Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill

The hon. Gentleman has made his point in his own way. My hon. Friend the Member for Aldridge-Brownhills made a general call for proper time to be given to the important changes that are proposed. I think that he was making a general point about legislation being rushed through the House. My right hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (Mr. Redwood) loaned us the significant benefit of his large experience of deregulation. He questioned whether the provisions in the Bill were the best way to achieve the initial objective. He thought not, and I shall return to that key issue. I like the idea of having an annual deregulation Bill and the implied requirement to tutor civil servants in the merits of deregulation, that being key to the cultural change. My right hon. Friend the Member for Wells (Mr. Heathcoat-Amory) gave a good example of the dreadful droit de suite law as a showpiece of gold-plating of EU regulations and demonstrated the importance of keeping the 1972 legislation in the context of parliamentary sovereignty. The hon. Member for Luton, North (Kelvin Hopkins) made a thoughtful speech. I liked his idea of short Bills. My hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch has closely followed consideration of the Bill, and was active in Committee. He put a good case for amendment (b). He argued that the reduction of the burden for one should not be justified by increasing burdens for others. On that, my hon. Friend has our support. Will the Government amendments work? Will deregulation be improved as a result of the new formula that is proposed? The expectations of businesses are high. The Government have talked the talk. In May of last year, the Financial Times reported that the Bill would be an attempt to slash the estimated £100 billion of the cost of regulation on business. In January, the Minister then responsible was quoted as saying that the Bill is the"““cornerstone in achieving essential and long-promised reductions in unnecessary red tape.””" It is part of a plan to achieve one of the most radical regulatory reform agendas in the world. The then Minister’s press release in January spoke of savings through reducing bureaucracy of £10 billion, equivalent to 1 per cent. of gross domestic product. The fact remains that regulations on business have continued to soar. We know that, since 2001, only about 20 regulatory reform orders have been made, although the target was 60 by 2005. On average, with 3,887 new regulations a year, let us say that the Government get really ambitious and raise the target of scrapping regulations from 60 every four years to 60 a year, or even 100 a year. Is that not like putting in a barrier the size of a road hump to stop a tidal wave? Are 60 fewer regulations worth the destruction of parliamentary sovereignty? That is what we were considering in the early stages of the Bill. We came to the conclusion that the answer was no. We appreciate that the Government have gone some way towards understanding the issues and addressing the concerns of the House, not least with the amendments. However, in the new atmosphere of realism, will the Minister please care in his remarks to reassess the impact that he thinks that the Bill will have on regulation?