New Clause 2 — Report on operation of act
Orders of the Day
4:31 pm

Mark Harper (Shadow Minister, Defence; Forest of Dean, Conservative)

I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

Michael Lord (Deputy Speaker)

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:

New clause 7— Expiry—

'Part 1 of this Act shall cease to have effect at the end of the period of five years beginning with the day on which it is brought into force.'.

New clause 24— Renewal by Parliament of part 1—

'(1) Before the end of each subsequent period of two years following Royal Assent of the Act Ministers must bring Part 1 before Parliament to be re-approved or rejected by resolution.

(2) If, within each two-year period, Ministers do not bring Part 1 before Parliament, pursuant to subsection (1), it will cease to have effect.

(3) If Parliament re-approves Part 1 by resolution, pursuant to subsection (1), it will have effect for the subsequent two-year period.

(4) If Parliament rejects Part 1 by resolution, pursuant to subsection (1), it will cease to have effect.'.

Mark Harper (Shadow Minister, Defence; Forest of Dean, Conservative)

New clause 2 aims to inject a shot of transparency into the Bill. It provides for a report on the operation of the Act. It follows recommendation 2 of the Regulatory Reform Committee's report on the Bill, which stated

"We reaffirm the recommendation of our predecessor Committee that Departments should be assessed on their progress in removing unnecessary regulations and controls and not simply on their progress in simplifying measures. We recommend accordingly."

Transparency is something on which we all agree. Allowing the greatest possible visibility for a process encourages good government and sound decision making; allowing decisions to be made behind closed doors in Whitehall has the potential, as we all know, to have the opposite effect. Deregulation and better regulation are such important agendas that we must shine the light of scrutiny into the dark recesses of departmental decision making.

In the Committee debates, in which I participated, the Minister was very proud of the Government's agenda. He said on 2 March:

"As a Government, we have committed ourselves to one of the most radical regulatory reform packages anywhere in the world".—[ Official Report, Standing Committee A, 2 March 2006; c. 125.]

and he specifically talked about the culture change that he wished to inculcate in Whitehall. It seems to me that the best way of doing that is to ensure that as much light as possible is shone on the measures in the Act in respect of reducing regulations and burdens on business.

The Regulatory Reform Committee suggested that one of the key reasons why the regulatory reform orders introduced under the Regulatory Reform Act 2001 had been far from successful was the lack of political will within Whitehall. The Committee claimed that low political importance was attached by Ministers and civil servants to propose areas ripe for regulatory reform as compared with bringing new legislation before the House. As the Minister acknowledged in Committee, a culture change in Whitehall is necessary and it should not be viewed as preferable for civil servants and Ministers to pin their careers on creating regulations and legislation rather than tidying up existing rules and scrapping obsolete or disproportionate burdens. Indeed, the latter is of far greater benefit to business than the former.

The new clause would help to bring about the necessary culture change. It would require the Secretary of State to publish an annual report and lay it before Parliament, which would provide the opportunity for the House to debate what Ministers would view as the Government's success in reducing burdens. The report would detail what orders had been made and to what effect; what burdens had been removed, what simplified and what other progress had been made. The Government would therefore have to set out in stark detail exactly how deregulatory or regulatory they have been. That should provide a strong incentive for Ministers to encourage and prioritise measures that deregulate and reduce burdens on business, rather than the opposite, which seems the case at the moment.

I shall deal now with new clauses 7 and 24. New clause 7 is effectively a sunset clause, which suggests sunsetting the Bill after five years. We make too little use of post-legislative scrutiny in the House and in this country, although we are getting better at employing pre-legislative scrutiny. The new clause would represent an important step forward in allowing Parliament and interest groups to input into legislation before it is finalised. We do not do enough to monitor the effectiveness of laws after they are on the statute book. A sunset clause is one form of post-legislative scrutiny; it is clearly not desirable for all legislation to include it because the increased work load on Parliament would be prohibitive. In certain cases, however, there is a clear argument for having sunset clauses, particularly for important and controversial legislation. Control orders immediately spring to mind. Sunset clauses can allow Parliament to look again at legislation and see if it wants to bring it back into force.

As an alternative, new clause 24 is not a sunset clause, but a renewal clause, providing a separate option for increasing post-legislative scrutiny of the Bill and the Government may find it more amenable. Under the new clause, part 1 of the Bill, the most important part, must be brought before Parliament for reapproval or rejection at least every two years.

