 29, in the name of the hon. Member for Christchurch, would leave out the words “with or” in the phrase “with or without changes” in reference to using the procedure for passing Law Commission recommendations. I am rather more enthusiastic about this amendment; in fact I have added my name to it. It would remove a Minister’s power to change the law just because the Law Commission happens to have issued a report about that area of law.

I fully agree that there needs to be a better way of bringing Law Commission proposals through Parliament. The Standing Orders currently provide simply for a Second Reading Committee as a way of changing the ordinary procedure. I accept that there are many very good Law Commission proposals lying on the shelf for lack of parliamentary time. We might argue about how such proposals can be brought before Parliament while avoiding the possibility of politically controversial proposals being nodded through. As the hon. Members for Christchurch and for North-East Hertfordshire mentioned, Law Commission proposals come in different categories. Some are perfectly uncontroversial and are simply technical changes to tidy up the law, but others are very controversial indeed.

As I think I mentioned on Second Reading, when I was a legal academic I was consulted by the Law Commission on the law concerning burglars and the extent to which they could sue their victims if they were injured during the course of a burglary. That strikes me as one those highly controversial and political issues that should not be nodded through Parliament with a statutory instrument.

The amendment does not stop that particular problem troubling us, but it does do something important. There is an important difference between what the Law Commission does and does not recommend, but the Bill draws no distinction between those two obviously different matters. As drafted, the Bill’s procedure could be used to force into Law Commission reports, with changes, any matter that the Government might want or need, which could then be proposed as an order.

I shall give a recent example of what might happen as a result. The Law Commission issued a report on evidence of bad character in criminal proceedings. The Government’s subsequent Bill on that matter, which became the Criminal Justice Act 2003, did the opposite to what the Law Commission recommended, which was a rationalisation of the law, but with no expectation that more bad character evidence would be available to juries. Instead, the Government introduced section 98 to the Criminal Justice Act, which vastly expanded the availability of such evidence. Along the way, they also abolished all the common law rules related to such evidence.

At the time, the Government had to do that by primary legislation, and it was a matter of some controversy. Under the current Bill, they could introduce such a measure by statutory instrument—it would be a Law Commission report, with changes. At least I imagine that that is the case. Defining what counts as a change, as opposed to an entirely different proposal, is a problem, and nothing in the Bill restricts what the Government can do to the scope of the original Law Commission report. Will the Minister clarify the situation?

The Law Commission, for example, issued a report on company security interests—its most recent report and draft Bill. Under the Bill before us, what sort of changes to that report could the Government make to introduce an order? Would it only be changes that might count as being within the scope of the draft Bill written by the Law Commission? If that is the case, the Government should move an amendment to say so. One of the problems with that is that the notion of the “scope of a Bill” is a parliamentary not a legal notion. That would have the effect of shifting into the outside legal world, a notion that until now has been confined to these precincts. Or is it the Government’s intention to allow any changes to the general topic of the report? That would mean for the company security interests Law Commission report, that any matter relating to company law could be inserted into the order as a change to that report. Or is the definition even wider than that so that any change would be allowed, including matters not covered by the Law Commission’s report at all?

To illustrate that point I have another example from the Law Commission’s recent work. The second most recent report is on forfeiture and the law of succession, and principally on what happens in cases in which a wrongdoer, sometimes a murderer, stands to gain from an inheritance from the victim. Should that wrongdoer be excluded from inheritance? If so, should the wrongdoer’s heirs—for example, the murderer’s children—also be excluded? Could the Government use the procedure in the Bill based on the Law Commission’s report to change entirely the law of succession so that we could adopt, for example, the civil law attitude to succession, whereby testators have much less freedom and the law lays down more specifically what each relative should receive?

An even more extreme possibility is this: as the Law Commission’s report discusses the circumstances in which the property of dead people passes to the state, what would prevent the Government from including as a change, in the terms of the Bill, a rule that would pass all property to the state on the death of any person? The Minister might think that that would count as increasing a tax under clause 5, but I do not think that it would. It would simply be a confiscation. The Bill as drafted would allow that to happen by statutory instrument.

The Government might argue that any restriction on what they can do—

Mark Harper (Conservative, Forest of Dean)

One other point that the hon. Gentleman has not covered—he may be coming to it—is that presumably, nothing in the Bill as it is drafted would prevent the Government from doing something diametrically opposite to what the Law Commission recommended. Although it may have recommended specifically that something should not happen, the Government could make a change to do that very thing. That would drive a coach and horses through the principle of using the Law Commission in the first place.

David Howarth (Liberal Democrat, Cambridge)

Yes, that is right. They could, plausibly, change the Law Commission’s recommendation—they could insert the word “not” or take it out. That would be a change.

Oliver Heald (Conservative, North East Hertfordshire)

Is it not right that even a change not diametrically opposed could be very controversial? For example, the Law Commission is doing a piece of work on cohabitation at the moment. It is reviewing the law governing opposite and same-sex cohabiting couples in clearly defined relationships, considering potential financial hardships suffered by cohabitants or their children on the termination of their relationship by separation or death. If the Law Commission recommends, for example, that some rights should accrue to couples who have lived together for 20 years, the Government could simply say that that applied to all cohabitants with no time restriction at all. One could end up in a situation where a measure that was sensible enough in a restricted way could affect people who had lived together for just a few weeks.

David Howarth (Liberal Democrat, Cambridge)

Yes, indeed. To take possibly the most extreme example, in response to the person who wrote to the hon. Member for Christchurch: if the Law Commission issued a report on Crown proceedings or the royal prerogative, the Government could presumably, by way of changing that report, abolish the monarchy by statutory instrument. [Laughter.] Perhaps the Government do not think that that is controversial.

Oliver Heald (Conservative, North East Hertfordshire)

It is highly controversial.

David Howarth (Liberal Democrat, Cambridge)

That is right. The Government will presumably say that removing the words “with or” from the Bill will leave it inflexible. For example, what if they simply wanted to change the wording of a draft Bill in a minor way? Surely they should be allowed to do that. Perhaps that is what the Bill should say, but—

David Heath (Liberal Democrat, Somerton and Frome)

We return to the point of definition and of what comprises a Law Commission recommendation. Are we dealing with the draft Bill that the Law Commission produces, or are we dealing with the recommendations that precede the draft Bill? If the Government wish to use that procedure, I expect them to adhere completely to the recommendations, although they may wish to make drafting amendments to the final Bill. However, that is not clear in the Bill. I recall the last instance when I had contact with Law Commission recommendations—in the area of culpable homicide. In that case it would have been quite possible to take some recommendations and leave out others, and entirely change the tenor of the Law Commission’s recommendations without changing a single word within those parts of the recommendations that were enacted.

David Howarth (Liberal Democrat, Cambridge)

My hon. Friend raises an important point. The Bill is entirely unclear as to what a Law Commission recommendation is—whether it is one of the bold-type recommendations in the text of a Law Commission report, or the draft Bill itself. The Government need to decide which it is, and depending on their decision there are other amendments that could be tabled to clarify to what extent a change should be acceptable.

Another way of dealing with the same point concerning minor changes is, presumably, to ask the Law Commission to change its report and issue a new one. The whole point of giving Law Commission Bills a fair wind is that they are the result of expert advice, which is presumably why they are treated slightly differently under Standing Orders. If the Government cannot persuade the experts that the wording of the draft Bill is incorrect, that change is either bad or has nothing to do with the expertise of the Law Commission, and is a matter of politics. In either case, such a Law Commission Bill should not benefit from the accelerated procedure in the Bill that we are dealing with here.

Let me now turn briefly to new clauses 1 and 5. New clause 1 creates a duty whereby the Government must report annually to Parliament on the burdens that they have removed or simplified and on the burdens that they have imposed, and on what the impact of each order has been.

New clause 1 contains a number of ironies. The main one is that the clause itself creates a legislative or regulatory burden for the Government of precisely the sort that the Bill would be allowed to remove by way of the truncated procedure. So we need some further amendments to save this new clause from its context, and there is also the point about the Minister of the Crown exemption which needs to be further considered.

The second irony in new clause 1 is that subsection (d) asks, in effect, for post-legislative scrutiny. That closely follows a line of argument now being actively pursued by the Law Commission, and the new clause is therefore interestingly self-referential. Nevertheless, in my view it is a useful addition to the Bill. It adds to the openness and transparency that are required in the use of the power, and I am glad to see the official Opposition being converted to this sort of mechanism, although I remind them that when I proposed a similar mechanism in the Council Tax (New Valuation Lists for England) Bill, in Committee, they voted against it. Luckily, that Bill is in the House of Lords, and when it comes back they may change their minds.

Finally, I come to new clause 5. Today we are talking mainly about constitutional aspects of the Bill, but the new clause brings us back to the economic aspect of the proposals. It is very important that the special position of small businesses be recognised. Regulations that seem, on their face, equally applicable to all businesses, can impact more severely on small businesses. The new clause rightly draws the attention of Ministers to that point and I hope that the Committee will agree to its incorporation.

Mark Harper (Conservative, Forest of Dean)

My hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch drew attention to the tremendous amount of public concern about the Bill at national level. At my own local level I had many phone calls and even delegations of constituents about it. That is why I was delighted to be able to accept the Minister’s generous invitation for me to serve on the Committee—and I am sure that he is pleased that I could.

Amendment No. 20 and new clause 4 go to the heart of the matter. One reason for there being so much regulation is that Ministers have over the years increasingly been able to make regulations by order, without having to use primary legislation. If the problem is that Ministers can make regulations without appropriate scrutiny by the House, the solution is not to give Ministers even more power to do so. It would be much more sensible to restrict the power of Ministers to make orders on all sorts of matters; we would have much less legislation as a result, which would solve some of the problems. I welcome amendment No. 20 because it limits the scope of the Bill specifically to those things that reduce burdens.

The other thing that occurs to me—the hon. Member for Cambridge touched on it—is that “reforming” needs to be defined. Indeed, the hon. Gentleman has tabled an amendment to that effect. The word is a new Labour word that carries all sorts of positive, warm connotations. It is intended to sound as if all reform is marvellous, but it can be used for all manner of things and can cover up all sorts of eventualities, many of which people would consider negative and bad, and not at all reforming. It is an unsuitable word. It should alert us to the Government’s intentions. It is sensible that the scope of that word should be limited.

It is also worth looking at new clause 1. My hon. Friends spoke about impact assessments. One thing that has struck me since becoming a Member is that although the House always considers what might happen once legislation is passed, far too little time is spent considering its impact. Although I welcome the new clause, it would be better to force Ministers to consider how legislation is working every year, and not only for one year, because what may be perfectly acceptable now might become a burden as a result of changes in the economy or in the nature of business. The new clause is hugely welcome and will help in its own small way to change the culture of government. Ministers will have to consider the effect of legislation rather than focusing on the constant culture of newness.

New clause 5 focuses on small business, which is important, and I support it. Having worked for both for a large and a small business, I know that legislation and regulations that restrict what businesses can do bear much more heavily on small businesses. The owner-manager is effectively the only person able to deal with employment regulation and a gamut of other legislative burdens. A business with five people—an owner-manager and four employees—does not have a personnel department or a department looking after health and safety. It is all has to be done by one individual. Having talked to many such people, I know that that job is often done at 11 o’clock at night, once the day’s work has been done.

Every incremental burden on small businesses reduces the time for the owner-manager to do the essential economic activity. Although there is a cost for larger businesses, it can be assumed much more easily within a specialist department. New clause 5 is helpful. Forcing Ministers to think about small business every time they change the regulatory burden would be a helpful counterweight to the fact that they can easily spend most of their time talking to business leaders and those running large companies. The new clause may help change that culture and remind Ministers that small businesses, much more than larger ones, are the engine of economic and employment growth.

Finally, on amendment No. 29, the hon. Member for Cambridge referred to the Law Commission having come up with many sensible recommendations for uncontroversial changes which, because of a lack of parliamentary time, ended up sitting on shelves never having been passed. That goes to the heart of the big culture problem in government. My hon. Friend the Member for North-East Hertfordshire referred to it: government is all about passing more laws and more legislation, and never about looking at those that have already been introduced. We did that when we were in power, and this Government do it even more.

The amendment would help change that culture. Good government is less government and fewer but better and more carefully considered laws. When laws are shown not to be working, proposed changes from the Law Commission and others must be enacted, not left on a shelf. I welcome at least the title of the findings of the Better Regulation Task Force—if that is not an oxymoron. In its report, it used that subject, saying that when reducing burdens and improving outcomes, less is more.

Oliver Heald (Conservative, North East Hertfordshire)

Does my hon. Friend accept that our party has been in favour of post-legislative scrutiny and sunset and renewal clauses for some years? For example, when I was shadow Leader of the House, I made a speech to the Hansard Society about such matters, and they were in our manifesto.

Mark Harper (Conservative, Forest of Dean)

I thank my hon. Friend for that well made point. It is an area in which the House could do a much better job. Amendment No. 29 and the other clauses and amendments that we have tabled would go some way towards doing that. I urge the Minister to take them seriously.

Jim Murphy (Labour, East Renfrewshire)

I have enjoyed the debate thus far. I was delighted when, after a little delay, we got on to the eight sessions of the Committee that the Opposition asked for through the usual channels. It is important to put that on record in respect of the assertion of the hon. Member for Christchurch.

Several general points have been made about safeguards, and there have been all sorts of suggestions about what the Bill could or could not be used for. Some are genuinely felt, some are for debating purposes and some are lifted directly from The Mail on Sunday. In respect of the powers in the Bill, I put on record again the safeguards that I previously mentioned at the relevant Select Committee sittings. There are six safeguards, which is more than there were in the 2001 Act, and they are all applied more comprehensively than in that Act.

