Clause 21 - Code of practice: procedure
Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill
10:00 am
David Heath (Shadow Secretary of State for Constitutional Affairs & Shadow Leader of the House, Law Officers (Constitutional Affairs); Somerton and Frome, Liberal Democrat)
I am grateful, although I am not sure that that will actually assist my candidacy.
The negative procedure is less appropriate than the affirmative when bringing the code of practice into effect; that is absolutely right. I shall go back a stage, however, because there is also the issue of the consultation process. The only specific consultees allowed for under the Bill are the regulators, who may be considered to have a rather partial view of how they carry out their functions. Of course we need to talk to the regulators about how the code of practice affects them, but there is a much wider range of bodies among the deregulated, and they have a much more material interest in the code of practice being right. In preparing for the Bill, the Minister gained quite a broad database of consultees; I hope that they will be
“such other persons as he considers appropriate”
for the purposes of subsection (3), and that they will have the opportunity to respond to the draft code of practice when it is published.
I also hope that, whatever procedure we eventually arrive at for the consideration of the code of practice, we will follow the process suggested for part 1 of the Bill, by which consultation responses are made available to the relevant Members of the House that will consider it. That way, we can be clear about whether the code of practice meets the concerns of those who are regulated. That seems a critical part of the process.
Mr. Murphyindicated assent.