Baroness Noakes (Con)

My Lords, I thank noble Lords for taking part in this brief debate on what is, I think, an important area. The Minister said that the Government have already reviewed the regulatory principles and found them to be absolutely fine. I find that quite remarkable, given that they clearly duplicate other requirements and that some are, frankly, almost incomprehensible; they have grown up over the years in various ways. As the Minister knows, the burden on my remarks was on the proliferation of have regards and not just the regulatory principles, which we will be debating in the context of the Government’s clear desire to downgrade the way in which they operate and to reduce the ability of Parliament to hold the regulators to account. We will return to that issue. This is an important area for the Government to look at again. They say that they have reviewed all the have regards—there are many of them throughout FSMA—but I cannot believe that they have concluded that no change to the legislation is required. It beggars belief, because the have regards clearly overlap in some areas and are restated in others. I continue to believe that a proper review should be undertaken. I will remind myself of what the Government’s so-called review has already found, because I am not sure that I remember the details of it at the moment—I will check up on it between now and Report—but, as I indicated earlier, I may well return to this theme on Report, if not with this specific amendment. With that, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.