To overcome some of the concerns that hon. Members have expressed genuinely, there is the idea in the Bill of strong parliamentary scrutiny, a strong and absolute commitment to statutory public consultation from those interested parties, a ministerial commitment not to seek to do anything that is highly controversial, to which the hon. Member for North-East Hertfordshire alluded earlier, and a commitment not to progress with proposals, whether Law Commission proposals or others, in the face of opposition from the relevant Select Committee in either the Commons or another place. We are seeking ways to enhance what is already in the 2001 Act.

Notwithstanding all those important safeguards, and those that build on the 2001 Act, as I said at the outset, the Bill addresses the weaknesses in the Act. It will lift unnecessary and outdated regulations and administrative burdens on business, the voluntary sector and public services, so that we have the first-class public services in which we all believe. We have different perspectives on how to get there—there is a very strong difference between us—but we all aspire to world-class public services, and the Bill will help to deliver them. It will also maintain the UK’s competitiveness in a global economy and in the face of the challenges from emerging economies that we all know about and wrestle with. We have had more than 50 quarters of economic growth in the UK, and the Bill will help to maintain that. That is the context of the Bill and our motivation for introducing it, having learned the lessons of the 2001 Act.

Let me turn to the specific points raised by Opposition Members—they were all hon. Gentlemen. On new clause 1, of course I support the notion that the Government should constantly look to see how well reforms are working. I have mentioned repeatedly in evidence to the Select Committees that it is a weakness across the body of government, as it has been across different Governments throughout time, that there is analysis of predicted outcomes and impacts but not enough effort goes into assessing actual impacts. That is about leadership and the culture across government. It is also partly about—I say this gently—the culture of the House of Commons, in which we have set-piece debates and set-piece battles. We have those, we have the vote and we move on.

We face a collective challenge to ensure that attention remains focused on orders and legislation, and so on, after the event, so that we can genuinely analyse across government and in the Commons whether the predicted delivery of simplification or other impacts has happened. In the Cabinet Office, we are seeking ways in which that can be done. We need a much greater focus on post-legislative impacts to see whether predicted savings and impacts were delivered, and that work continues.

Having said that, it would not be useful to add the new clause to the Bill, and there are indeed many good reasons for resisting it. As I have said, all Departments should keep their legislation under review. That is why the Government set up the panel for regulatory accountability and why there are regulatory reform Ministers in each of the main regulatory Departments. The Better Regulation Commission focuses on them all. Departments are reviewing their regulations and drafting simplification plans, which include measures to reduce administrative burdens on business. Those will be published in time for the 2006 pre-Budget report. The Better Regulation Commission will review the simplification plans that Departments and some independent regulators are preparing. Its review will occur while the plans are in final draft form and before they go for clearance by the panel for regulatory accountability. That body is chaired by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister.

Christopher Chope (Conservative, Christchurch)

The Minister said that he does not believe that this safeguard should be placed in the Bill. Does he believe that any additional safeguards should be placed in the Bill?

Jim Murphy (Labour, East Renfrewshire)

You would rightly chastise me, Sir Nicholas, if I wandered on to any safeguards that might come up under other clauses or parts of the Bill, but I have indicated to the hon. Gentleman and others that the Government are minded to offer specific reassurances to the Committee or on Report. Sadly for the hon. Gentleman, that does not come up in this debate, but I have previously gone on record—on Second Reading—specifically about further reassurances that can be provided to the House. However, in the provision of those reassurances, there is no intention whatever to reinvent the 2001 Act or to confine the powers of the Bill to being a pale imitation of that Act. The 2001 Act simply could not deliver, did not deliver and will not deliver our better regulation agenda, which is much more ambitious than the ideas of any previous Government.

David Howarth (Liberal Democrat, Cambridge)

How does the Minister respond to the point that amendment No. 20 responds specifically to the points that the Government made about the inadequacies of the 2001 Act, and does so without granting to Ministers the extraordinary powers under clause 1?

Jim Murphy (Labour, East Renfrewshire)

I shall come to some of the points about burdens later. However, during the consultation there were suggestions from the Law Commission, the Better Regulation Task Force and our own policy work that the way in which the 2001 Act identified burdens was not fit for purpose. This wider definition is the appropriate way to deliver our better regulation agenda. That came specifically out of the consultation.

I return to the comments about new clause 1. Government Departments already have to report annually. Departments are required to revise annually the plans that I mentioned and, as part of that, they will include details of any simplifications delivered, including in respect of orders made the previous year.

Oliver Heald (Conservative, North East Hertfordshire)

Does the Minister understand our concern that all too often, great claims are made that a particular order will have a particular impact, but there is no real audit of whether it was successful? It would be good for Whitehall and the Government if there were such an audit.

If a regulatory impact assessment says that there will be some great improvement and it turns out that there is not, should that not be reported? Equally, if an improvement turns out better than expected, the Government could take the plaudits. The suspicion is that great claims are made but nothing is achieved.

Jim Murphy (Labour, East Renfrewshire)

The hon. Gentleman is right in part, but I am not sure that he listened fully to what I said in direct response to the hon. Member for Forest of Dean, who I am delighted to see on the Committee; I am delighted that he took up my prompt to serve on it.

I have already said—today, on Second Reading, I believe, and certainly in evidence to the relevant Select Committees—that Whitehall, the Government, all Governments of all political parties and politicians generally need to focus on the actual impacts of proposals, and that there should be a greater degree of retrospective analysis of impacts genuinely delivered. I do not seek to make a political point; what I have said has been the case with the previous Government, with this Government and within Government Departments.

I suggest gently—again, this is not a political point—that it is also the case for the Opposition. On Opposition days in the Chamber, for example, they could focus on the actual impact of an order; that would help the general culture across Whitehall and that of all politicians of all parties in respect of looking retrospectively at the benefits delivered by an order.

I agree with the general point made by the hon. Member for North-East Hertfordshire, but on the understanding that the issue has affected Governments throughout the ages.

Andrew Love (Labour, Edmonton)

As a member of the Regulatory Reform Committee in the previous Parliament, I can say that we discussed the culture of Whitehall on a number of occasions. Although I would not wish to press this amendment, there is a general point about how we change the culture to ensure that deregulation is as big or a bigger priority than currently. I hope that the Minister will take that on board and be able on Report to satisfy Parliament that it is being given some priority in this Bill.

Jim Murphy (Labour, East Renfrewshire)

My hon. Friend has experience, having served on the Regulatory Reform Committee. I am delighted to see him in his place today, although I am not sure that he is. Nevertheless, it is good that he continues to maintain that interest.

The amendment is not necessary because Departments are already required to report annually on simplification plans and the orders delivered the previous year. Departments are also obliged to report on their better regulation work as part of their annual reports, as they have done for the past two years. Having that in the annual reports is about ensuring that it is not simply a distinct piece of work unconnected to the wider work of the Department. If it is to be a core part of Departments’ annual reports, that embeds the work and the culture of better regulation in the Departments.

We would also expect departmental Select Committees to report on these annual reports as appropriate. That is an important piece of work for the relevant Select Committees. The Regulatory Reform Committee, which has a new expanded remit, will take interest in both the reports and the departmental simplification plans. While I agree that we should always be open to reviewing orders, as I have said on a number of occasions in Select Committee and today, it would be unnecessarily prescriptive and, indeed, pointless in some instances to put this provision in the Bill. The work is already happening and is beginning to deliver. As hon. Members will be aware, one of the Bill’s main aims is to provide a power to remove unnecessary burdens. Therefore, to include one would be contrary to the spirit and the purpose of this Bill, as I am sure Opposition Members would agree.

New clause 4 and amendment No. 20 were again tabled by the hon. Member for North-East Hertfordshire. Their purpose, taken together, is to narrow significantly the breadth of the power in clause 1 to a power to amend burdensome legislation and to implement Law Commission recommendations. I appreciate that it is important that the power should only be used appropriately, but I do not think that these proposals will create an effective tool to deliver better regulation. In particular, I doubt that the power that the proposals would produce would be able to deliver mergers of regulators, as proposed by Philip Hampton, or the delivery of the simplification measures, which are not limited simply to the reduction of burdens.

Respondents to the consultation supported the delivery of simplification and mergers through the powers in the Bill. New clause 4 and amendment No. 20 would create an order-making power that moves back in the direction of the 2001 Act, although, I accept, not exactly so.

These proposals would recreate some of the technical restrictions that limited the 2001 Act powers. For instance, the two-year rule, which prevented orders from reforming legislation created or substantially amended within the last two years, and the inability to remove burdens which only affect Ministers and Departments, would no longer exist.

David Howarth (Liberal Democrat, Cambridge)

I was puzzled by the Minister’s reference to simplification measures. Surely such a measure would come under new clause 4(c) as a

“matter which in the opinion of a Minister of the Crown causes inconvenience or imposes cost.”.

Presumably, an area of law that is too complicated causes inconvenience.

Jim Murphy (Labour, East Renfrewshire)

Of course, we will debate that when we reach the appropriate point. The general sense is that the simplification proposals to which I am alluding are the ones being prepared now by Departments in time for the pre-Budget report 2006. That is the context in which I mentioned simplification proposals. We can discuss the specifics when we get to new clause 4.

The 2001 Act general restriction to the reforming of legislation that imposes burdens affecting persons in the carrying on of an activity would be lifted, but new burdens could be created only where they affect someone in the carrying on of an activity. That means that new burdens could not be created affecting persons in a passive capacity or when they are carrying out one-off actions.

Both the Regulatory Reform Committee and the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee in another place have indicated that they consider that the reference to activity does not fulfil any useful purpose. It is unclear what the extended definition of burdens in new clause 4, which incorporates “inconvenience” or the imposition of cost, would amount to.

Amendment No. 20 and new clause 4 maintain some of the most problematic aspects of the 2001 Act, as detailed in the “Review of the Regulatory Reform Act 2001”. The concept of burdens in the 2001 Act is technical and difficult to analyse and apply. The Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee in another place, in relation to the draft Regulatory Reform (Prison Officers) (Industrial Action) Order 2004, stated:

“The complexity of this debate is evidence of a difficulty we have observed on previous occasions in applying the 2001 Act tests and, in particular, determining what may constitute a new or re-enacted burden.”

Amendment No. 20 and new clause 4 would create a narrow, technically defined power that is, again, complex to use. Departments would have to carry out a large amount of analysis to ascertain whether each provision within an order was removing, reducing, re-enacting or creating a new burden. For small proposals, that analysis involves a disproportionate amount of effort.

Christopher Chope (Conservative, Christchurch)

The Minister keeps referring back to the 2001 legislation, but may I refer him back to his own consultation document of July 2005 in which the issue of burdens was specifically included as being a desirable safeguard? Why have the Government now removed that from the Bill?

Jim Murphy (Labour, East Renfrewshire)

I believe that I dealt with that point when I responded to the hon. Member for Cambridge. During the consultation the comment was made by the Law Commission and others that the description in the 2001 Act and the way in which the consultation was framed was not ambitious enough and would not deliver the better regulation agenda. Again that was because of the technical definition of burden.

David Howarth (Liberal Democrat, Cambridge)

It comes back to the point about new clause 4(c) and the complications that the Minister alleges face Government Departments. The various branches of the definition of burden are in practice in the alternative. So a Department has to find only one of the branches that applies. Surely if new clause 4(c) applies—it has been drafted here in subjective terms:

“any matter which in the opinion of a Minister of the Crown causes inconvenience or imposes cost”—

that authorisation would be there. That does not seem too complicated for most civil servants of my acquaintance.

Jim Murphy (Labour, East Renfrewshire)

I will address that point in just a moment.

The Government have committed themselves to one of the most radical regulatory reform packages anywhere in the world. It is time for the Government to deliver on the better regulation agenda and that is what the Bill sets out to do. We do not intend to recreate a technical definition of burdens, which does not deliver on that agenda and which, as my hon. Friend the Member for Edmonton (Mr. Love) pointed out, does not enable the delivery of a changing culture across Whitehall, across local government and across the body politic. The ambitious agenda is again curtailed by a tightly drawn definition of burden. We think that the definition of burden in the Bill at present allows us to deliver on that agenda.

Oliver Heald (Conservative, North East Hertfordshire)

I just wonder whether the Minister has appreciated the full glory of my drafting. The reference in amendment No. 20 to imposing a burden on an activity comes in paragraph (iii). It restricts it quite carefully to situations where a new law is being made. In my definition of burdens in new clause 4, I am quite consciously allowing the Minister to decide, in a totally subjective way, whether he believes that there is some inconvenience or imposition of cost which requires an order to be made. I am giving him a very wide canvas, but the only restriction on what he can do is that it has to be a change with a deregulatory effect.

All the old problems on which he consulted are swept away by this careful drafting. The reference to “activity” which proved such a difficulty is restricted. The problems of what a burden meant are swept away by allowing the Minister to define it, provided that it is some inconvenience or cost. Is he really saying, as he seems to be, that he wants the power to change any law even if it has no deregulatory effect and even if it does not remove burdens of any sort? He just wants to be able to be like a district commissioner in the old colonial days and be a law unto himself. If so, why?

Jim Murphy (Labour, East Renfrewshire)

The hon. Gentleman is unusually modest in his description of how he has crafted his amendments. The way in which they are drafted would not allow us to deliver on many of the simplification proposals, which are not simply about administrative burdens.—[Interruption.] It is often about bringing together and phasing out outdated and unnecessary regulations, and delivering on the merger powers proposed in Philip Hampton’s report. The way in which the hon. Gentleman has framed his amendment, while it may be—

Oliver Heald (Conservative, North East Hertfordshire)

Pretty good.