David Howarth (Shadow Minister (Energy), Trade & Industry; Cambridge, Liberal Democrat)

I welcome the hon. Gentleman back to our consideration of the Bill, as we missed him yesterday. Will he confirm that neither of his new clauses will have the effect of sunsetting any of its legislative provisions? All they would do is to sunset the power to make the orders. One would have to go a little further to achieve the end, which I believe both his party and mine share, of sunsetting the majority of new regulations.

Mark Harper (Shadow Minister, Defence; Forest of Dean, Conservative)

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention, and for what I think was a compliment. Unfortunately, I was unable to take part in yesterday's debate on the Bill because I had already organised a full day's meeting of a number of veterans' organisations, at which we discussed very important policy matters. The hon. Gentleman is quite right: the new clauses would affect simply part 1 of the Bill and would not cause any measures passed under the Bill to fall. If Members want to achieve that objective, they will need to make further changes.

The advantage of new clause 24 is that it would allow Parliament regularly to reassess the effectiveness and proportionality of the part 1 order-making powers without creating an insurmountable hurdle to the Government's better regulation agenda. It would also provide an excellent opportunity to reassess just how successful the Government have been. In Committee, Members and the Minister referred many times to the 2001 Act being something of a disappointment in practice, saying that it had not been as successful in allowing deregulation as they had hoped. It would therefore be sensible to use this Bill to put on the statute book provisions compelling Ministers to come to the House more regularly, so that we do not have to come here yet again in four or five years' time—under a different Administration, hopefully—to discuss another Bill to reduce the burdens on business.

David Heath (Shadow Leader of the House of Commons & Shadow Cabinet Office Minister, Cabinet Office; Somerton and Frome, Liberal Democrat)

May I set at rest the mind of Mr. Harper? I am quite sure that I speak for my hon. Friend David Howarth when I say that his earlier comment was a compliment, rather than an attempt to deprecate the hon. Gentleman's absence. We genuinely missed the hon. Gentleman, who made a valuable contribution in Committee and has made another one today in introducing these new clauses, dealing as they do with transparency and openness. They also make an at least crude attempt to apply a degree of post-legislative scrutiny to this part of the Bill.

In the spirit of openness and transparency, I would have liked to have had a letter in similar terms to that referred to earlier by Mr. Chope. I am little surprised to learn that Liberal Democrat Front Benchers were not accorded that courtesy on this occasion; perhaps the letter is somewhere in transmission at this very moment. One would usually expect to be copied into correspondence dealing with the substance of a Bill.

As the hon. Member for Forest of Dean correctly said, new clause 2 requires that a report be made by the Secretary of State on the Bill's operation. Previous deregulatory legislation—indeed, all sorts of legislation—has not lived up to its expectations. For instance, one of my continuing criticisms is the raft of Home Office legislation, to which I referred in yesterday's debate. Large parts of it were described as urgent matters that needed the House's attention and which were absolutely crucial to the well-being and safety of the population—however, years later they still have not been implemented. If such provisions are urgently needed and vital to public safety, one has to ask why they have not been implemented.

Similarly, in dealing with this legislation, we are entitled to ask, after a period, what the Government have done with this power. Have they used it effectively? Do we have a programme of deregulation, or is the power being used in abeyance as a reserve power—as with the change to Standing Orders in order to implement Law Commission reports, to which reference was made yesterday—rather than to achieve the objectives that we and the Government share? I therefore think that new clause 2 has a great deal to commend it.

I come now to the issue of sunset clauses. In his intervention, my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge was right to distinguish between the powers that lapse as a result of a sunset clause and the orders introduced under those powers. If the Bill becomes an Act, Ministers may be tempted to argue against its renewal on the ground that we would thus be left defenceless against overburdensome legislation and regulation. However, that argument would be spurious, as there is nothing in this and other new clauses in the group that would cause the regulations or the deregulation made under the powers contained in the Bill to be annulled. They would merely enable the House to consider whether assurances given by the Government during the Bill's passage had been implemented in practice. They would allow us to determine whether promises had been kept and the Bill's purposes adhered to, and to ascertain whether we had the sort of deregulatory programme and the lack of excess that the Government have assured us all along was their intention.

