Clause 31 - Commencement
Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill
2:15 pm
Jim Murphy (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Cabinet Office; East Renfrewshire, Labour)
I have enjoyed listening to some of the debate and conjecture from Opposition Members. To some extent, it was a rerun of parts of the debate that we had in our part 1 deliberations. I shall seek not to rehearse all aspects of part 1, because we had that debate at length for four sittings. You will keep me in order if I wander from the debate, Sir Nicholas.
Clause 31 sets out when the provisions of this legislation come into effect, which is at the end of the period of two months beginning the day on which the Bill is enacted. Technically, that means two months after Royal Assent. That follows the general rule that Acts should not come into force until two months after they have been passed.
New clause 6, moved by the hon. Member for North-East Hertfordshire, draws on the suggestion that we should have a sunset clause. Hon. Members on both sides will not be surprised to hear that I am firmly against the idea of sunsetting part 1. To set an arbitrary date for the expiry of part 1 would, for the reasons that I am about to give, be wholly inappropriate.
I spoke at our first sitting about the need to change the culture across Whitehall in terms of the better regulation agenda, the need to build a momentum, and the need for an enormous amount of work, energy and effort, to alter the way in which Whitehall and others approach better regulation. Having a sunset clause for part 1 of the Bill would greatly undermine our ability to do that and create uncertainty about the longevity of part 1.