For this flagship Government Bill, one wonders where all the Tories have gone. They seem rather reluctant to participate in the debate, whereas on these Benches—[Interruption.] Fine dialogue on modernising the structure of the Labour party might well be going on elsewhere. Colleagues have rightly seen that the mishmash of junk that has been presented as the Deregulation Bill is virtually worthless—so much so that it does not even warrant attendance.
The Bill should be called the Deregulation (of previous Tory laws) Bill. The Minister who opened the debate, despite being such a learned man, suggested that it was undoing the ills of previous Labour Governments, but the truth is rather different. The following clauses remove previous Tory legislation: clauses 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 12, 14, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 24, 25, 26, 28, 29, 30, 36, 46, 47, 49, 50, 53, 57, 59 and 60—virtually the entire Bill. The same is true of the detail, as schedules 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 11, 12, 13, 16 and 17 remove previous Tory legislation. I am therefore in favour of some of those changes—although not all—because they relate to irrelevant legislation that should never have been on the statute book in the first place. Redundant and irrelevant Tory legislation is rightly being removed, although of course, being the Tory party, they have to throw in half the legislation on health and safety.