That is a modest ambition. In one way, it might be a desirable concept to sunset all regulations from their origin, but that might run the risk of causing administrative chaos. We understand the complexity of the drafting required to produce a satisfactory response, but the lapsing of a power would not create immediate difficulties. The new clause means that the Government would be required to come back to the House and say to hon. Members, "This is how we have used this power. You have seen it in action, and will understand that it was used entirely properly and for its intended purpose. It has worked well, and we ask the House to renew it." Alternatively, the House could say to the Government, "You told us that you would use the power for one purpose, but in fact you have used it for quite another" or, "You told us this power was needed urgently, yet you have not used it at all." The new clause would enable the House to have control of what the Executive want to do.

I would always argue that the legislature should have control of what the Executive do, especially in respect of the procedures of this House. More than anything else, the Bill is about those procedures. It is therefore entirely appropriate for Parliament to decide whether a power is working satisfactorily, and I am happy to lend my support to the suggestions made by the hon. Member for Forest of Dean.

Andrew Miller (Ellesmere Port and Neston, Labour)

I have some sympathy with what Mr. Harper said, given that he rightly referred to recommendations in the Select Committee report, but I should like to propose a better way than new clause 2 to achieve the sort of reporting that he described.

The Select Committee looked at this matter long and hard. Yesterday, I referred to the table in the report showing how long orders float around some Departments. We are not at present competent to deal with that or to instigate investigations to determine why it happens. The existing Standing Orders do not allow us to summons a Secretary of State and ask why an order has been floating around for weeks and months. The hon. Gentleman's objective would probably be better achieved by building a more robust approach into the Standing Orders of the Regulatory Reform Committee or its successor body so that we can investigate why such failures have occurred, rather than by introducing a reporting function, which would result in the type of report that is normal in such circumstances. I am being gentle because I have read reports from Administrations of both my colour and his.

Jonathan Djanogly (Shadow Solicitor General (Also Shadow Minister for Trade and Industry), Law Officers (Assist the Home Affairs Team); Huntingdon, Conservative)

I admired the section of the Select Committee's report on that issue and I support the excellent point made by my hon. Friend Mr. Harper. In discussing the review in your Committee, did you address the question—

Michael Lord (Deputy Speaker)

Order. I am not sure whether the hon. Gentleman is referring to the Committee or to Andrew Miller, but he must get his parliamentary terminology correct.

Jonathan Djanogly (Shadow Solicitor General (Also Shadow Minister for Trade and Industry), Law Officers (Assist the Home Affairs Team); Huntingdon, Conservative)

Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I was referring to the Committee.

Was there any discussion in the Committee of the proportion of time spent by Departments on deregulation or regulation, and should that be a matter for review?

Andrew Miller (Ellesmere Port and Neston, Labour)

We looked specifically at the history of the then 27 orders that had been dealt with and, with the limited information we had, tried to ascertain why delays occurred in some Departments. We found that we could report on the facts of a delay, but that we could not investigate the reasons, so if it is the will of the House I should like the opportunity for my Committee to act like a normal Select Committee and inquire into the workings of a Department by, for example, periodically inviting its Secretary of State to answer questions.

The sunset clause proposed by the hon. Member for Forest of Dean would take us back a long way. The Better Regulation Executive produced a paper, "A Bill for Better regulation: Consultation Document", which acknowledged that the powers in the Regulatory Reform Act 2001 are "constitutionally ground-breaking", noted that the review had "identified many positive aspects" in the process and described where further improvements could be made. The danger of introducing a sunset clause is that we could throw the baby out with the bathwater. I have some sympathy with the hon. Gentleman's suggestion that there should be a review of the process—indeed, of all legislation.

Mark Harper (Shadow Minister, Defence; Forest of Dean, Conservative)

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that remark. New clauses 7 and 24 are very much either/or provisions. New clause 7—the sunset clause—may go a little too far, but new clause 24, which provides an opportunity for renewal after two years and would not automatically put an end to the whole Bill, might be more to his liking.

Andrew Miller (Ellesmere Port and Neston, Labour)

I realise that the hon. Gentleman could not be in the Chamber yesterday, but I expressed then my fear that the existence of the process he describes in new clause 24 would create inertia in some Departments that would worsen the chances of advancing the regulation process. I think that he and I—and, indeed, Mr. Heath—share the desire to deregulate constructively wherever possible, but I want to find solutions that will not create that inertia in Departments. I therefore urge the hon. Member for Forest of Dean to move away from either of those concepts.