Jim Murphy (Labour, East Renfrewshire)

Pretty good, he says. It is too narrow for the Government to be tempted to support it. It will not enable us to deliver on the Hampton mergers of regulators.

Mark Harper (Conservative, Forest of Dean)

The Minister has referred a number of times to the Hampton proposals to merge regulators. It strikes me that those mergers may be necessary at some point, but that it will not perpetually be necessary to merge regulators frequently. Constantly changing the regulatory background would itself be a considerable burden. His point seems narrow, and not a good reason not to accept my hon. Friend’s glorious amendments.

Jim Murphy (Labour, East Renfrewshire)

I am sorry to disagree with the hon. Member for Forest of Dean. The ability to bring about those mergers will not in all likelihood be a recurrent annual requirement, but it is nevertheless a substantial, non-controversial piece of work that the Bill can enable. We all know that the powers in the Bill are largely enabling powers, and would enable the non-controversial mergers of some regulators and the implementation of simplification proposals provided by Departments.

As I said, the issue is not just one of burdens. It is about the wider phasing out of unnecessary regulations that are no longer appropriate and the simplification of other regulations. As I am sure the hon. Member for North-East Hertfordshire accepts, that would not always be about an administrative burden or the technical definitions that he has drawn up in his gloriously worded amendment.

Oliver Heald (Conservative, North East Hertfordshire)

But when the hon. Gentleman produced the document “A Bill for Better Regulation: Consultation Document,” it proposed that there should be a power to

“remove, reduce, re-enact or impose burdens (as now)”,

and added to that the power to simplify legislation, as the hon. Gentleman mentioned, and implement uncontroversial Law Commission recommendations. Does he have available to him a draft of clause 1 along the lines of his consultation document if he wanted to deploy it at a later stage?

Jim Murphy (Labour, East Renfrewshire)

No, I do not, because I do not feel that there is a need to do that. The broadening of the power came partly through the consultation process, as is entirely appropriate. Part of the reason for having a consultation is to see whether we have got the issue about right. The sense gained through the consultation was that the power should be broadened.

Amendment No. 29 would prevent orders from reforming the common law in ways other than those recommended by the Law Commission. As the Committee will know, the Law Commission publishes reports laid before Parliament that make recommendations and are usually accompanied by draft legislation intended to implement those recommendations. Clause 1(1) provides that orders can reform legislation or implement Law Commission recommendations, and that provisions of those two types can be combined in one order. Clause 2(3) provides that orders can reform the common law, but only when implementing Law Commission recommendations.

The combination of clauses 1 and 2 means that the intended impact of the amendment appears mainly to apply to Law Commission recommendations reforming the common law. Any changes to a Law Commission recommendation that relate to reforming legislation and satisfy the various safeguards to which orders are subject could, with one exception, be delivered in an order under clause 1(1)(a). That exception is Law Commission recommendations that impose penalties or create new powers of forcible entry above the usual limits under clauses 6 and 7.

The provision in clause 1(1)(b) that Law Commission recommendations can be implemented “with or without changes” makes it clear that it is possible to use the power to modify Law Commission recommendations when, for example, there has been a delay between the recommendations being published and the order being delivered, and when the law has changed during that time. In such a case, it would no longer be possible to implement the recommendations without changes because they would be out of date in certain respects. It is important to be able to implement the recommendations with any changes that are necessary to reflect changes made in the law.

David Howarth (Liberal Democrat, Cambridge)

In that case, will the Minister explain why the Government should not simply go back to the Law Commission and ask how it would deal with the change in law in the interim period? Why are the Government suddenly experts in common law?

Jim Murphy (Labour, East Renfrewshire)

As the process evolves, that may be one of the things that will happen as part of the enabling power. As the hon. Gentleman knows, the Law Commission is expected to carry out public consultation before it produces any recommendations. It is not that we disagree with the Law Commission, or wish to do the opposite to what it wants; I know that the hon. Gentleman was making a debating point, rather than a substantial point in respect of the Bill. If there is a delay between the Law Commission making a recommendation and the Government implementing it, it is not unreasonable to expect the law to have moved on in the interim. The changes to the Bill that we are talking about would enable that to happen; they are not about introducing the word “not”, or about the abolition of the monarchy or any of the hon. Gentleman’s other debating points.

David Howarth (Liberal Democrat, Cambridge)

I accept that some of our examples were extreme, but one was not—indeed, it was entirely on point—and that was the instance of “bad character” evidence in criminal proceedings. That example was on a common law matter, and in that case the Government implemented not the Law Commission’s proposal but an entirely different proposal. Would that count as a change, under the terms of the Bill?

Jim Murphy (Labour, East Renfrewshire)

Without talking specifically about that recommendation—the hon. Gentleman can draw his own conclusion about it—we are talking about changes due to the passage of time, not due to disputes over the content of a Law Commission recommendation. If the Government were seeking to introduce a Law Commission recommendation that had been amended substantively, this Bill would not be the way to do it. We are talking about implementing non-controversial Law Commission recommendations— that takes up the point made by the hon. Member for North-East Hertfordshire—to which there has been amendment not on policy, but based on the fact that law has evolved in the interim.

It would not be appropriate for the type of Law Commission recommendation mentioned by the hon. Member for Cambridge, or the Government’s response to it, to be delivered through the Bill. I hope that that reassures him somewhat.

Christopher Chope (Conservative, Christchurch)

The Minister has just said that the measure is about implementing non-controversial recommendations from the Law Commission. In that case, would he accept an amendment—or put forward one in the Government’s name—to insert the phrase “non-controversial” between “implementing” and “recommendations” in clause 1(1)(b)?

Jim Murphy (Labour, East Renfrewshire)

I omitted to address the point that the hon. Gentleman made earlier on behalf of his constituent, who is a JP. The hon. Gentleman read out his constituent’s comments about 1930s Germany, but I am not suggesting that he agreed with them. However, it was a delicious irony that the hon. Gentleman went on to quote from a newspaper that advocated at least some of the policies of 1930s Germany; but that is a debating point, rather than a point in respect of the Bill.

On the idea of inserting “non-controversial”, it might be helpful if I say that the Law Commission annual report of 2004-05 identified that in respect of 16 of the 29 unimplemented Law Commission reports, the Government accepted the recommendations in whole or in part, and that there has on average been a wait of seven and a half years before such recommendations have been implemented. It is clear that that is not a suitable way to progress. We need an alternative way to implement non-controversial Law Commission recommendations; that point would apply to a Government of any party.

Alison Seabeck (Labour, Plymouth, Devonport)

Returning to amendment No. 29, the Minister has argued that, because of the time lag between Law Commission reports coming out and being taken forward, the legislation will have changed. As he has just mentioned, a number of such reports have been in train for about seven years. In respect of those current reports that are still waiting to be brought forward, can the Minister quantify precisely the number of law changes relating to them that have taken place in the intervening period, and therefore explain why “with or” needs to be left in the Bill? I am sorry, but I may not have expressed that question very clearly.

Jim Murphy (Labour, East Renfrewshire)

I get the point that my hon. Friend makes. I mentioned that it is my understanding that there are 29 Law Commission reports that the Government have not acted on, 16 of which we agree with in whole or in part. It has always been difficult to secure parliamentary slots in a tight agenda for the implementation of non-controversial Law Commission reports. That is why the average time that they spend on the shelf is seven and a half years.

In respect of quantifying how often “with or without changes” would be brought into effect, that would depend on several things. The first of them is the Bill; without it, we could not bring that into effect. Secondly, that would depend on which of the 16 Law Commission reports we then sought to implement, and which we sought to implement in full and which in part. It would also depend on how much the law of the land has moved on in the intervening period. That is not a specific answer to my hon. Friend’s question, but it identifies the challenges that we face in seeking to implement non-controversial Law Commission recommendations.

Christopher Chope (Conservative, Christchurch)

Since the Minister has manifestly failed to answer my last question on whether he would accept the introduction of “non-controversial” into clause 1(1)(b), perhaps he can respond to the following suggestion. In the light of his rather fanciful objection to amendment No. 29, would he accept as an alternative that the Bill should provide that there should be no change to a Law Commission proposal unless there have been changes to the law since the date of that proposal?

Jim Murphy (Labour, East Renfrewshire)

I am sorry for not having given a one-word answer to the hon. Gentleman’s earlier question; the one-word answer to it is no. I hope that that is helpful. On his additional point, if he wishes to table such an amendment, the Government would consider its specific proposals. This is not a matter of dogmatism; we just want to get the balance right, and to ensure that non-controversial Law Commission recommendations can be implemented in a much more effective way than they currently are.

Christopher Chope (Conservative, Christchurch)

I had hoped that the Minister would be an active participant in the Committee. Having raised one objection to the amendment, I would have hoped that, if it was the only objection to the amendment, he would then have tried to reach a compromise. However, all he seems to be saying is that it is incumbent on us to keep putting forward suggestions that he will then knock down. Why does he not engage more constructively in these proceedings?

Jim Murphy (Labour, East Renfrewshire)

I am happy to engage constructively with the issue; I have done so for a number of months. It is not for me to say whether the point that the hon. Gentleman made is unfair or uncharitable; it is his debating style to make such claims and assertions. It is for him to judge whether that is the most effective way to get things done in the House and in Standing Committees. It is not my job to table his amendment for him or to write it, but if he has the specifics, I look forward to reading, discussing and debating the matter on Report if that is appropriate.

However, as we are still in our first of eight sittings, I am keen to engage on the specifics of the amendments and new clauses. I have shown that in my evidence to various Select Committees and during discussion on Second Reading. His allegation is unfounded, but that does not prevent him from making it. I am sure that he will make it at every one of the eight sittings on the Bill.

David Howarth (Liberal Democrat, Cambridge)

There is a way to discuss in Committee the sort of amendment that the hon. Member for Christchurch suggests. When we debate clause 18, which deals with definition and interpretation, we could insert a restrictive, specific definition of “changes”, according to which “changes” would mean only changes reasonably related to developments in the common law since the time of the Law Commission’s recommendation. In that way, we could discuss the matter in Committee and not have to wait until Report.

Jim Murphy (Labour, East Renfrewshire)

I look forward to seeing the hon. Gentleman table such an amendment so we can have that conversation, and I look forward to seeing him table it on time.

I assure the Committee that clause 1(1)(b) does not mean that orders could make radical changes to Law Commission recommendations reforming the common law. If a Minister radically changed a Law Commission recommendation relating to the common law, then the reform in the order would not be implementing the Law Commission recommendation. Rather than implementing the recommendation, even with changes, the Minister would be attempting to do something else entirely and so could not use the power in clause 1(1)(b). Subsection 1(1)(b) gives sufficient flexibility for changes to Law Commission recommendations without enabling Ministers to reform the law by purporting to implement Law Commission recommendations but in fact doing something entirely different.

Oliver Heald (Conservative, North East Hertfordshire)

I see the point that the Minister is making. If it were a totally different proposal dealing with the subject broadly, he might be right. But what about the point that I made? One of the things that the Law Commission is considering at the moment is the question of the occupation rights of partners who live together. It may well propose that partners who have lived together for a very long time should acquire the same sort of rights as married couples or registered civil partners, but what happens if the Law Commission suggests 20 years and the Minister says six months will do? It would be the same subject and the same recommendation—property rights for cohabitants—but it would be a very different proposal in the minds of some people: those who wanted to see marriage as a building block in society, for example. How does he reconcile that effect on such cases, which are more marginal?

Jim Murphy (Labour, East Renfrewshire)

I do not think that that case is marginal at all. That would be a substantial change to a Law Commission recommendation and would not be appropriate for the Bill. That is not marginal at all. It is pretty clear-cut to me.

We are talking about changes that are necessary because of changes in common law during the interim between the Law Commission’s recommendation and the Government of the day’s implementation of that recommendation. It is not about materially altering it or changing the policy; it is about making changes that take account of changes to the law through time rather than simply thanking the Law Commission for the recommendation and choosing to build on it or alter it as a matter of policy. That would be entirely different. It is not even a matter of ministerial commitment, which I give today and which the Government are giving, that that is not the purpose of the provision.

I do not understand why the safeguards have not yet been talked about in great detail. The relevant Select Committee of the House of Commons, charged by the House of Commons, would have the power to reject any recommendation. Even if the Law Commission made a recommendation and the Government sought minor technical changes to bring it up to date to reflect changes in the law in the interim period, the relevant Select Committee in the House of Commons and the House of Lords would be able to reject the proposal. That would be an additional safeguard.

In all cases, the overriding requirement is that the provision in the order implements a Law Commission recommendation, and that will usually be quite clear. The inclusion of the words “with or without changes” signals that certain limited changes to the recommendation are permitted, for the reasons that I have given. The 2001 Act contained a number of technical restrictions, which created arbitrary limits on what could be delivered by order. It is important that the order-making powers created by the Bill are flexible enough effectively to deliver regulatory reform and beneficial Law Commission recommendations.

I shall now discuss new clause 5, although I will try to finish before we break at what the hon. Member for Christchurch, during our discussion of the programme motion, called that indigestible time. One of the main policy objectives at the heart of the Bill is that orders made under the power in clause 1 will help to reduce regulatory burdens, including those on small businesses. The new clause, which was proposed by the hon. Member for North-East Hertfordshire, is unnecessary, and I will set out the reasons why.

