Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill

I have some sympathy with what the hon. Member for Forest of Dean (Mr. Harper) said, given that he rightly referred to recommendations in the Select Committee report, but I should like to propose a better way than new clause 2 to achieve the sort of reporting that he described."The Select Committee looked at this matter long and hard. Yesterday, I referred to the table in the report showing how long orders float around some Departments. We are not at present competent to deal with that or to instigate investigations to determine why it happens. The existing Standing Orders do not allow us to summons a Secretary of State and ask why an order has been floating around for weeks and months. The hon. Gentleman’s objective would probably be better achieved by building a more robust approach into the Standing Orders of the Regulatory Reform Committee or its successor body so that we can investigate why such failures have occurred, rather than by introducing a reporting function, which would result in the type of report that is normal in such circumstances. I am being gentle because I have read reports from Administrations of both my colour and his."