My hon. Friend the Minister and I have not spoken about this subject—he has had to absorb rather a lot from me in a very few days—but I will throw another googly at him and suggest that perhaps it might be sensible for the Government to give a commitment to allow an opportunity, either on the Floor of the House or through my Committee or the other relevant Committees, to hold periodic discussions on the active working of such legislation. If we are to get it right and make it work in all our interests, we need such a mechanism. On the one hand, I do not want to create a situation that allows any excuse inside any part of the Administration to slow down the process, but on the other, I do not want a process that over-complicates the situation for those outside the House who are trying to understand what is necessarily a pretty complex process.

Mark Harper (Shadow Minister, Defence; Forest of Dean, Conservative)

The hon. Gentleman was present at most of the deliberations in Committee, so he will be aware that the then Minister gave an undertaking that

"a Minister of the Crown will report to the House no less than five years after enactment on the operation of the proposed Legislative and Regulatory Reform Act."—[ Official Report, Standing Committee A, 9 March 2006; c. 289.]

The then Minister conceded that reporting back to the House after a certain period was reasonable, but five years seems far too long—hence new clause 2, which requires an annual report to the House. It would probably be helpful when the Minister speaks to the new clause if he could confirm the commitment given by his predecessor and make that clear.

On the time that we are talking about, the previous approach—the 2001 Act did not contain a sunset clause—does not seem to have spurred a culture change in the civil service and the Government for urgency. If the legislation was in force for a fixed period, it would give the Minister the opportunity to say to civil servants, "We've got a limited period to act and I want to see firm proposals"—

Michael Lord (Deputy Speaker)

Order. I think that the point has been made.

Andrew Miller (Ellesmere Port and Neston, Labour)

I have sort of got the point, Mr. Deputy Speaker.

If the hon. Gentleman is seeking to run an auction between him and me about the length of time after which my hon. Friend the Minister ought to report to the House, perhaps we ought to start now. I agree that five years is a long time. Certainly, a serious review of such mechanisms ought to be conducted within the lifetime of a Parliament because this is an important issue—and leaving aside all the bluster of yesterday, there is an earnest desire on both sides of the House to make some progress.

Charles Walker (Broxbourne, Conservative)

How would a periodic review be timetabled? Would not a sunset clause create an imperative for a review that could not be fudged?

Andrew Miller (Ellesmere Port and Neston, Labour)

I take the hon. Gentleman's point about the relationship between my hon. Friend the Minister and other hon. Members, but that is not the only relationship that matters—what matters is what happens daily in Departments in the quest for sensible deregulatory mechanisms. We want to raise that profile higher. We do not want to create any excuse for people to say, "Ah, well, we ought to put that one on ice because the sunset clause is triggering a review process in a few weeks' time." That is my concern. With those few remarks, I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister can make the kind of comments that I have suggested, with a view to ensuring that the spirit of the two points that we have addressed can be dealt with sensibly and constructively.

Pat McFadden (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Cabinet Office; Wolverhampton South East, Labour)

I do not feel that there will be a great difference between us on this subject. There is a lot of sense in what was said by the hon. Members for Forest of Dean (Mr. Harper) and for Somerton and Frome (Mr. Heath) and by my hon. Friend Andrew Miller. We agree about the need for review and the need to examine how the measures in the Bill will operate. The hon. Member for Forest of Dean asked me about previous assurances. With regard to new clause 2, I am happy to repeat the Government undertaking made in Committee that a Minister of the Crown will report to the House on the operation of the Bill no less than five years after enactment.

Of course I support the notion that the Government should constantly be looking to see how well their reforms are working. We are already taking action in that regard. The Government have proposed an amendment requiring that explanatory documents for all orders made under new clause 19 should include an assessment of the extent to which the order removes or reduces burdens.

Charles Walker (Broxbourne, Conservative)

The Minister said "no less than five years". Did he mean to say that he would report back after no more than five years?

Pat McFadden (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Cabinet Office; Wolverhampton South East, Labour)

As I understand it, the assurance given in Committee was that a Minister would report back after no less than five years, and I am happy to repeat that today.

David Heath (Shadow Leader of the House of Commons & Shadow Cabinet Office Minister, Cabinet Office; Somerton and Frome, Liberal Democrat)

rose—

Pat McFadden (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Cabinet Office; Wolverhampton South East, Labour)

I would like to make some progress.