All regulatory proposals must be accompanied by a regulatory impact assessment, and major proposals will be scrutinised by and require the approval of the panel for regulatory accountability. I should point out that the chair of the Small Business Council, Julie Kenny, is invited to attend the panel’s meetings. That ensures that small businesses have a voice on the panel and that the regulatory proposals that are scrutinised take full account of the impact on small businesses.

The Government are already reducing regulatory burdens on small businesses, and I shall mention just a few examples. One integral part of the current RIA process is the assessment of the impact on small businesses. That is why Departments have to complete the small firms impact test before the RIA can get ministerial agreement. That requires policy officials to investigate what impact the proposals would have specifically on small businesses.

The key stages of a small firms impact test include an initial sounding of small businesses or representative bodies to verify the likely impact and identify solutions before formal public consultation. Where the impact appears significant or complex, there is a more detailed exploration of the issues and solutions with representative bodies and small and medium-sized enterprises so that the issues can be scoped and spelled out fully in the consultation documents.

Other key stages include assessing and reflecting the representations made by small firms during the consultation in the final RIA, including making any necessary changes to ensure that the policy is well adapted to the needs of SMEs. It is difficult to assess the impact of RIAs and the impact test, because they are evolving documents, but if initial findings suggest a significant potential impact on small businesses, we would of course seek to act. To give one example, Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs identified that the reporting requirements for employment-related securities were imposing significant costs on new small businesses. The RIA allowed a policy re-evaluation, with the result that at least 90 per cent. of new companies are now out of scope, saving £60 million per annum.

The other ways in which the Government are supporting small businesses include exempting nearly 900,000 companies from audit requirements. In addition, we are introducing one-page regulation updates, and there are the 12-week statutory consultation proposals. We are also attracted, of course, to the concept and implementation of common commencement dates for regulations and legislation so that small businesses, in particular, have an expectation and a knowledge of when changes in regulation are brought about.

As I mentioned, Departments and regulators are developing simplification plans, which will set out how Departments will meet targets to reduce administrative burdens, as well as wider simplification measures to deregulate, consolidate and rationalise regulation and reduce the regulatory burden on businesses, charities and the voluntary and public sectors. There are many additional points that I could make about the Government’s support for small businesses.

The requirement in the Bill for consultation on any proposed order will also allow those affected by any proposals to have an opportunity to put their case to the Government. The Government will take those views into account before a draft order and explanatory document are laid before Parliament. The explanatory document must give details of the consultation, representations received and any changes made as a result of those representations.

As has been mentioned, small businesses are the backbone of our economy. They make an enormous contribution: 58 per cent. of the UK’s private sector work force is made up of small businesses, and small business accounts for more than half of the UK’s turnover. The Bill has widespread support, including support from the Federation of Small Businesses and the Small Business Council. For those reasons and others, I urge hon. Members not to press their amendments. However, if they do so, the Government will of course resist them.

I hope that I have dealt with the specifics and set out in this, our first sitting, by identifying clearly the important safeguards in the Bill, in order to overcome some of the genuine concerns and the debating-point concerns that hon. Members opposite have raised. There is a statutory public consultation and more safeguards in the Bill than the 2001 Act. The relevant Select Committees charged by the House of Commons will be able to reject any proposal, on any order, at any time, should it so wish. With those comments, I encourage my colleagues to reject the Opposition’s amendments if they are forced to a Division.

Oliver Heald (Conservative, North East Hertfordshire)

We have had an excellent debate. To start with small businesses, where the Minister ended, a plethora of exemptions seems to apply to them. To give an idea of the mixture of thresholds that are used for small business exemptions, I shall run through a few: five employees or fewer; 10 employees or fewer; 15 employees or fewer; 21 employees or fewer; 50 employees or fewer; small firms with a turnover of less than £45,000; a small business whose premises have a rateable value of less than £8,000; a turnover of less than £58,000; a turnover of less than £5.6 million; and premises smaller than 280 sq m. There is also a range of regulations with exemptions for businesses in the numerous categories that I have outlined.

When we consider the sort of simplifications that the Minister discussed and what the regulatory regime should be for business, there is a strong case for having a moment when the Minister has to think whether the regulation is appropriate for small business. There is wide support for that in the business community, even among large businesses and organisations. For example, the Institute of Directors believes that on balance there is a case for applying small firm exemptions and that officials should be required to consider whether one should be included when drawing up regulations.

I therefore do not see what the Minister has to fear from agreeing to new clause 5. I believe that he accepts the logic of what I am saying, so why is it so hard to include that sensible provision, which he and I agree should be part of the process of deciding simplifications and regulations? The case for small firm exemptions is that they recognise that the burden of regulation on SMEs can often be disproportionate. The issue is about giving the choice to impose a regulatory burden on the economy at the top end of business, which may be appropriate, but deciding that it would not be appropriate for small business.

Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill - Standing Committee A

Clause 1 - Purpose

Martin Caton (Labour, Gower)

I remind the Committee that with this we are discussing the following:

No. 29, in clause 1, page 1, line 9, leave out ‘with or’.

New clause 1—Annual report to Parliament about section 1 orders—

‘A Minister of the Crown shall annually lay a report before Parliament detailing, for each government department that made an order under section 1 in that year—

(a)what burdens have been removed,

(b)what burdens have been simplified,

(c)what burdens have been imposed, and

(d)what has been the impact of each order.’.

New clause 4—Definition of ‘burden’—

‘In this Act “burden” includes—

(a)a restriction, requirement or condition (including one requiring the payment of fees or preventing the incurring of expenditure) or any sanction (whether criminal or otherwise) for failure to observe a restriction or to comply with a requirement or condition,

(b)any limit on the statutory powers of any person (including a limit preventing the charging of fees or the incurring of expenditure), and

(c)any matter which in the opinion of a Minister of the Crown causes inconvenience or imposes cost.’.

New clause 5—Small business—

‘(1) An order made under section 1 must, where its application extends to small businesses, make specific provision to reduce the regulatory impact on small businesses where appropriate.

(2)In this section, the meaning of “small business” is the same as in section 249 of the Companies Act 1985.’.

Oliver Heald (Conservative, North East Hertfordshire)

I welcome you to the Chair, Mr Caton.

I was saying that exempting small firms from the impact of regulations is the lesser of two evils. The Better Regulation Task Force looked at whether providing exemptions created disincentives to growth, but found little evidence to support that. The argument against small business exemptions is that they can create unfair competition. I accept that to remove regulatory burdens from all businesses is preferable, but it is not necessary to ensure that all suffer to the same extent.

Small firm exemptions are a useful tool and new clause 5 asks Ministers to reduce the regulatory impact on small businesses where appropriate.

David Heath (Liberal Democrat, Somerton and Frome)

Was the hon. Gentleman as surprised as I was to hear the Minister talk this morning about all of the actions taken to relieve the regulatory burden on the smallest businesses? In fact, the Institute of Chartered Accountants tells us that the burden borne by microbusinesses has actually increased: 73 per cent. compared to 69 per cent. the previous year?

Oliver Heald (Conservative, North East Hertfordshire)

The point made by the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr. Heath) is exactly right. I was about to quote a couple of remarks from the Institute of Directors and the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales. The Better Regulation Task Force report, “Helping Small Firms Cope with Regulation—Exemptions and other Approaches” made it clear that small firm exemptions are a useful tool.

The Institute of Directors published its own report on the issue. The nub of its argument was as follows:

“The burden of regulations often has a disproportionate impact on SMEs because they lack both the resources and the staff to deal with them ... Exemptions ... should be determined on a case by case basis. Small businesses have flourished in the USA partly as a consequence of this approach.”

In a briefing to the Committee, the Institute of Chartered Accountants said that the relative proportion of the burden on the smallest businesses is too large. As the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome rightly said, that burden is increasing rather than diminishing.

I hope that new clause 5, or something like it, will emerge from the Minister at some stage. I was glad to have the support of all parts of the Committee for the argument that it is sensible to look at small businesses in a more structured way. If the Minister believes that, as he seems to, it is hard not to agree to an amendment or new clause, even if he does not like the wording of this new clause, which would make that a feature.

New clause 1 is an attempt to introduce an element of retrospective audit of regulatory impact assessments in respect of regulatory reform orders. That has been suggested by the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants, which in fact goes further and says that there should be

“compulsory retrospective audits of Regulatory Impact Assessments”

to look at their accuracy and effect. We believe that that should be supported.

My hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr. Chope) made the point that new clause 1 might provide too soon an assessment of the impact. I will consider that point further. However, I hope that he will accept that I was trying to do something that is good business practice, which is to have the retrospective audit of the impact assessments and the impact of the regulations.

I was encouraged by the intervention on that point by the hon. Member for Edmonton (Mr. Love). He said that he hopes for a later reference by the Minister to that matter, and to deregulation more generally, on Report. I hope that the Minister will engage with the Committee’s deregulatory spirit. I also notice that the Minister himself recognised that it was important that there should be later analysis of the impact of regulation. If he believes in that, why not include it in the Bill? I do not seek a separate Division on new clause 1 at this stage, but I hope that the Minister may return to the subject later, as he considers it important.

David Heath (Liberal Democrat, Somerton and Frome)

Is not this the critical part of the process for the entire Bill? Unless the Minister is prepared to put into statute what he asserts he agrees with, he will not have his Bill in its present form when it goes to another place. It is in his interest to listen to what we say and bring forward appropriate amendments in Committee or on Report.

Oliver Heald (Conservative, North East Hertfordshire)

I could not agree more with the hon. Gentleman. We are being very constructive. None of the amendments is framed so as to be impossible for the Minister to accept. He may not like some of the drafting details and he might want to change that, with the help of his thousands of officials. I accept that, working in opposition with limited numbers, one can get these things wrong. However, surely a reasonable person could hardly argue with the spirit of what we suggest, and the ideas behind it. Certainly, as to new clause 1, the Minister’s own words suggest that he could return to us with a gift.

Amendment No. 29, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch, is designed to stop Ministers expanding or changing Law Commission proposals. The Law Commission deals with some controversial matters. The Sunday Times recently ran this comment:

“Thousands of co-habiting couples are to be the subject of ‘palimony’ provisions being drawn up by the Law Commission”.

That was on 29 January. It was reported as being a very controversial matter. The report continued:

“Critics are likely to see the proposals as the latest threat to the status of marriage”.

The Law Commission website confirms that the property, family and trust law team is considering

“the potential financial hardship suffered by cohabitants or their children on the termination of a relationship”.

A consultation paper is expected in early 2006. Those sorts of proposals should, as I have already said, be subject to full debate before the House. They should not be dealt with by the order-making power in part 1, but by a proper Bill proceeding in the usual way.

The point that I am making is that if the Minister wanted to, he could take the Law Commission proposal and change it—a proposal about a controversial matter—quite substantially. For example, if the Law Commission wanted to give rights to cohabitants who had lived together for 20 years, he could, if he wanted to, say, “I think it should happen after five years”—or 10 or 15 years, or six months. There would be nothing in the Bill to prevent that.

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Cabinet Office (Mr. Jim Murphy) indicated dissent.

Oliver Heald (Conservative, North East Hertfordshire)

The Minister shakes his head. When he was talking about it he said that the Government could make only a minor change to a Law Commission proposal, and that anything more than that would mean that they were in breach of the law, so it could not happen. However, the Bill does not say that the change must be minor. That may be the Minister’s hope or intention. His idea may be that he does not want to make more than a minor change under the Bill. If so, the Bill should state it.

The point that the TUC made, and which has been made from both sides of the Committee, is that the Minister’s personal assurances apply to him. They do not even apply, in a sense, to the Government as a whole. If he were to move on to a different Department another Minister might decide that he did not totally agree with the way the relevant provision had been expressed; under the Bill, with no firm safeguard, that would be in the hands of the individual.

We are talking about making law for the future. As the TUC said, there might be a different Government in the future. That Government might not agree with the Minister about some of these points, so we need the Bill to say the right things. I am thinking of some of the other proposals that the Law Commission is considering, on tenants’ rights and on provocation in respect of the law of murder. In those areas, if a Minister did not agree with the Law Commission proposal and expanded what was proposed, that would be a very controversial measure and something that the House should consider, but it would not be considered properly by the House.

One matter that the Law Commission is considering is codification of the general principles of criminal law. Are the Government really saying that they should have the power to change general principles of the criminal law by order and to depart from the Law Commission recommendations and that we should not have a full say on that in the House of Commons? That would be deeply worrying. I hope that my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch will seek to divide the Committee on amendment No. 29, in respect of which the Minister seems to have no argument that he can advance to persuade the Committee of his view.

The key amendment, No. 20, and new clause 4 would focus the Bill on the purpose of deregulation and provide a vital safeguard. As my hon. Friends the Members for Christchurch and for Forest of Dean (Mr. Harper) said, constituents are concerned about the breadth of clause 1; it gives power to govern by ministerial fiat. The Minister says that he would not do that and he should be trusted. Fair enough, but we do not make law in the belief that one Minister will remain continuously in office. Even someone as ambitious as this Minister cannot believe that he will be a Cabinet Office Minister in, say, 100 years’ time, but this is the sort of law that will not be abolished.

David Heath (Liberal Democrat, Somerton and Frome)

Even if the Minister were the deputy Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster in 100 years’ time, there would be no guarantee that the Home Secretary of the day, the Lord Chancellor or even the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster himself might not refer to his better judgment the question whether a particular matter should be put through a proper degree of scrutiny.

