Regulatory Reform Bill [Lords]
10:30 am
Mr Graham Stringer (Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office; Manchester, Blackley, Labour)
I beg to move,
That—
(1) in addition to the first sitting at half-past Ten o'clock on Tuesday 27th March, three further sittings shall be allotted to the consideration of the Regulatory Reform Bill [Lords],
(2) the second sitting shall be held on that day at half-past Four o'clock,
(3) the third sitting shall be held on Thursday 29th March at five minutes to Ten o'clock,
(4) the fourth sitting shall be held on that day at half-past Two o'clock, and
(5) proceedings on the Bill shall be brought to a conclusion at Five o'clock at that sitting (unless concluded earlier).
I welcome you to the Chair, Mr. Cook. I hope that the proceedings are as smooth and good humoured as those of yesterday afternoon's Programming Sub-Committee. The debates on the Bill so far have been well informed, good humoured and listened to by both sides.
This is my first appearance in a Standing Committee as a Minister, and I look forward to the forthcoming debate. I am especially pleased that you are in the Chair, Mr. Cook, because you precipitated my maiden speech in the Chamber. You tabled an amendment to the handguns Bill that provoked me into rushing into the Chamber to talk about handguns and the Commonwealth games, which had not been my prior intention.
Four sittings will be sufficient to give this important Bill serious and thorough scrutiny. It has already had what is probably the most intense pre-legislative scrutiny of any Bill. Before it was introduced in the other place, it had been discussed by the two Deregulation Committees—the House of Lords Delegated Powers and Deregulation Committee and the House of Commons Select Committee on Deregulation—for 21 months. The Government listened to both Committees, and made amendments before the draft Bill was introduced in the House of Lords. Both Committees commented on that in their final reports.
We have also listened to comments made when the Bill was introduced in the House of Lords, and have made major amendments. One is that no order will be able solely to impose burdens. There are several consequent amendments with that. In response to the repeated comments of the Select Committee on Deregulation, the Government have also accepted amendments on subordinate provisions clauses, so that both negative and positive resolutions can be put forward.
As I stated on Second Reading—although I think that I was slightly misunderstood—and in the Programming Sub-Committee, the Government have no intention of tabling any further amendments apart from one regular procedural amendment. We want the entire time to be spent debating amendments already tabled by Committee members. I commend the programme resolution to the Committee. The Bill has been thoroughly debated and has received much pre-legislative scrutiny. The four sittings delineated in the programme resolution should give us plenty of time to scrutinise it further.