My Lords, I and everybody else wants me to be brief. I was astonished to hear the Minister describe a considered process of consultation and reporting as complex and unnecessary. I would be interested to hear the response of the CBI to such a characterisation of what is surely a part of good governance: consulting people who are going to be affected and then reporting to Parliament, which should be in the driving seat of this process. Indeed, it was promised that Parliament would be in the driving seat of this process; that is why we were taking back control, we were told. I welcome and agree with the intervention of the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett.
The Minister also said that such consultation would “hamper attainment of our ambitions”. I am afraid the Minister’s slip is showing because that displays the intention of slash and burn. He does not want a considered process of consultation; he just wants to chuck it all out. That is precisely what businesses and other stakeholders fear: that this is window-dressing—a gesture politics Bill which has an ideological motive, rather than one to get good, proper, appropriate regulation.
The Minister mentioned the financial services Bill, and we keep mentioning it because, if we want to change EU law, there are issues around that to do with divergence and so on—but it is “if”. The Prime Minister lauds Northern Ireland being in the single market. Perhaps he would like to give the single market back to us in Great Britain. The advantage for Northern Ireland is being close to EU regulation. Whether or not one wants to diverge, the way to do it is through primary
legislation, where you list all the measures you are going to keep and not keep. Businesses, trade unions, charities, campaign groups and so on fear very much that the Government are being cavalier about what they are doing in the Bill and about the substance of regulation which they have grown used to.
I find Amendment 45 quite impossible to understand. The Minister says that it consolidates things elsewhere in the Bill. I suppose it has the advantage of bringing to our attention how peculiar these provisions are:
“any specified instrument or provision of an instrument or anything having effect under the specified instrument or provision … any specified description of minor instruments”.
I really find this quite difficult to understand and I would be grateful if the Minister could write to me, and put a copy of the letter in the Library, to give us some examples of what is being covered here.
I am afraid that the Minister has not really convinced me of why the Government are not prepared to properly consult, properly explain and properly reason what they want to do. That said, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.