My Lords, it is always a great pleasure to support the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson. It has been a frequent occurrence on my part because of his excellent work on the committee that he chaired; there have been some excellent reports that I think have done a great service to this House. I am not going to repeat the points he has made; he has done an excellent introduction. I just want to seek clarification from the Minister in relation to his response to the committee.
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I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, that this is a requirement that should be undertaken. But the noble Lord, Lord Callanan, confirmed that instruments laid under the REUL Bill which make “significant policy changes” will be covered by an impact assessment. Is that a qualification of when impact assessments will be provided? Who is saying what a “significant impact” is? Surely the purpose of the impact assessment is to assess whether there is a significant impact, so somebody is making a judgment beforehand. I think that is something that we really need to challenge the Minister on. I hope that tonight he will be able to make a very clear commitment that statutory instruments will be accompanied by an impact assessment. I think it is quite clear that is what Parliament intended, and certainly what I think the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, intended.
I also agree with him in terms of PIRs. Certainly, I have been on committees where he has made this point before. What we tend to have now under these skeleton Bills—I think that the noble Lord, Lord Lisvane, made this point—is legislation, then a debate on policy. Well, if it is going to be that way round, these PIRs are even more important and fundamental, particularly as we have heard in this debate. So we certainly support them, and I hope the Minister will be able to answer the question I have put to him.