Environmental Permitting (England and Wales) Regulations 2007

I thank the Minister for his explanation of these regulations, which are not too transparent as you read them. I also particularly congratulate the noble Earl, Lord Cathcart, on his mastery of the detail. I shall be slightly broader in my questions. Along with everyone else, we warmly welcome this attempt to make the regulations in this area simpler and more concise. In the past I have been involved in the legislation around European directives, and I was particularly impressed to discover that these regulations will subsume 11 of them into quite a reasonably sized document, although at 129 pages it is twice the size of the Climate Change Bill, which is being brought forward to help to change the world. Perhaps the future is more promising in this regard. I was going to ask the Minister about the saving of £76 million over 10 years, as mentioned in the Explanatory Memorandum. I do not know what the procedure usually is for checking to see whether such savings have been delivered. I welcome this, but I should like to understand a little more about the procedure. I was also impressed by the number of rounds of consultation, and the summaries in the explanatory document make for interesting reading. Some 110 people responded to the first round; 75 in the second round; 53 in the third round and eight in the fourth round. No number is given for the fifth round, so I do not know whether anyone actually made it to the finishing line, but while the graph will not quite be negative, it is good that a certain amount of consultation was held. The accompanying notes also explain that the Environment Agency came in for some criticism over its targeting for compliance in these areas by taking a risk-based approach. I am more used to that in relation to the Financial Services Authority and that sort of area, where it has been very successful on the whole in determining by fairly straightforward formulae what the biggest risks are, the organisation, and what should be looked at most closely, thereby ensuring that, for the resources that are put into environmental protection, the maximum risk is taken out. I would be interested to know whether there has been any success there. Also mentioned was the question of simplicity of regulation and whether single sites could have single regulators, which I agree is particularly important for small businesses or business sites. Again, it seems an obvious way forward and a great help to businesses, particularly SMEs, if they not only have one set of regulations but can deal with a single regulator for their site. I am interested to know whether the regulations allow that and whether the Government are hoping that that will continue. As the Minister will know, there has been some considerable discussion in your Lordships’ House about the removal of the due diligence defence. Although I am not convinced either way, we now have absolute liability and I am interested to know whether business and industry now accept that this will not be a major problem for them. Lastly, this is obviously an important initiative over a long period. Will the Minister say what is next in the simplification of environmental permits?