Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill

I cannot deal with the right hon. Gentleman’s misconceptions about my party, but when he intervened earlier on the hon. Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Andrew Miller), I thought that the reply was valuable. The Regulatory Reform Committee ought to have a wider brief than simply responding to what Ministers put to it. The hon. Gentleman suggested an investigatory role, but it could have a collating role. I should like that Committee to perform a genuinely deregulatory function in inviting suggestions for deregulation that ought to be put before the House in the form of an order. I do not understand why such things must come from a Minister. The hon. Gentleman said that he excused Ministers from responsibility over what happens in their Department. I do not excuse them for a moment. They have the responsibility of making decisions in their Departments and, if they do not do that well enough, another Minister should be found. It is helpful to listen to the business world and the outside world generally about what deregulatory measures could properly be introduced. I also think—this is partly an answer to the right hon. Gentleman—that the need for sunset clauses in legislation made by order is a prerequisite for good regulation. We should not have regulations that simply carry on, year after year, long after the original need has been removed but remain on the statute book, applying burdens to people in business that they could well do without. As one of the few Members who has run a small business, I know of what I speak, and I feel that that is a necessary protection for businesses. Amendment (a) would apply the test of reasonableness to the decision that the Minister takes when determining whether he is acting in an appropriately deregulatory way. It is no good for Ministers to say, ““We don’t need the term ‘reasonably’””, because they use it in another part of the Bill—not, of course, applying to Ministers, but to members of the public who may wish to make a complaint about the way that Ministers behave. Let us not argue about whether the word ““reasonably”” is otiose but simply consider whether it adds to Ministers’ responsibilities, and I say that it does. I do not want to make a Minister’s decision justiciable in that sense, because I do not want decisions of parliamentary procedure to become a matter for the courts, but I want Ministers to behave appropriately in making that decision, and the insertion of the word ““reasonably”” would have that effect. The hon. Member for Christchurch (Mr. Chope) will speak to his amendment (b), but, as the hon. Member for North-East Hertfordshire (Mr. Heald) said, it is self-evidently a necessary protection. I hope that the Minister will seriously consider it. He seemed to dismiss it earlier, but if he thinks about it further, he will realise that it is a sensible change that would not reduce the Bill’s effectiveness but simply define it more accurately. I do not propose to talk about amendments (d) and (e) today, for the simple reason that they also relate to new clause 15, which leads a group of amendments tomorrow, and I can explain the purpose for which they were tabled at that point. We have a slightly confused process. Nor do I need to dwell on amendment No. 4, which relates to the definition of reforming. The reformulation of the Bill means that we will have to return to that in another place. At the time when we tabled the amendment, it was crucial, but it is less crucial in the context of the Minister’s new clauses. Amendment No. 74 also inserts the word ““reasonably””, but this time in clause 3, which covers the preconditions that a Minister must apply. Again, I hope that a Minister would behave reasonably. He would be required to do so under administrative law because otherwise he would be subject to judicial review, but I do not want to be in the business of encouraging the judicial review of Ministers’ decisions in terms of how they present matters before the House. That is not the right way of doing business. We should make it absolutely clear that we are not talking about an assertion—to use a term that I used earlier—by a Minister or a subjective view. A Minister should have to test objectively whether he is behaving reasonably when applying those preconditions and accepting whether they have been met. That seems sensible. The last amendment that I wish to mention is amendment No. 78, which deals with something that has not been mentioned yet. It is a probing amendment on clause 34, which comes right at the end of the Bill and relates to its extent. When I asked the Minister’s predecessor in Committee, he did not appear to have a clue why the clause was written in the way that it was. I do not want to cast aspersions on the previous Minister, but I can see why he had to be promoted, because he clearly did not understand this aspect of the Bill or many others. I want to know why the Bill asserts extraterritorial jurisdiction for itself. I am struggling to find the areas in which the orders that might be amended, repealed or replaced might apply outside England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. Under what circumstances would that apply and under what circumstances would it be appropriate for the House to fast-track an amendment to legislation, which, for one reason or another, applied presumably to a Crown dependency? There are very rare occasions on which we have extraterritorial jurisdiction, for instance in relation to some sexual offences. I simply want the Minister to explain why he thinks that that has to be in the Bill. I did not get an explanation in Committee, so I hope that I will now. I feel strongly about amendment (a), because it is the litmus test of whether Ministers are serious about rewriting the Bill. I hope to have the opportunity to test that in the House, given that the Bill has been completely rewritten. We are virtually back to the Committee stage with this part of the Bill, so I hope that we will have the opportunity to test the will of the House on that. I also hope that, unless the hon. Member for Christchurch gets a satisfactory answer, he will feel able to press amendment (b). If he does, we will support it. I know that the hon. Member for Stone (Mr. Cash) will wish to speak on new clause 17. It is axiomatic that, if a matter is dealt with through this procedure in order for a deregulatory measure to go forward, it should not be overridden by the European Communities Act 1972 and provision elsewhere. If the principles of subsidiarity are to mean anything, they must mean that. I hope that the Minister will be able to reply that that is already the case, but I fear that he may not. If he does not, and the hon. Gentleman intends to press new clause 17, I will advise my right hon. and hon. Friends to support him.