Oliver Heald (Conservative, North East Hertfordshire)

The hon. Gentleman makes a good point. If there were Ministers like some of those whom we have come to know over recent years, who have been prepared to propose quite draconian laws in the area of civil rights, one would be extremely worried that this measure was on the statute book and that there were no proper safeguards in relation to it.

Amendment No. 20 would redefine the ambit of clause 1 to make it a matter of allowing deregulatory reform and removing burdens from business. New clause 4 would define the term “burden” far more widely than the 2001 Act does, specifically to meet all the concerns that the Government expressed in their document. Those measures would give the Government what they consulted on. They accepted that the removal of burdens should remain part of the picture and be a focus for clause 1. They added simplification measures, which my proposals would allow for, provided that the simplifications could be justified as removing some inconvenience or cost. The Government must have available their own draft along the lines of amendment No. 20 and new clause 4, because it is inconceivable that they would have consulted on such a proposal otherwise. What I propose is basically what the Government consulted on and what was supported by business. The Government have decided to go off on this frolic of their own, to use a legal phrase, and have gone for something much more draconian. However, as the Regulatory Reform Committee said in its excellent report, safeguards are needed. If the Minister will not think again, I will press amendment No. 20 to a vote.

Christopher Chope (Conservative, Christchurch)

I beg to move amendment No. 30, in clause 1, page 1, line 12, leave out ‘or local Act’.

Martin Caton (Labour, Gower)

With this it will be convenient to discuss amendment

No. 31, in clause 1, page 1, line 13, leave out paragraph (b).

Christopher Chope (Conservative, Christchurch)

These amendments are linked and I do not think that I need to introduce them at great length. They offer an opportunity to ask the Minister why he believes that it is necessary to take the power to use this procedure to change local Acts.

David Heath (Liberal Democrat, Somerton and Frome)

We have an initial problem. There is no reference in “Erskine May” to “local Act.” Nor does it appear in the standing orders of the House. There are local authorities Acts and Acts applicable to several localities—one example is the Home Counties (Music and Dancing) Licensing Act 1926—but there is no reference to local Act. I wonder whether the Minister might intervene on the hon. Gentleman to explain what he understands by the term “local Act”. Would the Government of Wales Bill be a local Act, for instance?

Christopher Chope (Conservative, Christchurch)

The hon. Gentleman makes a very good point. I may be seeking to remove something for which no one has a definition. I will happily sit down to allow the Minister to intervene.

Jim Murphy (Labour, East Renfrewshire)

Later.

Christopher Chope (Conservative, Christchurch)

The hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr. Heath) has drawn our attention to the definitions that might apply or the ones that do not apply, but this will be new, wide drafting. Basically, anything that the Government want to do they will be able to do with the power that is currently proposed in the Bill. I think that we should take it out and likewise I do not understand why the Government want to be able to change subordinate legislation through this method.

Subordinate legislation can be changed already by statutory instrument. The procedures for dealing with statutory instruments are pretty streamlined. Many of us would say that where the negative resolution applies, there are effectively no powers for elected Members to intervene, because subordinate legislation is implemented before the House has a chance to do anything about it. If the House does anything, it can only be after the event.

Why do the Government believe that the powers that can be exercised through statutory instruments, whether through negative or affirmative resolution, are inadequate and need to be streamlined further in the way proposed? I do not understand what they have in mind. The Minister may have some examples, which I hope he will share with us, of a public demand that something be changed using the new powers. I have not received any representations about such a demand and until I am convinced, I shall remain of the opinion that the change is unnecessary.

Oliver Heald (Conservative, North East Hertfordshire)

I assumed that the term “local Act” referred to local authority Acts, but I suppose that it could refer to private Acts related to particular localities, of which there are many. Does my hon. Friend have any thoughts about whether the definition of local Acts would be so wide as to include such private Acts? If so, would there be any danger of the Bill suffering hybridity?

Christopher Chope (Conservative, Christchurch)

That is another good point, and I am sure that the Minister will be able to issue a certificate to say that he has no intention to mix private interests with the public interest and thereby create a hybrid Bill. My hon. Friend raises an understandable concern.

When the House legislates on local issues, whether by a private Bill or through a private Act of Parliament, it often creates a controversial situation. I well remember that when I was the Member of Parliament for Southampton, Itchen, Southampton city council proposed to bring forward what was described as the Southampton Rapid Transit Bill, a highly controversial piece of legislation. It was eventually defeated in a free vote late one evening, much to my delight. That was a private piece of legislation concerned only with the people of Southampton, but it was highly controversial.

We see in the Bill that the Government wish to take powers to make significant changes to private or local legislation. We know that local legislation is often used as a pathfinder for Government legislation. We have seen a lot of examples of that recently, such as the Mayor of London and the London Assembly seeking powers for all sorts of draconian measures to be used against motorists in particular and others within the Greater London area. That legislation has gone through and then normally turned out to be the precursor to similar legislation with a more general application. Much of it, as I recollect from its consideration in the House, has been pretty bland and has gone through without much problem. However, there are always things slipped in when somebody has decided, “Let’s try it on. Let’s have a go to try and extend our powers in one respect or another.”

Although this point is in parentheses, and our main concerns are about the Government’s power under the Bill to change primary legislation—public general Acts, as they are called—we should not forget the impact that local legislation can have on individuals and businesses in our constituencies. The Minister should be put to proof in that regard.

Oliver Heald (Conservative, North East Hertfordshire)

With respect to amendment No. 31, is my hon. Friend concerned as to why it should be necessary to use the order-making power under clause 1 to effect changes, for example, to Orders in Council, orders, rules or regulations, when a simple system is already in place to do that? It is not as though Ministers have great difficulty in changing orders. In fact, they are often so badly drafted that they need to be changed two or three times soon after their introduction. Does my hon. Friend share my concern as to what the Government are getting at in subsection (3)(b)?

Christopher Chope (Conservative, Christchurch)

The mind boggles as to what the Government are getting at. As legislators, we try to put safeguards into legislation. Safeguards are sometimes accepted by the Government—sometimes only reluctantly after a ping-pong between the two Houses. I think that it may well be in the Government’s mind that they could reach an agreement or a compromise between the two Houses on a piece of legislation and then, immediately after it is passed, use the provisions in the Bill to remove the effect of the ensuing subordinate legislation.

I think, for instance, of a controversial piece of legislation that I was involved in on more than one Friday; the high hedges legislation. That was pretty controversial even when it applied only to evergreen hedges, but there is a power in that legislation to extend the provisions to deciduous shrubs. If the power in the Bill was used to extend that legislation—effectively, that would be legislating by fiat—to define a hedge as a high hedge even if it was comprised of deciduous plants, it would cause many people a lot of grief, and they would have no say.

Although there are some safeguards in the Bill, which can be dealt with when it goes to the Select Committee, those who are not represented in the House—the small minority interests—may lose to the greatest extent. Such people often do not realise what has happened until it is too late. Their interests may not be known to Members of the House, either collectively or individually, yet if the Government use the power before there has been chance to make clear to the general public what the implications are for particular interest groups, we will find that the legislation is on the statute book.

An incoming Government of a different political persuasion might be tempted to use the powers that the Government are giving themselves for totally different purposes. I can envisage someone saying that we could emasculate the Hunting Act 2004 by using the powers in the Bill. That should be a cause for concern for Members on the Government Benches as well as for Opposition Members, because it shows that the powers could be abused or used in an unpredictable way.

Mark Harper (Conservative, Forest of Dean)

On that point, Government Back Benchers might like to think about which member of another party they trusted the least and then ask themselves whether they would like that individual to have the powers being granted in the Bill to do pretty much anything they wanted with the statute book. If they were uncomfortable with the answer, perhaps they should think again about whether to support the Bill.

Christopher Chope (Conservative, Christchurch)

I agree with my hon. Friend. I hope that during the Committee’s proceedings there will be a groundswell of opinion on the Government Back Benches that puts the Minister under pressure. The Minister has already been put under pressure by some of the speeches of Government Back Benchers on Second Reading, but the concerns expressed by those individuals are not necessarily reflected in the membership of the Committee. With a few more examples like the ones that we are beginning to raise, a greater interest may be taken in our proceedings by Government Back Benchers.

We have already heard that organisations such as the TUC are a little concerned as to what the implications could be were there to be a change of Government. Even under this Government, things that they hold dear might suddenly be taken away before their eyes without any proper scrutiny or debate. The point is a short one. I hope that the Minister will either accept the amendments or justify these provisions.

David Howarth (Liberal Democrat, Cambridge)

Thank you, Mr. Caton. It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship; I hope that this is the first such occasion of many.

The amendments would remove the words “or local Act” and the entire reference to subordinate legislation from the Bill. I return to the preliminary point that was raised regarding what a local Act is. It seems to be an important point in favour of the amendment that if we do not know what a local Act is, perhaps references to local Acts should be removed from the Bill. As my hon. Friend the Member for Somerton and Frome said, there is no reference to the phrase “local Act” in the Standing Orders of the House of Commons, or in “Erskine May” as far as we can tell. There is certainly no reference to it in the index of “Erskine May”, and local Bills are not referred to where it discusses kinds of Bill.

At first sight, the term seems ambiguous. It could mean an Act of Parliament promoted by a local authority, in which case it would normally be a private Act, or it could be a public Act that applies only to one locality or, to complicate things further, several localities. If the latter meaning is used, the phrase “or local Acts” seems to add nothing to the Bill, since the phrase before it refers to public Acts.

Oliver Heald (Conservative, North East Hertfordshire)

I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman has thought of this, but it might refer to hybrids such as the Cardiff Bay Barrage Act 1993, which took up a lot of time in this place; I see that at least one other member of the Committee remembers that Bill with affection. Such hybrid Bills are, as the hon. Gentleman said, public Bills, but they relate to a particular area and so are treated as hybrids and have a special procedure in the House. That might be what is meant by local Acts.

David Howarth (Liberal Democrat, Cambridge)

Yes; that is an interesting problem for this Bill. “Erskine May” defines a hybrid Bill as a public Bill that

“affects a particular private interest in a manner different from the private interests of other persons or bodies of the same category or class.”

The question that comes to the fore is: if “local Act” refers to that sort of Act or a private local Act—an Act promoted by a local authority as a private Act—is this Bill a hybrid? That is a serious problem that should be considered.

I return to the public Act meaning of “local Act”; even with that interpretation, the situation is unclear. Are the Scotland Act 1998 and the Government of Wales Act 1998 local Acts in that sense? What about the Government of Wales Bill that is currently before the House? One could argue that those areas are too big to be considered local. Parts of the Bill that we are considering deal with some devolution questions, although not all of them. There is an interesting problem with the interaction between different parts of the Bill. What about the many Greater London Acts? Are they local Acts in that sense?

It seems to me that the other meaning of local Act is the more disturbing—this is where the hybridity point comes in—because the other meaning of local Act is a private Act, which goes through a very different procedure in this House. The reason for that procedure is precisely because such Acts can directly affect the rights of individuals. We are therefore allowed to petition the House directly, and such Bills go through a different Committee system.

The Government seem deliberately to have left out of clause 1 any reference to private Acts of Parliament in the ordinary sense. During the consultation, there was some discussion of whether such Acts should be included, but that would lead to grave difficulties of the sort that we have discussed. Private Acts can take away property rights and seriously affect individuals’ interests in ways that they do not affect other individuals’ interests.

Local Acts in the local authority sense can have similar effects. Traditionally, Acts promoting tramways, railways, roads and so on have included provision to take people’s property, although they offer compensation. In effect, they provided an alternative route to compulsory purchase before there were general compulsory purchase provisions. These days, things are often done differently, through a transport and works order. However, the Bill allows changes to be made not only to more general Acts, but to existing private Acts of Parliament promoted by local authorities. At the time, such Acts had the effect of taking property without consent and offering compensation instead.

We see a similar problem if we look at some of the private Bills before the House at the moment, which would come under the heading of local Bills. I believe that the London Local Authorities and Transport for London Bill alters the regulation of taxis and hire cars in ways that might be said to affect particular people’s livelihoods. A proposal to reform such a local Act would presumably add to or remove a burden on the particular class of people whose interests were affected.

If the Government want the Bill to refer only to local Acts whose character is public and therefore to avoid any hint that private rights will be affected by reforms to an existing private Act or otherwise, they must accept the amendment or table another amendment to make clear the distinction between the two different sorts of local Acts, because I do not see such a distinction in the Bill.

That was a preliminary point. My other point on the amendments is a policy point.

Oliver Heald (Conservative, North East Hertfordshire)

Let us assume for a moment that a local Act is a private Act that deals with a particular locality. In my constituency, for example, we have the Letchworth Garden City Heritage Foundation Act 1995, which deals with the estate of Letchworth, who owns it and how it is to be managed as an industrial and provident society. Why would the Government want to take a power to change that Act, which was promoted by the Letchworth Garden City Heritage Foundation and which deals with part of my constituency? What is the rationale for subsection (3)(a)?

David Howarth (Liberal Democrat, Cambridge)

It seems difficult to discern, unless the Government want the power to reform such Acts because they have in mind a situation in which they might change the balance of interests—the costs and benefits—between different sections of the public. They might want to change the structure of management in such a way that some people benefit and other people lose. If that is the case, the danger of the Bill being hybrid would increase, because it would affect particular individuals in a way that it did not affect other individuals.

I turn now to a policy aspect of the amendments and to the question of localism. If we read the Bill carefully, we see that the Government are giving themselves the power not only to amend, but to repeal local Acts without the elaborate petitioning procedure that would have gone into the passing of the Bill in the first place. That threatens a good deal of local autonomy.

