My Lords, I apologise for not being present for very much of the Second Reading— I had other parliamentary duties.
We have had some very wise, brief speeches just now, from the noble Viscount, Lord Stansgate, and my noble friend sitting behind me, who made a very good brief speech. Various things stand out. It is never good to legislate by deadline. When you are dealing with such a vast amount of regulations—some complex, some simple —to say that all of them have to be effectively expunged by the end of the year, apart from some that may be retained, is not a sensible way to behave. It places an enormous burden upon Parliament and places enormous power into the hands of Ministers.
I share the respect and affection that people feel for my noble friend Lord Benyon, whose father and I entered the House of Commons on the same day, way back in 1970, along with my noble friend, Lord Clarke of Nottingham, who is with us this evening. He was an environmentalist par excellence, and I know that his son has inherited his love for the countryside and his determination that it should be properly preserved and used.
Many of the directives listed in Amendment 37 are of great importance. We have to remember—I do not want to cross swords with my noble friend Lady Lawlor, who made one very good point about the selling of caged birds—that we do not have the best record in this country. On loss of species, you have to look only at what were very common birds when I entered the House of Commons, such as the starling and the sparrow and many others. Some of them are hanging on by a thread. The wonderful counterexample of the red kite is not unique, but not many fall into that category. It seems very silly to decide that the Bill has to go through in this form.
We had a very good example yesterday of the Prime Minister realising, after painstaking negotiation, that the protocol Bill, which many of us in this House opposed and were determined not to let through, should be dropped. He achieved more than that Bill would ever have achieved, and not only that but he
achieved a wonderful improvement in our relations with our European friends and neighbours, which is a very good example to take.
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We have amendments on the environment here which have been presented very well, and, as I said, that of the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman of Ullock, lists a number of regulations. That list is not exhaustive; she made that plain herself. It may well be that my noble friend says that his default position is to keep on the statute book things he is not very confident should be taken off. But the fact is that my noble friend is not immortal and is well worthy of promotion, so he may not be in charge very much longer. The sensible thing to do here is to take the example of the Prime Minister yesterday and, at the very least, pause the Bill and, at the very best, get on with some more sensible legislation and drop it entirely. I really believe that Parliament would be doing the nation a great service if it did not let the Bill go through.