Lord Goodman of Wycombe (Con)

My Lords, I beg leave to move this amendment on behalf of my noble friend Lord Maude. I will also speak to my own amendments, Amendments 91 to 93, 94A and 94B, which are consequential on the Government’s Amendment 90. What all these amendments have in common is that they are all about post-legislative review. To explain them, I go back very briefly to when, in Committee, I tabled a sunset clause suggesting an independent review that would report to the House, with a power to recommend that the regulator either continue, continue under certain conditions or cease to operate. While I am not at all sure that there was a consensus for the sunset clause, there was very clearly a consensus across the Committee for better post-legislative review. On that score, I am delighted to see government Amendment 90, because it contains, to my mind, some of the key objectives I was seeking to put forward in the sunset clause. If noble Lords read the clause that the Government have tabled, they will see that it sets out a review, it sets out that the objectives of the regulator will be reviewed, and it will even be seen whether the regulator’s objectives remain necessary. This is a very big concession by the Government. If the tone of debate on Report has been better than in Committee, I think it is partly because the Government have moved on several very important elements, one being growth and another being this. I gather that it is extremely rare to put a post-legislative review of this kind into a Bill, and I think the Government should be congratulated on that. I read it as an escape clause for the Government. In the event of the regulator going wrong, there will be this fundamental review, so I think the Government are being prudent in so doing. My amendments to government Amendment 90 simply seek to ensure that the review is carried out by independent persons—the same sort of independent people I named in the sunset clause—who would then report to the House. My noble friend Lord Maude’s amendment specifically proposes an examination of the financial effects of the regulator on clubs, because he fears they will be damaging. Once again, I am very grateful to the Government for their Amendment 90 and I wait with interest to see what the Minister will say in response to these amendments.