Local authorities promote Bills to give themselves extra powers. Why would the Government want the power to repeal such Acts? It seems that they would want the power to do so because they want to promote uniformity. They want to remove variation in law and practice across the country. For a century or more there has been a political discussion in this country between people who think that central Government should make sure that the law is uniform across the country and those who believe, on the contrary, that local variation and experimentation is a good thing and that it is a good idea to test out ideas in particular localities to see whether they work and whether other localities might learn from them.

It is possible—as appears historically to be the case—that business interests are not keen on such differences. They often prefer uniform regulation. To return to the question of motivation, the move might be a response to large national companies that prefer uniformity. That goes against new clause 5, which deals with the interests of small businesses. Small businesses are usually far more adapted to their local circumstances and plugged in to their local areas, and far less concerned about national uniformity. I am concerned about that and about the consequences that such a measure might have on participation in local affairs. If the Government take the power to get rid of local Acts, that will reduce people’s desire for local politics by reducing their ability to make a difference locally.

I want to draw attention to an aspect of amendment No. 31 that will produce an associated effect. Byelaws are one of the forms of legislation referred to in clause 1(3)(b), and they are passed by local authorities to deal with some particular local problem. They need confirmation from the central authorities, but the initiative comes from local government and local people. There has been a tendency over the past century or so for standard byelaws to be passed—it is easier to do it that way—but it is still possible for new ideas and solutions to problems to be produced in byelaws by local authorities.

When I was the leader of a council, a number of such problems came up. For example, we once had a problem with people parking on grass verges to sell cars as a business. It turned out that there was no proper way legally to regulate that. I notice that in the Leicester City Bill the council is looking for primary legislative powers to deal with the same problem. We devised and passed a byelaw that made that specific practice illegal. Central Government often blocks such unusual byelaws, but that one was not blocked and is now in force. Without amendment No. 31, the Bill would give the Government the power to repeal that byelaw by statutory instrument.

As I said, central Government sometimes blocks byelaws. They have that power, if they feel that an attempt to use a byelaw is inappropriate or inconvenient. When I was leader of the district council, we also attempted to deal with the problem of street drinking by using a byelaw. The powers that were then available to us in national legislation—the designated public place orders—were not adequate in our view. They meant simply that the problem of street drinking was pushed from one locality to another. We thought also that some of the powers under the order were too subjective, so we devised a byelaw that was citywide, not just neighbourhood wide, and, in our view, legally sounder.

It turned out that, for reasons that I will not go into, the Government did not like that byelaw, and informally—without using formal procedures—dissuaded the council from passing it. It seems to me that that is the way in which things have been done—central Government has powers to prevent byelaws from going through. Unamended, the Bill would grant central Government a second go at defeating or repealing byelaws.

Andrew Love (Labour, Edmonton)

I apologise to the hon. Gentleman; I suspect that I should have asked the hon. Member for Christchurch this question. Amendment No. 30 would take out “or local Act” in line 12, whereas amendment No. 31 would take out the whole of subsection (b). If we were to be ruthlessly consistent, we would only take out of subsection (b) “or local Act”. Do those two amendments aim to limit the ability of an order to impact on Orders in Council, orders and rules for any general public Act? If so, is that appropriate?

David Howarth (Liberal Democrat, Cambridge)

As I understand it, the intention of amendment No. 31 is broader than that of amendment No. 30. The intention of the latter is to remove the words “or local Act”—the aim is simply that and nothing else. The intention of amendment No. 31 is to remove the power to use the procedure set up in the Bill to change subordinate legislation, which would include byelaws as I have just been discussing. On the face of it, that seems sensible because there will be ways of changing every one of those forms of subordinate legislation, except for byelaws, in another Act of Parliament. There does not seem to be a great need for a power to change statutory instruments under the procedure in the Bill given that such powers will already exist in the parent Acts of those statutory instruments.

As I said, that is with the exception of byelaws. In my view, the clause is trying to sneak in a power to repeal byelaws. That would be unfortunate—

Andrew Love (Labour, Edmonton)

I apologise; I suspect that I am being thick. Let us make the assumption that an order is introduced to reform a public general Act. The consequence of the two amendments would be that they could actually reform the Act, but not any orders, rules, regulations or any other subordinate instruments made under that Act. Is that sensible?

David Howarth (Liberal Democrat, Cambridge)

Presumably, the rules, orders and so on, made under that Act could themselves be changed, either under the Act itself unamended, or by waiting until it has been amended and making changes under the new version. If the Government were to be silly and forget in the amended Act to give themselves the power to make rules or subordinate legislation, that would be a problem, but one of their own making. In fact it seems that no sensible Government would make that mistake—the civil service would think about it before proposing changes.

It seems to me both on these formal grounds and, more importantly, on grounds of policy and encouraging localism and diversity of experimentation in the fight against the clone town nature of many of our localities, that we should resist this attempt to put in place ways in which legislation can be made more uniform. I realise that that is not necessarily a very popular view and that those who pay lip service to localism sometimes say, “Yes, I am in favour of localism, but surely you do not mean that things will be different in different areas.” Well, I am afraid that localism does mean that regulation, and to some extent legislation, can and should be different in different areas of the country.

I support both amendments. I see great merit in the first amendment in that it removes from the Bill a phrase that makes no clear sense and which threatens the Bill with hybridity. I support the second amendment because it removes from the Bill what I hope is an accidental effect of creating a power to repeal byelaws.

Douglas Carswell (Conservative, Harwich)

I agree with so much that the hon. Member for Cambridge (David Howarth) said. I could not really have put it better myself, but I will try. Without the amendments, the Bill will offer extraordinary room for centralising and further stamping out local diversity. There has been talk about the ambiguity over what constitutes a local Act. There has also been talk about how that could allow subordinate legislation to be amended without proper recourse to local circumstances and local conditions. That is a valid point and one that I was not aware of myself until recently.

The Bill has the potential to centralise power in a way that we have not seen before. It is richly ironic that a few days ago the Government were talking about the need to devolve power down to local communities. Yet here we see a measure which, if passed, would centralise power to an extraordinary extent. The ability of local authorities to approach things differently and to do things in a way that would suit local circumstances could be snuffed out by this measure. My hon. Friend spoke about how as a local councillor he tried different ways to deal with particular problems. He talked about the problems of traffic on grass verges, drink and yob culture. If we are to deal with those local problems we must accept as a country the need to allow local solutions and the democratic dynamic. We must allow a mosaic of different solutions to be experimented on at a local level.

The clause will put back the localist agenda and, despite all the Government’s talk of devolving power down to local communities, this is a very centralist, harmonising measure. On those grounds, whatever their political party, everyone who believes in localism should unite against the clause and in favour of the amendments.

Mark Harper (Conservative, Forest of Dean)

I should first like to clarify a point about amendment No. 31 for the hon. Member for Edmonton. The hon. Member for Cambridge explained it very well. We very much did mean to remove the ability to use this Bill to make amendments to orders and subordinate parts of legislation for the very reason that it is more appropriate for such changes to be made under the parent Act and the rules that are set out therein. That is certainly the most elegant solution and the most sensible one. That was deliberate. It has the added benefit, which the hon. Member for Cambridge picked up, that it would prevent the sneaking in of a power for the Government to remove byelaws.

The clause also specifically does not include any instrument that is made under Northern Ireland legislation. That seems a little strange given that the United Kingdom Law Commission’s definition specificially includes the Northern Ireland Law Commission. It seems a little odd that the Government are taking powers to implement recommendations from the Northern Ireland Law Commission, while not including

“any instrument which is, or is made under, Northern Ireland legislation.”

Amendment No. 30 relates to local Acts. The definition of those is not incredibly clear. No doubt we are waiting for the Minister to put us straight on that, but I spent a short time examining Acts relating to my constituency that, for want of a better definition, one might consider to be local. I have not had long to do so, and have managed to find only 21. The Committee will be pleased that I do not intend to detain it on the detail of all 21. However, I shall try to give a flavour of the matter.

Some are public Acts, in which specific clauses relate to the Forest of Dean, and some are private Acts. They include the Dean Forest (Timber) Act 1808 and the Woods and Forests (Amendment) Act 1832. An important one is the Dean Forest (Mines) Act 1838, which was very important in the setting up of free mining rights in the Forest of Dean, something that people there take incredibly seriously. It is an historic tradition and many of my constituents are very concerned about the possibility that it might be removed, and have been contacting me about it.

Others in the list are the Dean Forest (Poor) Act 1842 and the Dean Forest (Ecclesiastical) Act 1842, the St. Briavels (Court of Requests) Act 1842, the Woods and Forests (Amendment) Act 1845, the Commons Inclosure Act 1845, the Small Debts Act 1846, and the Woods and Forests (Amendment) Acts 1851 and 1852. That is an illustration of how a gamut of legislation exists affecting one small corner of England. Proposals by Ministers to change any of those Acts would in many cases be very controversial. I recognise that they would be controversial only in the Forest of Dean, and not elsewhere, but that would not be a reason to allow Ministers to change them by order.

I shall pursue the matter a little further. The Dean Forest (Mines) Act was amended in 1904 and 1906. More recently, and very importantly, the Forestry Act 1981 was very important to the Forest of Dean. Legislation introduced by the previous Government raised concern there that it could be used to sell off parts of the Forest of Dean. Amendments were made to the Bill to ensure that the Government would not have the power to sell all or part of it. That is another instance in which change to legislation would be of considerable concern to my constituents. Other Members of the House—notably my hon. Friends the Members for New Forest, East (Dr. Lewis) and for New Forest, West (Mr. Swayne)—will be similarly concerned about measures pertaining to the statutory forest in their constituencies.

As an example of the historical scope of the matter, commoning in the Forest of Dean is another tradition. Sections 1 and 3 of the Wild Creatures and Forest Laws Act 1971 preserved provisions contained in many previous Acts that were repealed by it. Parts of Acts that were repealed were then reinserted into later Acts, which are still relevant, making things rather complicated. The list of repeals in that Act spanned the time from 1297 to 1961.

My example suggests the need for the Minister to clarify the term “local Act” and whether it encompasses private Acts. Several of the Forest of Dean Acts are private Acts. If the Minister cannot accept an amendment on that point, we shall table amendments to exclude specific items of legislation. However, that is not a very elegant way to legislate. A relatively simple trawl from my constituency has highlighted a number of Acts, and I am sure that the whole country would produce a staggeringly large number of Acts that needed to be excluded specifically. It would be much more sensible to accept amendment No. 30 and exclude local Acts as a class rather than do them one by one. I look forward to hearing the Minister explain local Acts. The Committee will then be able to take appropriate action.

Oliver Heald (Conservative, North East Hertfordshire)

I have been researching the matter and, with the assistance of the Clerk, I have found that “Erskine May”, in dealing with the difference between public and private Bills, mentions Bills relating to London. On page 970, it states:

“Owing to the large area, the vast population, and the variety of interests concerned, bills which affect the entire metropolis used ... to be regarded as measures of public policy ... and were introduced as ... public bills”.

It continues:

“In recent years, however, bills relating to detailed local government and allied matters in London have mostly been promoted as private bills by the former Greater London Council or, now, by the Greater London Authority, the City of Westminster on behalf of the other London Boroughs, and statutory authorities such as the Port of London Authority, and the London Development Agency.”

I think that the local Acts referred to in clause 1 must be the private or local Acts that have gone through the private procedure and that relates to localities. That raises the question of whether the Government intend the provision to cover all private or local Acts. For example, the United Reformed Church Act 2000 deal with a class, but it is not based on a locality. It would be helpful if the Minister could explain exactly how far he is going down that route. Is a local Act a private Act relating to a locality? What is the definition?

I can see that, in some circumstances, it might be helpful to get rid of a local private Act—one that has had its day, its purpose having been worked out. I am reminded of the Channel tunnel rail link, for which a Bill went through the House. Let us assume for the moment that it was a private Bill. If it was a private Bill—I cannot remember whether it was—now that the rail link has been built, all the things that it provided for have been achieved. One can see a purpose in removing it from the statute book, but whether that needs to be done using this provision—whether that is what the Minister has in mind—is not made clear in the Bill.

We come back to the old problem of not knowing exactly what we are talking about. My hon. Friend the Member for Forest of Dean has, on a number of occasions, mentioned all the private Acts that refer to the locality of the forest; they benefit the local people and are very popular, and we do not want the sticky fingers of the Government interfering. Equally, a private Bill governs much of the estate in Letchworth in my constituency; we would not want the Government interfering in that. I do not think that the United Reformed Church would want too much interference, and I doubt whether the corporation of the City of London, which has had the odd private Act passed, would want the Government interfering too much.

If there was a purpose to the provision—if the Government could point to a purpose and say that they have sensible reasons, and provided safeguards were put in place—no one would mind. I think that my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch is on to a good point in asking why local Acts have been included.

The hon. Member for Cambridge mentioned devolution. The Government of Wales Act 1998 and the Scotland Act 1998 were general public Acts, as they should have been. We will come later to the question of how those Acts, particularly the Government of Wales Act, will be dealt with under clause 1, but it seems odd to propose in clause 9 that it should be possible to use the procedure under clause 1 to give the Welsh Assembly further functions, especially given all our debates and our concern about giving such functions in the first place. We are now debating them again; indeed, my hon. Friend the Member for Chesham and Amersham (Mrs. Gillan) is speaking in the Chamber as we talk. There is a question in that regard, which the Minister will have to answer in due course.