The Government also believe that all Departments should keep their legislation under review. That is why the Government set up the panel for regulatory accountability, and why there are regulatory reform Ministers in each of the main regulatory Departments—and a Better Regulation Commission keeping an eye on them all.

Charles Walker (Broxbourne, Conservative)

Will the Minister give way?

Pat McFadden (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Cabinet Office; Wolverhampton South East, Labour)

I am afraid that I would like to make some progress.

Departments are currently reviewing their regulations and drafting simplification plans, which include measures to reduce administrative burdens on business. Those will be published in the pre-Budget report later this year. The Better Regulation Commission will review the simplification plans that Departments and some independent regulators are preparing. The review will occur while the plans are in final draft form and before they go for clearance by the panel for regulatory accountability. The important thing is that Departments are already obliged to report on their better regulation work as part of their annual reports. They have been required to do that for the past two years. We would expect departmental Select Committees to report on those annual reports as appropriate.

Jonathan Djanogly (Shadow Solicitor General (Also Shadow Minister for Trade and Industry), Law Officers (Assist the Home Affairs Team); Huntingdon, Conservative)

Is not the Minister rather missing the point? The Bill is being introduced because the reports and the procedures have not been working to date. That is why we need new procedures.

Pat McFadden (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Cabinet Office; Wolverhampton South East, Labour)

I agree with the hon. Gentleman that the reason behind the Bill is that we must make greater progress than has been made under the 2001 Act. My point is that the Bill will not be the only measure, and that efforts are being made to achieve simplification. Although I agree that we should be open to reviewing orders, I believe that it would be unnecessarily prescriptive, and indeed unnecessary, to include that provision in the Bill.

As hon. Members will be aware, one of the main aims of the Bill is to provide a power to remove unnecessary burdens. To include yet another requirement in addition to those that I have already discussed could be argued to be contrary to the spirit and the purpose of the Bill—as I am sure at least some hon. Members will agree.

Andrew Love (Edmonton, Labour)

As a former member of the Regulatory Reform Committee, I agree with my hon. Friend about the prescriptive nature of new clause 2. However, with the increasing prominence of the idea of deregulation, if we are to show the political will to achieve deregulation and if we are to avoid the culture of Whitehall overcoming what we are trying to achieve, regular transparent reports to Parliament are a necessary reality.

Pat McFadden (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Cabinet Office; Wolverhampton South East, Labour)

My hon. Friend makes a sound point. There must be a culture in Departments whereby that is a priority—a point made with great force yesterday by my hon. Friend the Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston.

New clause 7 is a sunset clause. It would be inappropriate at this moment to set an arbitrary date for the expiry of part 1 of the Bill. Such a sunset clause would set a date on which the Act would certainly come to an end. The safeguards in the Bill and the rigorous parliamentary scrutiny that any proposal will undergo are robust. It would not be wise for us to introduce the uncertainty that a sunset provision would bring—although I am sure that we all relish the thought of going through this process again in five years.

David Heath (Shadow Leader of the House of Commons & Shadow Cabinet Office Minister, Cabinet Office; Somerton and Frome, Liberal Democrat)

Of course we would love to have another go, because this has been such fun. May I bring the hon. Gentleman back to the reporting procedure? He is the Minister responsible not only for this aspect of deregulation but for better government practice. I made a suggestion yesterday—when speaking to amendment No. 75, I think—that was not really responded to: irrespective of statutory requirements, it would be good practice for Ministers who wish to introduce orders under the procedure to explain why they cannot use primary legislation to achieve the same effect. That would be a way of preventing Ministers from adopting a lazy attitude and thinking that the procedures in the Bill would provide an easy way of legislating, although they could draft a perfectly proper Bill, and ought to be using primary legislation.

Pat McFadden (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Cabinet Office; Wolverhampton South East, Labour)

Some people who have examined the procedure that will emerge when the Bill is enacted do not think that it will be an easier process than primary legislation. It might be a more appropriate procedure on occasions. There may well be more consultation and debate on, and scrutiny of, some regulatory reform orders than would be the case for individual clauses in primary legislation, so we should not be prescriptive.

