I thank all noble Lords who have spoken in this debate. Earlier in the afternoon, I heard that the Government had referred the laws on busking to the law commissions. When I heard that, my hopes rose, but, clearly, that was the limit of their willingness to refer things to the law commissions.
Having listened carefully to the Minister, I am not quite sure that we were talking about the same thing at times. The point is not that the Government should not repeal legislation; of course they should. The point is that Parliament should be able to scrutinise proposed repeals. The fact is that some of the repeals that are proposed will need scrutiny. The Government were able to trot out examples such as laws on the keeping of pigs or the flying of kites—the usual stuff that, on inspection, appears to be safe to repeal—but they did not mention, for example, item 18, which is the Nuclear Industry (Finance) Act and the implications of that, and the consultations that went on.
As for the duplication of work by government departments and the law commissions, it seems entirely clear that the existing work by the departments will have the effect of speeding the review by the law commissions. It will be extremely helpful to the law commissions to have transparent access to the inner workings of the departments when they make these assessments.
The problem is that it is now very late. If we were working on normal time, it would now be 10 o’clock or so. At this point, with the Chamber fairly empty and the clock registering the normal weekday equivalent of 10 o’clock or quarter past, I feel with some regret that it would be inappropriate at this stage to divide the House.
I end by saying that I believe strongly that Parliament in general should be given every opportunity to examine in a timely way repeals proposed by the Executive. I regret that on this occasion it will not be possible. Having said that, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.