I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for that helpful clarification.
Another question arises from a letter sent by the Law Society of Scotland to every Scottish MP. Perhaps the Minister will address its two particular concerns either now or in Committee. First, on clauses 10 to 12, it is
“concerned about partial authorisation of insolvency practitioners.”
It points out that, in Scotland,
“significant parts of the corporate insolvency”
regime
“are linked to bankruptcy legislation”,
and its view is that the proposed regime of
“partial authorisation as an insolvency practitioner will not be effective in Scotland because of the linkage between company insolvency and bankruptcy law.”
I have no doubt that that point can be pursued in future.
Secondly, the Law Society of Scotland is concerned about clause 44 on the repeal of the duty of the senior president of tribunals to report on the standards of decision making. This is another measure where it is hard to see how it can be a major burden on business. The only burden is the duty on the senior president to make a report, which a Minister can then presumably choose to act on.
I note with some concern, given my own involvement in it, the provisions that would repeal certain sections of the Climate Change and Sustainable Energy Act 2006, which, the Minister may recall, I promoted as a private Member’s Bill. Indeed, he and I co-operated on many aspects of it. Perhaps I should at this point declare an interest as an unpaid board member of the Edinburgh community energy co-operative. The Act has a number of measures to promote sustainable and renewable energy and action on and awareness of climate change. I fully accept that many of the Act’s measures have been taken on board elsewhere since it was enacted, including by the Climate Change Act 2008. However, not all of the 2006 Act’s provisions have been taken on board elsewhere, so I would be concerned to see them removed to the extent proposed by the Bill.
My final comments relate to the implications of the duty in clauses 61 to 64 to take account of the
“desirability of promoting economic growth.”
As Opposition Members have said, we support the general desirability of promoting economic growth. Indeed, as the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) pointed out, regulators are already expected to take such concerns into account. They do not usually produce regulations without any wider consultation or discussions. They have processes whereby they seek comments from business, among others, and we can be pretty certain that, when business feels that a regulation is damaging economic growth, it will say so. I find it hard to understand how this proposal will have other than damaging consequences.