In Committee, the former Minister spoke of the need for a culture change across government. The approach that we need to take is one of partnership, with regulators and the regulated working together. What message would we be sending the business community, charities, the voluntary sector and public sector organisations affected by the Bill if we said that the deregulation scheme that it created would be killed off automatically after five years? I return again to the comment made by my hon. Friend the Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston about the pressures on Departments. Departments will be less likely to invest a lot of resources in pursuing reforms if they might not prove possible in the end. The culture change that we want should offer certainty about, and confidence in, methods of delivery.

People should be able to rely on primary legislation. They should know that if the Bill is passed, it is there to last. We want to avoid a situation in which those who are regulated by an order do not have confidence in its provisions. I hope that the orders will deliver wide-ranging reforms, as has already happened under the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005.

David Heath (Shadow Leader of the House of Commons & Shadow Cabinet Office Minister, Cabinet Office; Somerton and Frome, Liberal Democrat)

The Minister is straying into exactly the fallacy against which I warned earlier. The Conservative new clauses would bring no uncertainty to orders that have already been made, but would simply mean that the order-making process would have to be reviewed. The Minister's remarks are thus completely irrelevant to the proposition before him.

Pat McFadden (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Cabinet Office; Wolverhampton South East, Labour)

We have said that there should be a review in no more than five years. However, we are not prepared to sign up to a sunset clause that would automatically bring the Bill to an end. We want Parliament to pass a power in which it has confidence, and that being the case, it should have confidence in that power for the future.

As I said, the Government have given an undertaking that a Minister of the Crown will report to the House on the operation of the Bill within five years of enactment. There is nothing in new clause 7 to ensure that orders made under part 1 would remain in force, if that is the intention. If they did not, everything done by means of them, including amendments to primary legislation, could be repealed. I can only assume that the intention is for existing orders to remain in force. However, unless there is an express provision to that effect, we cannot be free from doubt. That is why we had a "saving" provision to make it completely clear that when we repeal the 2001 Act, orders made under it will continue in force. Similar amendments were tabled when the Deregulation and Contracting Out Act 1994 and the 2001 Act went through Parliament, and, specifically, the Conservative Administration resisted them during the passage of the 1994 Act.

Kenneth Clarke (Chairman of the Democracy Task Force, Conservative Party; Rushcliffe, Conservative)

Can we just clarify one thing? The Minister contradicted himself in response to my hon. Friend Mr. Walker, but I hope that he eventually corrected his slip of the tongue. On the undertaking to report to the House, the Minister confirmed that the report would appear in "not less" than five years. He seemed to be reassuring us that nothing would be embarked upon with undue haste—but my hon. Friend was trying to press him to say that he was undertaking that a report would be given in not more than five years' time. The Minister appeared to return to that idea later, but will he clarify what he meant?

Pat McFadden (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Cabinet Office; Wolverhampton South East, Labour)

rose—

Michael Lord (Deputy Speaker)

Order. May I just clarify the fact that that was an intervention on the Minister and that the Minister has not quite finished? Is that right?

Kenneth Clarke (Chairman of the Democracy Task Force, Conservative Party; Rushcliffe, Conservative)

It could be taken as a speech, in reply to which the Minister could apply for leave to speak again.

Michael Lord (Deputy Speaker)

I think that we will take it as an intervention.

Pat McFadden (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Cabinet Office; Wolverhampton South East, Labour)

I am happy to confirm that the commitment is to report within five years.

Andrew Love (Edmonton, Labour)

I was a little disappointed by the Minister's comments on new clause 2. As I said, although I do not propose to support it, because its terms are too prescriptive, there is considerable merit in the recommendation by the Select Committee on Regulatory Reform for regular parliamentary scrutiny of what the Bill achieves.

I have two major reasons, based on experiences for thinking that. First, I served on the Select Committee for about two to two and half years, although it felt a great deal longer. One of the things that would have made our work much more effective was greater transparency with regard to the lack of political will in Departments to achieve the objectives set out in legislation.

There is no doubt that one way to gain the attention of politicians and civil servants is to have transparency and a regular report to Parliament that allows us, the media and the public to know what is going on. That is important because deregulation has become a much higher political priority for everyone. We are constantly chided by the Opposition for our failures in deregulation, and we continually make commitments to do better. Looking back at the historical record, it is clear that previous Governments have not done that well, either; we all remember the "bonfire of the regulations" in the early 1990s. It behoves all of us in Parliament to create the conditions whereby we can succeed. The Bill does many things, but it does not achieve proper parliamentary scrutiny—I am talking about scrutiny in this Chamber—of what is being achieved.

