Clause 3 - Limitations on order-making power
Regulatory Reform Bill [Lords]
5:30 pm
Mr Andrew Lansley (South Cambridgeshire, Conservative)
I support my hon. Friend the Member for South-West Hertfordshire (Mr. Page), who has presented a positive case for amendment No. 13, but I want to ask a question. The provisions of section 2 subsections (1) and (2) of the Deregulation and Contracting Out Act 1994 seem precisely the same as clause 3 subsections (3) and (4) of the Bill. However, section 2(3) of the Deregulation and Contracting Out Act goes on to provide that if a new offence is created, replacing an existing offence where the maximum penalty is greater than the standard scale set out in subsection (1), the maximum penalty should not be greater than that of the offence that is abolished. That is almost but not quite the same as our proposals. We have applied the same principle, but more widely.
If the Minister will not respond positively to my hon. Friend's arguments, will he explain—the explanatory notes, admirable as they are, do not—why similar provisions to section 3(2) of the original Act were omitted from the Bill?