Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill

I could not agree more. In fact, later in my speech I will talk about the one in, one out principle that Sir David Arculus considered when he was in charge of the Better Regulation Task Force—now renamed the Better Regulation Commission—when trying to balance new regulation against the removal of outdated regulation. I accept that protection is also important. Other measures, such as the International Institute for Management Development’s ““World Competitiveness Yearbook””, show that the UK has fallen from ninth to 22nd since 1997. The London School of Economics recently warned about"““concerns that tougher competition could be undermined by increasing regulation””." The CBI has said:"““Many businesses believe regulation is damaging the UK’s attraction as a place to invest . . . the burden has grown and expect it to increase further.””" The Library has shown that there are 3,887 regulations a year on average under this Government—15 every working day. That is a 50 per cent. increase on what happened under the last Conservative Government. Against the background of failure that was evident in 2000, Lord Falconer introduced the Regulatory Reform Bill, which was described as a major measure for deregulation. He said:"““The Bill will provide a major tool to tackle unnecessary over-lapping, over-complex and over-burdensome legislation.””—[Official Report, House of Lords, 21 December 2000; Vol. 620, c. 850.]" In the House on 19 March 2001, the then Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Cabinet Office, the hon. Member for Manchester, Blackley (Graham Stringer), was asked:"““Do the Government intend the measure to be used to introduce orders that have a net deregulatory effect—yes or no?””" He said:"““The Bill makes it clear that each regulatory reform order must contain a deregulatory element.””—[Official Report, 19 March 2001; Vol. 365, c. 118.]" The Bill was described as ““a valuable tool””, ““an excellent tool”” and ““a major tool””, but the sad history records that only 27 regulatory reform orders have been made, although everyone expected more than 60. Of course, a review was promised. It talks about whether it should be possible to amend or appeal primary legislation to do one of three things: remove, reduce, re-enact or impose burdens; simplify legislation; and implement uncontroversial Law Commission recommendations. We wanted that power to be as flexible as possible, so it went out to consultation. Not surprisingly, business groups in particular supported the consultation and the idea of that flexibility, but something strange then occurred. The Government changed tack and removed all reference to removing burdens on business. What we have now is constitutionally novel. The Bill extends the scope of powers available to Ministers while relaxing the constraints of parliamentary scrutiny. Ministers will be able to amend, repeal or pass primary legislation without going through the normal parliamentary procedures. There is no requirement that such measures should have a deregulatory effect, so the danger is that we shall have legislation, regulation and parliamentary corner-cutting with no deregulation at all. Like the Minister, the Government talk much about deregulation and better regulation. They have their Better Regulation Commission, with its new chairman, and their simplification process, whereby every Department has to find simpler legislation. Expensive consultants have calculated the costs to many businesses of every burden or cost of regulation. Now, we have the Bill, but the sad truth is that so far, despite the talk, there has been no deregulation. All the talk of one in, one out—the idea that every time a regulation is passed another should be repealed—is a vain hope. The Minister will have seen the latest list from the Department of Trade and Industry showing the regulations coming in on 6 April and 1 October—the regulation-making days. It runs to 30 pages, but there is not even the sniff of a list of regulations that will be scrapped. As the Institute of Directors said recently:"““We are pleased to see all the policy activity, but are still waiting to see tangible action on the ground.””"