I echo the Minister’s thanks to all those involved in bringing the Bill to Third Reading, particularly colleagues involved in trying to give it the proper scrutiny it deserves.
This Bill has given a fascinating insight into the Government’s priorities and how they develop policy. On Second Reading I described it as a Christmas tree Bill, but one without the presents, and indeed, the Minister is an unlikely Santa Claus. By Committee stage, so much had been added to the Bill that a colleague said to me that it was more like the Blackpool illuminations than a Christmas tree, and since then there has been yet another festooning—I believe the Government are trying to go for Las Vegas.
My understanding is that when they were putting this Bill together, Cabinet Office Ministers were hawking themselves around Whitehall for regulations that were supposedly choking the economy. What they came back
with, however, was a Bill that deregulated the sale of knitting yarn, but was more about removing burdens from Ministers than from the entrepreneurs and business people we seek to support, and of course it had the customary attacks on working people’s rights that we have come to expect from this Government.