Clause 21 - Code of practice: procedure
Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill
10:00 am
Oliver Heald (Shadow Secretary of State for Constitutional Affairs & Shadow Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Assisted By Shadow Solicitor General), Constitutional Affairs; North East Hertfordshire, Conservative)
Clause 21 sets out the procedure for introducing the draft code and making it law. It provides for consultation and the laying of the draft. It was not clear to me, however, whether what is proposed in subsection (5) is the negative procedure. I think that it is. If so, perhaps the Minister might explain why.
The Minister knows that many in the House are keen that all the principles of inspection and enforcement in the Hampton report should become part either of the code or of the statute. Given that they may need to be in the code, those of us in the House who are interested in regulatory reform will want to check that everything that should be in there is in there. If it is not, we might want to complain about it, debate it and ensure that the code goes as far as it should.
My experience of the negative procedure is that we do not get a debate every time we pray against an order. The last time that I looked at the statistics, it was something like 35 times out of 2,000. I may be wrong—it may be slightly different—but it is something like that. What can the Minister say to us about the procedure in subsection (5)? Is it negative, and if so, why? Surely it should be affirmative. Will he think about that or at least guarantee that if we did pray against it, there would be a debate?