What is the point of clause 1(3)(b)? It deals with Orders in Council, orders, rules, regulations, schemes and the like. The Government are always introducing yet another order amending an order that went before. They hardly ever get them right, which is why we have 4,000 a year. The procedure to change an order is simple. Most of them are subject to the negative procedure and they whizz through the House of Commons—in fact, they do not even whizz; the Minister signs off a piece of paper and that is the change made.

Why do we need such a proposal in clause 1? My suspicion is that we are beginning to see the first signs of the Napoleonic ambitions of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. It may be that the grand plans that the Minister keeps talking about are to be effected by massive plans that can be put forward using part 1 of the Bill. If that is the case, we are right to be worried, because no one would want a power of the strength and breadth of the power in clause 1 to be used in a Napoleonic, ambitious way. One would want that power to be used in a very cautious, sensible way to achieve deregulation and not much more than that. I shall therefore be interested to hear what the Minister has to say on amendments Nos. 30 and 31, both of which seem to me to have merit.

Jim Murphy (Labour, East Renfrewshire)

As is appropriate, I enthusiastically welcome you, Mr. Caton, to your role as our co-Chair, Sir Nicholas’s brother Chair or however it was determined this morning. That was only this morning, but it seems further away than that. I have enjoyed listening to the conversation that has taken place thus far. I think that the contribution by the hon. Member for Harwich (Mr. Carswell) was his first in a Standing Committee and I welcome him and his comments. I am sure that, in the six Committee sittings that we still have before us, we will hear from him more often.

I knew the predecessor of the hon. Member for Forest of Dean, and she always took the opportunity to talk about how beautiful and picturesque her constituency was. Even during discussion of the Dean Forest (Mines) Act 1838 and the other Acts from 1845 and 1846 that were mentioned, I was still able to conjure up images of the Forest of Dean, which she regularly spoke of in this place. I have not had the opportunity to visit the hon. Gentleman’s constituency. Incidentally, I am not seeking an invitation here today. We have heard from other hon. Members, too, and I shall seek to respond to their specific points.

It was a fascinating line of attack on the Bill to pray in aid the TUC, as the hon. Member for North-East Hertfordshire (Mr. Heald) did. I have heard before the comment that he made. His argument seems to be that the TUC is broadly content with things at the moment—with the Government’s approach to what is a dynamic economy, with full employment, the minimum wage and continued economic growth—but that one day there might be a Conservative Government and then people will not be so happy. For him to pray in aid the fact that the Conservative party in government would be so dreadful that the Bill could not be trusted in its hands is not an awe-inspiring clarion call or a reason to support the amendments tabled by the hon. Member for Christchurch.

I am absolutely satisfied as the Bill goes through its stages, which will include Report, that the safeguards are in place to deal with the concerns raised by the TUC. Indeed, given the safeguards in the Bill and the further reassurances that I said on Second Reading we are minded to provide, if the Conservatives had won the election last year they could not have introduced the patient’s passport or the pupil’s passport by this means, because those safeguards and the powers for the relevant Select Committees would not have allowed that.

Jim Murphy (Labour, East Renfrewshire)

I was in the middle of saying that there is enough protection in the Bill to protect Parliament and the country from a future Conservative Government. I wish to reassure the hon. Gentleman that in the assessment of the Government and of Parliament, there is protection in the Bill against the excesses of a future Conservative Government, which the TUC was understandably concerned would be unleashed on the public. [Interruption.] Of course. I wish to reassure the hon. Gentleman that the country would indeed be safe from a Conservative Government and that the Bill would not allow a Conservative Government to do whatever they wished.

David Howarth (Liberal Democrat, Cambridge)

The Minister is making an ad hominem point against the Conservative party, but surely that point does not meet the TUC’s concern. It is thinking constitutionally. It thinks that one should grant only those powers that one would grant to one’s political opponents or political enemies. The Minister says that the protections in the Bill are sufficient, but the TUC is obviously saying that they are not, otherwise it would not have made the point that it did.

Jim Murphy (Labour, East Renfrewshire)

The hon. Gentleman makes his own point in his own way. The TUC has made its observation, and as I said on Second Reading, we shall offer further reassurance on specific issues, which should satisfy most fair-minded people. I hope that that includes the hon. Gentleman, who, at this early stage in our deliberations, I have no reason to suspect is anything but—[Interruption.] Yes, he is well informed, but I hope that he is also fair minded.

I turn now to the specific points that have been raised. As has been said, the amendments would significantly narrow the breadth of the order-making power in clause 1 and specifically exclude secondary legislation and local Acts from it. In general, the 2001 Act allowed only reforms of primary legislation and consequential amendments to secondary legislation. That meant that necessary changes to secondary legislation that was part of the regime that an order was reforming could not be dealt with in the order itself and might have to be addressed via another legislative vehicle.

Amendment No. 31 would prevent orders from reforming secondary legislation, so in that respect the present power would be narrower than that in the 2001 Act. Clearly, neither I nor the Government could support that position. Indeed, we are looking to learn the lessons from the difficulties with the 2001 Act, rather than to narrow the powers in it further.

The amendment would also prevent an order from usefully combining reforms of secondary and primary legislation. The process for reforming legislative regimes would needlessly be made more bureaucratic. As we have seen, the arbitrary and technical restrictions in the 2001 Act have prevented the delivery of worthwhile reforms. The Government are adamant that the Bill should not create further technical restrictions.

I turn now to the issue of whether local Acts should be amendable by order. I must say at the outset that the Government cannot support the amendment for the principal reason that it would prevent several potentially valuable reforms. In delivering those reforms, of course, we must ensure that the Bill contains the necessary safeguards.

Mark Harper (Conservative, Forest of Dean)

I hope that the Minister will forgive me if he is about to come to this, but he has still not explained what local Acts are. It would be helpful if he did that before telling us what he proposes to do with them.

Jim Murphy (Labour, East Renfrewshire)

I do not consider the hon. Gentleman’s intervention to be impolite, so of course I forgive him for seeking to catch your eye, Mr. Caton. I shall come to his specific point and if he does not feel that I have addressed it in enough detail, I shall give way to him again.

The 2001 Act can be used to reform Acts, but the 2001 power does not explicitly extend to the reform of local Acts. We have explicitly provided in the Bill that the order-making power extends to the reform of local Acts. The explicit inclusion of local Acts in the power is not that substantial; the need for orders to implement initiatives to which I shall come simply necessitated making explicit the fact that the definition of legislation includes local Acts. Therefore, the change is technical and limited. For example—this is an important point—I do not propose that it should be possible to amend personal Acts that concern only named individuals and regulate matters such as family trusts or estates.

Worthwhile proposals for regulatory reform orders have not been taken forward, because the power under the 2001 Act might be thought not to extend to the reform of local Acts. Orders under the Bill can amend primary and secondary legislation, as well as public general Acts and local Acts, so reforms can be delivered comprehensively and consistently in one order.

I turn now to the definition of local Acts, which the hon. Member for Forest of Dean asked about. Local Acts cover limited areas and deal with matters such as port and harbour authorities, charities or education institutions. By definition, local Acts tend to affect particular sets of rights, duties or other obligations in respect of narrowly defined groups, organisations or individuals.

David Heath (Liberal Democrat, Somerton and Frome)

The Minister is telling us what he thinks “local Acts” means, but says who? Where is “local Acts” defined? We need to know, because the term is absolutely crucial to our understanding of the provisions.

Jim Murphy (Labour, East Renfrewshire)

The House of Commons and the House of Lords have dealt with numerous local Acts in the past. I am not in a position to identify which page the term “local Act” comes from, but local Acts have been a matter for consideration by the House, our Committees, the other place and the Law Commission. The term is understood, the precedent is well established and we have legislated through local Acts on many occasions.

Oliver Heald (Conservative, North East Hertfordshire)

There is the expression “private or local Acts”, which covers private Acts, some of which relate to localities and some of which do not. For example, the United Reformed Church Act 2000 is a private Act that covers that Church and its administration. Would that Act be covered by the provision concerning an employer?

Jim Murphy (Labour, East Renfrewshire)

As I think the hon. Gentleman is aware, any proposal to go through the order-making process would be dealt with on a case-by-case basis. First there would be a ministerial assessment, but—perhaps more pertinent to this discussion—the relevant Select Committees, tasked by the House of Commons and the other place, would then make an observation on whether each proposal on a local Act was appropriate, fell within the scope of the Bill and, importantly, satisfied all the conditions and safeguards. Those Select Committees will rightly have the power to reject any proposal from the Government.

Additionally, there would be a statutory need for consultation with all those affected by a local Act. To respond to the points that the hon. Member for Forest of Dean made, but without going into the detail of the 1845 or 1846 Acts, whoever was affected by current legislation would be consulted. Their views would be taken into account, as would those of the local authority and others in the Forest of Dean, to ascertain whether there was broad support or anything highly controversial. If the legislation commanded support among the wider public in the Forest of Dean, the Government may be minded to propose it as an order. Even if the Government and the local people who were consulted thought that the proposal was sensible, the relevant Select Committees of the House of Commons and another place would, however, have the power to reject it.

Angela Watkinson (Conservative, Upminster)

Does the Minister agree that the Select Committees in their deliberations would still need to know the definitive meaning of “local Act” to enable them to decide whether something was appropriate to consider?

Jim Murphy (Labour, East Renfrewshire)

I am delighted to hear from the hon. Lady—she is a talking Whip, although I do not know whether that habit is encouraged on the Government Benches. I do not want to give too much away by saying that the last time we spoke in any detail was while walking down Fifth Avenue in New York in the snow, because that is for another conversation. However, I did not know at that time that she was a member of the Monday Club—I discovered that as part of my research for this Committee. Nevertheless, her point is fair. It might be helpful to offer additional guidance and clarification in time for Report on some of the technical definitions that have been sought today.

Alison Seabeck (Labour, Plymouth, Devonport)

If my hon. Friend is going to clarify some of the technical issues, could he include hybridity and say whether the special petitioning rights will be retained?

Jim Murphy (Labour, East Renfrewshire)

I think that I can offer that clarification this evening. Notwithstanding the points that I made a moment ago about the technicalities of where the definition of a local Act is drawn—I will of course provide those additional details and reassurances in advance of Report—my hon. Friend makes a fair point. If an order enabled by the Bill was tabled and considered hybrid in its nature, the petitioning rights and specific Standing Orders related to a hybrid proposal would be enacted. I can certainly offer her that reassurance and I am happy to provide further clarification on the specific terminology before Report.

Douglas Carswell (Conservative, Harwich)

Given that the Minister is unable to provide entirely clear definitions of what constitutes a local Act, would he let me know now—or later, if he has to consult with his civil servants—whether harbour Acts, such as that governing Harwich port in my constituency, are included under his definition of local Acts? He talks about the need for consultation to change the law; we used to have consultation to change the law through something called the ballot box, followed by democratic deliberation rather than diktat.

Jim Murphy (Labour, East Renfrewshire)

The hon. Gentleman started with an entirely fair point and then ruined it with an utterly pointless political attack. We had consultation through the ballot box last year in the general election; that is why the hon. Gentleman is sitting on his side of the Committee and we are sitting on this side.

I make the point again that local Acts affect the interests of individuals or localities that are different from the generality. Examples include Acts that confer on a local authority powers that are not enjoyed by other local authorities or that relate to particular charitable and educational institutions.

Mark Harper (Conservative, Forest of Dean)

There is one thing that I was informed about, which the Minister might like to check. If the Bill was passed and used by a Minister to amend some of the Acts that affect the Forest of Dean, and if there was a consultation process, the Government would have to consult everybody who lived in the locality. That would be a mammoth consultation exercise. I want to give him that idea of complexity, which he should bear in mind.

Jim Murphy (Labour, East Renfrewshire)

That is a fair point. The central thrust is that if a Minister at some point in the future was minded to amend a local Act through the enabling powers in the Bill—in the Forest of Dean or elsewhere—that statutory public consultation would take place. However, even if the Minister was in favour and the good people of the Forest of Dean or elsewhere supported such a proposal, the relevant Select Committees would still have the power to reject it.

Oliver Heald (Conservative, North East Hertfordshire)

What I do not understand is this: the Government are not able to introduce a local Act—it is introduced, as the Minister said, by a local authority, a charity or another such body—so why should they be able to repeal it, amend it or whatever? Why is it right that the Government should be able to do such things?

Jim Murphy (Labour, East Renfrewshire)

I will give way to the hon. Member for Cambridge as well and address all the points at once.

David Howarth (Liberal Democrat, Cambridge)

I have a separate point. The Minister has said several times that Select Committees will have the power to reject orders. Perhaps I have not spotted it in the Bill, but will he tell me where that power is laid out? It seems that the power given to Committees simply allows them to shift the order up the scale of parliamentary scrutiny from negative to affirmative procedure and from affirmative to super-affirmative procedure. There does not appear to be any power to reject an order. Is he suggesting, or promising, a change to Standing Orders during the passage of the Bill?

Jim Murphy (Labour, East Renfrewshire)

That issue was addressed on Second Reading. Under the 2001 Act, it is under ministerial assurance that the Government would not seek to override the recommendation of the relevant Select Committees. I will not tempt your patience, Mr. Caton, by wandering on to debates that we are likely to have in Committee in the future, but I draw the attention of the hon. Member for Cambridge to the comments that I made on Second Reading about seeking to provide additional reassurances beyond a ministerial undertaking.

I want to come to the point raised by the hon. Member for North-East Hertfordshire about local Acts. Neither the Government nor Departments are seeking to take power to implement local Acts in a prescriptive way. The issue concerns local organisations and individuals seeking changes to local Acts which are not currently implemented for various reasons—for instance, the pressures of parliamentary time, which do not allow local Acts to get time on the Floor of the House or elsewhere. For example, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, which, for a reason unbeknownst to myself—I have sought justification—is generally responsible for Covent Garden Market Authority—

David Howarth (Liberal Democrat, Cambridge)

Yes it is.