The second consideration, as I said in an intervention, is the culture of Whitehall. It is undoubtedly the case that the priority both for politicians and for civil servants is creating new regulations and new laws. One becomes a Cabinet Minister by passing laws; one becomes a permanent secretary by assisting Ministers in passing laws. We need to try to create incentives to do away with laws as well as to create them. This measure is a small mechanism, but it is probably the only way in which we can change the culture of Whitehall and create a better opportunity to do away with regulation.

Mark Harper (Shadow Minister, Defence; Forest of Dean, Conservative)

The hon. Gentleman spoke about how Ministers' performance is assessed. To achieve a culture change, we must shift our focus from the introduction of new Bills and legislation to deregulation and the removal of burdens from business. We must focus, too, on sound administration, and on paying attention to the need to get the operation of Acts of Parliament correct before rushing to introduce yet another Bill.

Andrew Love (Edmonton, Labour)

I sympathise with the hon. Gentleman's suggestion. I could add that much of the legislation passed by the House has not been properly thought through, as it has not been subjected to pre-legislative scrutiny and other mechanisms. Perhaps Parliament and the Government should consider passing not quite as much legislation, but making sure that the legislation that does proceed through the House is better thought through.

We should consider what straightforward measures we can take in the Bill to try to change the culture and make politicians and civil servants sit up and think before they carry on with their duties. I believe that an annual report to Parliament detailing progress under the Bill would assist that process a great deal.

Alison Seabeck (PPS (Rt Hon Geoff Hoon, Minister of State), Foreign & Commonwealth Office; Plymouth, Devonport, Labour)

My hon. Friend makes a fair point. The Bill facilitates the sensible use of the order-making process, and we need to turn orders from the ugly ducklings of legislation into the swans. At the moment, the culture favours the introduction of Bills by Ministers and civil servants, but with the good use of orders we can change that culture.

Andrew Love (Edmonton, Labour)

I agree.

The Minister has repeated an argument made in Committee that the requirement for an annual report to Parliament would impose an additional burden on Departments. I accept that that is generally true, but benefits would accrue from the work done by Departments to meet the priority imposed by Parliament, and thus help to change the culture. There is a great deal of merit in the proposal for an annual report. The report would be relatively straightforward to produce, but would give Parliament an opportunity to comment on the success of the Bill, or otherwise. We should remember that the Deregulation and Contracting Out Act 1994 and the Regulatory Reform Act 2001 both failed to achieve our objectives. If the Bill is to succeed, an amendment requiring an annual report would be helpful.

Mark Harper (Shadow Minister, Defence; Forest of Dean, Conservative)

I am pleased that the new clause has been welcomed by Members on both sides of the House. In Committee, the Government said that they had the most ambitious deregulatory agenda in the world, so I would expect them to welcome the opportunity both to submit an annual report to the House setting out their achievements in reducing burdens on business and to discuss that with Members. Because Ministers would be forced to come to the House to report on progress every year, the proposal gives them a tool for insisting that civil servants take action. The Minister appeared to welcome new clause 2 in principle, when he said that the Government needed to report to the House more frequently than once every five years, but he did not give any concrete commitments. I must therefore insist on pressing new clause 2 to a Division.

Christopher Chope (Christchurch, Conservative)

On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I seek your advice. In Committee, the then Minister—now the Minister for Employment and Welfare Reform, Mr. Murphy—gave an undertaking, at column 254, that he would produce a draft of the code of practice referred to in what is now clause 21, in good time for the Report stage so that Members would have a chance to look at it. We shall discuss clause 21 later this afternoon, and I wonder what can be done to ensure that the draft code of conduct is produced. It is still not forthcoming. Surely in such circumstances it would be appropriate for these proceedings to be adjourned pending the production of the draft document.

Michael Lord (Deputy Speaker)

The hon. Gentleman's point is really a matter for debate, and the issue will no doubt come out as we proceed this afternoon. Ministers will answer for themselves the points that he has raised.

Christopher Chope (Christchurch, Conservative)

Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. You rightly say that this is a matter for debate, but my concern is that, just as the Government talked out the last group of amendments last night, it might be their intention to talk out the amendments to part 2 this afternoon. We would not therefore even have the chance to debate the matter that I have raised.

Michael Lord (Deputy Speaker)

The hon. Gentleman is bearing out the point that I have just made. These issues are very much matters for debate, and they will come out in the debate.