Letter from Mr Graham Stringer MP, Parliamentary
Secretary at the Cabinet Office
Regulatory Reform Bill
When I wrote on 11 February, I explained that the
Bill was being revisited in the light of concerns about the width
of the power. The current draft, which is enclosed, is being put
to the Delegated Powers and Deregulation Committee for their consideration.
As I hope you will see from the draft, it is our
intention that the power should be wide enough, but no wider than
necessary, to cover specific regulatory reform measures that the
Government wants to achieve. We have constrained the power by:
— including a governing
purpose linking the order-making power to the reform of legislation
which has the effect of imposing burdens affecting persons in
the carrying on of any activity;
— ensuring that burdens cannot be removed
from Ministers or Departments alone;
— limiting the creation of any criminal
penalty to a maximum of 2 years imprisonment or a fine; and
— applying a two-year rolling cut-off before
new legislation can be subject to an order.
There will be further changes to the Bill (for example,
to include provision replacing section 5 of the DCOA, and to clarify
the role of the National Assembly for Wales). You will also see
that we have included a provisional subclause (at 8(4)) reflecting
your Committee's concerns that it should have equal rights of
access to material submitted during the consultation exercise
as Ministers. This provision is in square brackets, since I cannot
guarantee that it will remain unaltered or will even be included
in the Bill as introduced. This is because we need to check carefully
whether there is likely to be a clash with other disclosure or
Freedom of Information-type regimes.
In addition to the draft clauses, I enclose a supporting
document. This sets out why the power is needed, with reference
to illustrative examples of what the power could be used to achieve.
I hope this is helpful in setting the Bill in context.
I am copying this letter to the Clerk to the Committee.
28 February 2000
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