14:30 David Davis (Conservative)

The key point I am trying to make is that those organisations are already regulated, and we do not need any duplication of that regulation. A clear example I could give the hon. Gentleman would be the Climate Change (Scotland) Act 2009. Had this Bill been in force, it would have coincided with the 2010 general election, so the cross-party political consensus created around that Act—world-leading legislation—simply would not have happened. It was the key role of civil society actors that enabled and facilitated the emergence of that consensus. That is one of the reasons I am concerned that the Bill in its current form will inhibit democratic debate and not move us any further forward.

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15:30 John Healey (Labour)

The hon. Gentleman makes a very good point. Of course, it makes it especially difficult when organisations are trying to influence policy both in the devolved Administrations and in the UK Government. So many areas overlap now. It can be big things such as climate change, which was mentioned earlier; it can be things like fuel poverty or it can be much smaller things, which are partly devolved, partly not. A lot of work is done by such groups in influencing both the devolved Administrations and more widely.

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