Clause 15 - Monitoring information: registers
Waste and Emissions Trading Bill [Lords]
4:00 pm
Mr John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings, Conservative)
I want to repeat a point that was made earlier. It also relates to clauses 14 and 16, but I did not want to delay the Committee more than necessary, nor to rush through these brief and fairly uncontroversial clauses.
With regard to information and its publication in the registers, and particularly where public access is concerned, it is important that the form is constant. My hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Bedfordshire used the term ''common'', but common is not something that I would ever aspire to be, and so let us say that the registers should be of a constant or uniform nature, and that they should also be explicable, comprehensible and clear. That is not a minor point, because, when dealing with such matters, we must be mindful of our concerns that Government and local government information is not always like that.
If we are to enforce the legislation in a way that encourages scrutiny, not simply by the bodies designed for that purpose, but by the wider public, as referred to earlier in our proceedings, we need to ensure that the information is readily available, easily compared and comprehensible. That point applies to clauses 14 and 15 and, perhaps particularly, to clause 16. However, I make the point at this juncture, so that it may be applied across the three clauses.