Jim Murphy (Labour, East Renfrewshire)

The hon. Gentleman is aware of that. I do not see it as a centralising power; I do not say that it is appropriate for the Government to do that. It is appropriate for the private sector to deal with the Covent Garden Market Authority, even though it was introduced under the 1966 and 1969 local Acts. Through consultation, the Government should reform local Acts, so that there is a degree of devolution; for example, a removal of DEFRA’s ability to control that local market in a way that is currently inappropriate.

David Heath (Liberal Democrat, Somerton and Frome)

It is interesting that we now have at least an example of what the Government have in mind as a local Act, treated in “Erskine May” under the heading, “Bills brought in by the Government for local purposes, etc”. Indeed, the Covent Garden Market Bill of 1960–61, the Festival of Britain (Supplementary Provisions) Bill, the Park Lane Improvement Bill and others were introduced on that basis, but are referred to clearly in “Erskine May” as hybrid Bills. We need to look at the issue more closely, because all the Bills that relate to localities are treated as either private legislation or hybrid Bills. The Minister will have to do a little more homework before coming back to us on Report, to elucidate exactly what the new definition means, and what is excluded and included.

Jim Murphy (Labour, East Renfrewshire)

I do not think that that is the case at all. I have set out the Government’s approach to local Acts, the safeguards that are in place, the powers of the relevant Select Committees and the need for statutory public consultation with those affected by any proposal to reform a local Act. However, I have agreed to provide additional detail on some of the technical definitions that the hon. Gentleman has sought fairly.

I can reassure the hon. Member for Forest of Dean, because I know that he has asked parliamentary questions—quite appropriately—about local Acts and how they affect his constituency. I can confirm that the Government have no plans to reform the legislation that might affect the rights of free mining or any rights of common that might exist in the Forest of Dean. I hope that that will reassure his constituents.

The Bill, however, is about enabling the delivery of the reform of local Acts. The relevant Select Committees, of the House of Commons and the other place, will make individual, case-by-case observations as to whether that is appropriate.

Christopher Chope (Conservative, Christchurch)

Will the Minister give an undertaking that he will put the definition of local Acts on the face of the Bill?

Jim Murphy (Labour, East Renfrewshire)

I do not know whether that would be attractive. I have agreed to provide further details about the various technical definitions that have been exchanged today, particularly with regard to the clarification of some of the terminology, so that the House will be able to conduct an informed debate on Report. I hope that—

Oliver Heald (Conservative, North East Hertfordshire)

I am grateful to the Minister for giving way; he has been generous.

Why can the Minister not drop Committee members a line, perhaps even tomorrow, once he has had a chance to go back to the legal team in the Department? Will he send us the definition of a local Act or how it is understood by the draftsman or the legal team at the Cabinet Office? If we want, there are opportunities to discuss definitions later in the Bill—in clause 18, for example. If we are still not happy we could return to the subject next week.

Jim Murphy (Labour, East Renfrewshire)

I am tempted by that idea, and I will see whether it can be done within the short space of time that we have.

I emphasise that the Bill does not prescribe a list of local Acts or proposals to be brought forward. It provides an enabling power to allow the Government, through consultation with those affected outside, and within this place and another place, to reject any proposal for reform of a local Act. It is envisaged that proposals such as the one at Covent Garden that has been mentioned and the reform of harbours and ports would emanate from the locality in which the relevant organisations, charities, educational institutions and others are based. There will be a bottom-up approach to the reform of local Acts. There is not a mandarin in Whitehall with a list of local Acts and local powers that we would like to see centralised—far from it.

The power would also ensure that if an order affected a particular group or groups of people, such as individual ports or charities, their views must be sought and the Minister must detail their opinions in the explanatory document laid before Parliament. The explicit power to amend local Acts would deliver significant and worthwhile benefits, for example in the Covent Garden case that I mentioned, and in Acts relating to railways and harbours.

It is something of an historic artefact for DEFRA to have such a degree of involvement in the running of a private commercial activity, and DEFRA is actively looking for ways to return the Covent Garden market to the private sector. Major stakeholders have welcomed that suggestion, which would be an active and entirely appropriate process of devolution to the private sector. However, the transfer of responsibility will have to be effected through a legislative route, and we are all aware that securing parliamentary time for such a Bill is difficult when the subject matter is by nature a low priority. As a combination of public general Acts and local Acts govern the ownership and running of the Covent Garden Market Authority, the transfer of ownership is an example of a proposal that could be made under the order-making power provided for in the Bill.

Several consultation respondents agreed that the Bill should be extended to include local Acts. For example, the Law Commission commented that the proposals for reform of the law by the Commission—

Douglas Carswell (Conservative, Harwich)

The Minister talks a lot about the need for local consultation before a decision is taken on whether to give the green light or the red light to the proposal. Will he elaborate on what he means by consultation? Will there be formal criteria for assessing whether there is a red light or a green light? What will the mechanism for the consultation be?

Jim Murphy (Labour, East Renfrewshire)

Without wishing to delay the Committee greatly, it is envisaged that there will be a statutory public consultation over a period of 12 weeks, and that all of those affected by proposals to reform a local Act, or their representative bodies, will be consulted. Those consultations will then form part of an explanatory memorandum that will go before the relevant Select Committees of this House and another place. The Select Committees will decide on a case-by-case basis whether the change is appropriate.

Douglas Carswell (Conservative, Harwich)

Does that mean a referendum?

Jim Murphy (Labour, East Renfrewshire)

No, it does not. [Interruption.]

Martin Caton (Labour, Gower)

Order. It would be useful if the hon. Member made his interventions by standing up in the normal way.

Jim Murphy (Labour, East Renfrewshire)

I will give way to the hon. Gentleman.

Douglas Carswell (Conservative, Harwich)

Will the Minister please be more specific? Will consultation mean a local referendum or a glossy brochure to every household? What will the statutory consultation actually involve? How will a local resident get to have their say?

Jim Murphy (Labour, East Renfrewshire)

Again, that would be decided on a case-by-case basis. In some particularly controversial instances, for example when a local authority will be affected by a local Act, that authority may suggest a referendum. It may be a matter of consulting affected stakeholders or business organisations. If the hon. Gentleman wished to prescribe a certain way in which a consultation should take place then I think that that would be a centralisation far too far and not something that we would be attracted to.

David Howarth (Liberal Democrat, Cambridge)

I am interested in the Minister’s description of how the reform of a local Act will be dealt with. Will he give a similar reassurance to the Committee about the repeal or amendment of byelaws?

Jim Murphy (Labour, East Renfrewshire)

I think I can, yes.

I shall draw my comments on the amendments to a conclusion. As I was saying, the Law Commission commented:

“Proposals for reform of the law by the Commission do from time to time require amendment”

to private legislation. For example, a significant number of private Acts concern land—particularly land held by railways—utilities and charities. If the power is to be used to implement uncontroversial Law Commission proposals, its usefulness might be limited if changes cannot be made to private or hybrid legislation. As the ability to implement Law Commission recommendations is a central purpose of the Bill, it is crucial to retain this power in the Bill. For those reasons, the Government cannot agree to the amendments and will resist their inclusion.

Finally, the amendments would reduce the powers retained in the 2001 Act. There seems to be an agreement—I thought that there was an agreement—across the House that that Act was limited in its ambition and its ability to deliver for the better regulation agenda. To accept the amendments would leave us with powers weaker than those in the 2001 Act. The Government are not tempted to do that, as it would not deliver on their better regulation agenda in respect of the private sector, charities, the voluntary sector and public sector workers. Notwithstanding the point of clarification that I offered, I urge my hon. Friends to reject the Opposition amendment.

Christopher Chope (Conservative, Christchurch)

I am not convinced, Mr. Caton. My suspicions—and, I suspect, those of many members of the Committee—have been raised rather than allayed by the Minister’s response. At the end of his comments, when he talked about the Law Commission justification for making such changes, he used the expression “uncontroversial Law Commission proposals”, yet he has refused to allow the word “uncontroversial” or “non-controversial” to be put in the Bill. He uses expressions from the Law Commission that incorporate that phraseology, yet he wants to go much wider. Why does he want to go much wider? Why will he not put “non-controversial” or “uncontroversial” in the Bill?

Andrew Love (Labour, Edmonton)

Could the hon. Gentleman define “non-controversial” in terms of the type of legislation he would not want to be eligible?

Christopher Chope (Conservative, Christchurch)

I can; I would describe it as legislation that is unanimously supported by all elected Members of Parliament. I would regard that as non-controversial.

Jim Murphy (Labour, East Renfrewshire)

That has never happened.

Christopher Chope (Conservative, Christchurch)

Even with such legislation, there might be some private interests from outside who might say—[Interruption.]

Martin Caton (Labour, Gower)

Order. There are too many comments from a sedentary position.

Christopher Chope (Conservative, Christchurch)

Even if all Members of Parliament agree on something, it does not necessarily mean that that is the right answer, and even my generous definition of “non-controversial” might cause concern to outside interests that are not represented in this House. However, we could probably reach a consensus on the definition of “non-controversial”; then all these concerns would not have to be articulated.

Mark Harper (Conservative, Forest of Dean)

My hon. Friend’s reason for saying that not a single Member of Parliament could object to a Bill if it was to be non-controversial was to capture exactly the point about local Acts. If the Minister proposed to change an Act that affected only the Forest of Dean, 645 Members of the House could be quite content and might not have a problem with it, but the hon. Member for the Forest of Dean would find it objectionable. It would be outrageous if this process could be used if all Members were content except for the one who represents the area concerned. My hon. Friend’s definition is therefore appropriate.

Christopher Chope (Conservative, Christchurch)

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. May I go further and illustrate the argument that what the Minister calls streamlining will be undemocratic? Take the example given by my hon. Friend the Member for Harwich about the harbour revision orders in relation to Harwich and other ports in the country. I got to know a little about this before the last general election, because I put in an objection to those orders, as did others who were concerned about them.

Under the existing legislation, somebody who objects to a harbour revision order can trigger a public inquiry where there can be an objective assessment of the merits or otherwise of the objections. There is a formal process in which the people who want to make the change have to make their case and the objectors make theirs. That is a protection for individuals and organisations that is available under existing private legislation.

The Government are proposing to sweep all that away. That would be fine if it was on the basis that it would be done if there were no objections. That already happens under the harbour revision orders. If there are no objections the orders can go through on the nod. If there are objections a public inquiry is triggered, which is a much better form of consultation, to echo the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Harwich, than general talk of some sort of consultation that can be overridden.

Not that long ago I was chairing a Statutory Instrument Committee where I observed, from my neutral position in the Chair, a Minister trying to defend a situation where he or his predecessor had given an undertaking in relation to an agreement that was reached on a criminal justice Bill relating to the issue of whether jury trials could be abolished in fraud cases. My recollection is that as part of the agreement that was reached to deal with Lords amendments, the Government gave an undertaking not to bring forward a statutory instrument relating to that without full consultation. In the end the Minister had to agree that there had not been that full consultation.

That recent example illustrates the weakness of general undertakings to consult about a matter. To remove the safeguards in the present harbour revision orders legislation by Government fiat would be a regressive rather than a progressive move. Even where the Minister says that he has it in mind to change the Harbours Act 1964, that will be to the detriment of natural justice. The same is true, for all I know, with the Covent Garden Market Act 1961.

Interestingly, the individual private people who are affected by this will not be able to initiate the process; it will have to be done by the Government. At the moment private interests come forward, engage in consultation, employ parliamentary counsel and get their tackle in order before they bring forward their Bill. They can do that irrespective of the views of the Government. That is their right of access to Parliament. But under the provisions of this Bill, the Government are saying, “You can only use these accelerated procedures if we endorse it.” What sort of justice and equity is that?

It seems to me that the Government have not made their case here at all. The Minister says that he will clarify the technical issues by Report, but it is disappointing that he cannot clarify these things sooner. What if we take the precedent of what he told the Procedure Committee, which is where we started proceedings today? He said that he would come forward with his response in good time before the Standing Committee. He is now using the expression “by Report”, but would that be sufficiently far in advance of Report to enable hon. Members to table amendments in the light of his comments, or would we find ourselves in the same situation as we are in today? Would he tell us that he had satisfied that commitment by coming forward with some letter on the day of Report, by which time he knows jolly well that it is too late to table amendments?

Even taking the Minister’s assurance that he will clarify the technical issues by Report at face value, I do not find that a satisfactory response. He should come forward later this week with a definition, to satisfy the substantive points made by the hon. Member for Cambridge.

I know that the Minister finds it frustrating that I am still speaking at 6.10 pm—

Jim Murphy (Labour, East Renfrewshire)

No; take your time.

Christopher Chope (Conservative, Christchurch)

I am glad that the Minister has plenty of time, because I want to remind him of something. Perhaps one reason why he is being so stubborn is that three of the most articulate spokesmen for the amendments won seats from his party at the last election. That may be riling him. My hon. Friend the Member for North-East Hertfordshire spoke of the powers not being used in a Napoleonic way, but the only way to ensure that the powers are used responsibly is to have it written into the Bill. The Minister declines to do that. He says that the Government are adamant that no restrictions should be imposed on the powers that they seek in the Bill. Again, that indicates that they want to go a lot further than they have so far declared.

I, and all who have spoken for the amendments, do not trust the Government. We think that the Bill would be better if the amendments were accepted.