Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill

I hope that I can also be relatively brief because I support new clause 20. I had intended to be even briefer, but after hearing the Minister’s reply to my intervention, I am struggling to reconcile what the new clause says with the provisions of clauses 20 and 21. The Minister must correct me if I have misunderstood him, but he told us that although clause 23 excludes certain regulators from the provisions of clauses 20 and 21, those regulators are not excluded from the provisions of new clause 20. We said in Committee that it was an anomaly that the specified regulators were excluded from clause 20, which says:"““Any person exercising a regulatory function to which this section applies must have regard to the principles in subsection (2) in the exercise of the function … Those principles are that … (a) regulatory activities should be carried in a way which is transparent, accountable, proportionate and consistent; … (b) regulatory activities should be targeted only at cases in which action is needed.””" Sharp-witted Members will have realised that those words also appear in new clause 20. That measure will require a Minister to secure that regulatory functions are exercised by bodies in such as way as to comply with those precise principles, although certain regulators are excluded from those requirements as the Bill presently stands. There is thus a group of regulators that apparently does not need to comply with those principles by virtue of clause 23, but is required to do so by virtue of new clause 20, which the Minister will be able to use to ensure that regulatory functions are exercised in such a way that they comply with those principles. That seems to be an anomaly, albeit not an unwelcome one because at least the principles are there somewhere. Nevertheless, the anomaly might need to be sorted out at a later stage.