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Energy Bill
2:15 pm
Martin Horwood (Shadow Minister (Environment), Environment, Food & Rural Affairs; Cheltenham, Liberal Democrat)
Earlier I was questioning the wide latitude being given to the Secretary of State by some parts of this Bill, but in the case of this amendment, we seem to be lavishing very detailed powers on the Secretary of State which I am not sure really is appropriate. There seems to be too much detail and I thought the Conservative party was in favour of reducing red tape. The important point is that this is based, as I understand it, on the existing licensing regime for the petroleum industry and we should hesitate to muck about with it too much. I am all for giving more general, strategic powers and having those more closely defined—we referred earlier to the primacy of the environment in the issuing of licences and issues of that kind, but when it gets down to detailed human resource issues that should be naturally included in any appointment process, that seems ludicrously over-detailed. I seek clarification from the Conservative spokesman, but I cannot see the justification for these detailed prescriptions.