Is my right hon. I wrote to the Conservative Chief Whip asking him to replace them, but even though the Conservative party considers deregulation important, that position has not changed. As a member of the Deregulation Committee, I can tell the House that only one deregulatory order has been made this year. Last year, only one was made. The Bill is being debated to give them something more to do.
Anomalies develop and it simply no longer makes sense.
For example, invalid care allowance can be claimed only by people between the ages of 16 and 65. People often carry on caring beyond that age, so we want to change the law so that over-65s have a right to claim too. We also want to make changes so that in circumstances where the person being cared for dies, the allowance will continue to be paid for up to eight weeks to allow the carer time to come to terms with the loss. We propose to make changes to the vaccine damage payment scheme to reduce the disability threshold and to allow minors the opportunity to claim right up until the age of 21. As a final example, we would like to take important steps to relieve the burden on NHS charities, which currently have to submit their accounts twice to two separate Government bodies.