Clause 34 - Notification by scrap metal dealers of destruction of motor vehicles
Vehicles (Crime) Bill
10:45 am
Mr John Bercow (Buckingham, Conservative)
I am prepared to concede that the amendment may be technically defective, although the argument in support of it is not, but I am not prepared to concede that it is wrong. It is certainly not wrong to make the attempt, and we have not had a remotely adequate, or even respectable, explanation from the Minister as to why the matters concerned should not be properly debated.
I made the point, and it was right to do so, that some of the regulations are extensive. With the best will in the world, Sir Humphrey, and the products of Sir Humphrey, always want to make regulation as detailed, as all-encompassing, and, I sometimes fear, as burdensome as possible. That is the nature of the beast.
It is a well established fact—God knows how many times I have heard the point made—that there is a fundamental difference between our attitude in this country to regulation— especially to the incorporation of European directives and regulations—and that of our continental friends and partners. Their approach is to sign up to high-falutin declarations, apparently without the slightest intention of conforming to them. Our approach is always to sign up to, or even to instigate, regulation, and then, as a matter of pride, to apply it as zealously as possible. The trouble with that is that, although it may satisfy those who are busily drawing up the regulations and consuming vast forests of trees in the process, it does considerable damage to those affected by it. The Minister has not been able to gainsay the argument about the extensive, burdensome and flawed regulations made under the working time directive and the National Minimum Wage Act.
The simple fact of the matter is that those regulations constituted 71 pages of A4 in the case of the working time directive and, in the case of the Act, 112 pages of A4. They were shot through with holes. They were, to use the Minister's term, thoroughly defective and wrong. They were beginning to have damaging consequences, particularly for small businesses, which are directly affected by the Bill. Precisely because the Department of Trade and Industry made such a pig's ear of the process, at the start of 1999 the new Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, the right hon. Member for Tyneside, North, had to revisit all those regulations and make them less burdensome.
The fact is that the right hon. Member for Hartlepool had made a complete mess of the matter. Either he was not aware that he had done so or he knew that he was storing up trouble, and that was why he chose to place the regulations before the House for the negative procedure just before the summer recess in July 1998. He presumably expected to be trotting on elsewhere before long. In fact he was trotting on somewhere else before long: he was trotting out of the Government. In view of the mess that he made of those regulations, there was every good reason why he should.
However, this is not an abstract speculation or a bald theory; we have concrete evidence that regulations have been flawed in the past. It is not impossible that they will continue to be flawed, but they are less likely to be if we can scrutinise them properly in advance. The Minister merely gives us the ritual line that one invariably encounters from Ministers in these circumstances—that we have to preserve flexibility, the provision is sensible, and there is nothing to worry about. He then advises that the amendment be withdrawn.
I will withdraw the amendment, for the simple reason that we have tabled other amendments, which we want to debate. However, I am not persuaded by what the Minister says, and he should at least be aware that there are two different and legitimate points of view on the subject. As I am keen to debate those other amendments, within the truncated timetable for consideration that we have been obliged to accept, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 34 ordered to stand part of the Bill.