Employment: Remuneration
Debate between Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts and Baroness Neville-Rolfe(8 years, 2 months ago)
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Baroness Neville-Rolfe
The noble Baroness is right that there is a place for comparisons, although, as somebody who sat on a number of boards, I actually think that one needs to look at the overall position and in relation to the wider workforce. That is something that we will certainly look at as part of the consultation that we will publish, because some of this stuff is complicated and we need to make sure that we talk to people on the detail.
Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts (Con)
My Lords, my noble friend referred to the importance of increasing shareholder power. Is she aware that individual shareholders in particular are increasingly under pressure to hold their shares through nominees? The nominee holder is not required to send on information to the individual shareholder about the company in which he or she has a holding. They are therefore disenfranchised. Would it not be a good idea to make a simple legal change which would require nominee companies to enfranchise and inform the people who actually hold the shares?
Baroness Neville-Rolfe
My noble friend, as always, brings unusual insights to the debate. It sounds as though this is a point that he and I should discuss further, because clearly we want to make sure that shareholders are exercising the oversight that we all want.
Intellectual Property (Unjustified Threats) Bill [HL]
Debate between Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts and Baroness Neville-Rolfe
Baroness Neville-Rolfe
My Lords, I am very glad to hear such a welcome for the provisions in the Bill. It is based on careful and detailed recommendations from the Law Commission, which worked very closely with stakeholders to develop the proposed approach and the Bill itself. However, as I said in my opening remarks, this is a very complex area—“highly specialised”, in words of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope of Craighead. I therefore welcome the expertise in the Room and the experts we have in this discussion. That will be helpful when we come to Committee. I am especially grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Bowles of Berkhamsted, for bringing her enormous experience to this area and for illustrating her comments with telling examples, which I am sure we will come back to when we come to the next stage of proceedings.
I also agree with the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, and my noble friend Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts, that we should thank and congratulate the Law Commission for and on its work. The debate shows what tough and specialist judgments it has to make all the time in the work it does. I agree with the noble and learned Lord that the Law Commission gives us ample reasons for supporting this reform—it seems to be of the right kind. I am obviously very aware of Sir Robin Jacob’s views, which do not, as he said, tally with those of most stakeholders, and I was glad to hear from the noble and learned Lord, Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood, and was pleased that he was struck by the quality of the Law Commission report. I also take this opportunity to thank my noble friend Lord Hodgson for the work he has done with the Law Commission, which I know it values. On his comments on the dissemination of better information on the Law Commission’s wider work, we will see how we can progress that, and if it would be helpful I will write to noble Lords.
Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts
It is not so much the dissemination of the Law Commission’s work but the question of where the individual reports have got to. It is not that nobody knows it is happening—its electoral law report is excellent—but it needs to be followed through, and if it is not, we need to be told why. Frankly, asking about this was a way to put pressure on the Government to make sure that this very good work is not dissipated. I understand that what the commission does may not always be acceptable—that is fine—but let us make sure that we either bring it forward and use it or kill it off and say that we do not want it. That is why I hope that the Minister will be able to tell us—not now; I quite understood that she could not do that, but perhaps she could write to those of us who have interests in this—the situation with regard to the tremendous work that the Law Commission has been doing on individual projects, not just this one.
Limited Liability Partnerships (Register of People with Significant Control) Regulations 2016
Debate between Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts and Baroness Neville-Rolfe
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills and Department for Culture, Media and Sport (Baroness Neville-Rolfe) (Con)
My Lords, for the convenience of noble Lords, it will be helpful to consider the Register of People with Significant Control Regulations 2016 together with the Limited Liability Partnerships (Register of People with Significant Control) Regulations 2016. These regulations set out how the register of people with significant control will work and apply the register to limited liability partnerships.
In 2013, the Prime Minister set out the ambition for the UK to improve corporate transparency and tackle criminal abuse of UK corporate entities. I am therefore pleased that we are today debating regulations underpinning the detail of the register of people with significant control, which bring that ambition one step closer to reality. The register of people with significant control is the foundation of the UK’s ambition to increase the transparency of UK corporate entities.
The benefits of the increased transparency provided by the register have the potential to be far reaching. For law enforcement, the Metropolitan police force estimates that, in cases where hidden beneficial ownership is an issue, 30% to 50% of an investigation can be spent in identifying the beneficial owners through a chain of ownership layers. For business, increased transparency will ensure that companies know who owns and controls their suppliers and customers. Investors will also know who controls companies they are investing in. For civil society, increased transparency will allow people to hold businesses to account, and citizens will know who controls companies when they purchase goods or services.
The register of people with significant control—the PSC register—will record the details of people who own or control UK companies. There are five separate conditions for being a PSC, which are set out in Part 1 of Schedule 1A to the Companies Act 2006: first, that an individual holds, directly or indirectly, more than 25% of the shares in a company; secondly, that an individual holds, directly or indirectly, more than 25% of the voting rights in a company; thirdly, that an individual holds the right, directly or indirectly, to appoint the majority of the board of directors; fourthly, that an individual has the right to exercise, or actually exercises, significant influence or control over a company, the definition of which is set out in statutory guidance, and would include individuals with significant veto rights over the operation of the company. I shall paraphrase what the fifth condition is for the benefit of noble Lords. The fifth condition is where a trust or a firm controls a company through one of the other conditions and there is a person who has the right to exercise, or actually exercises, significant influence or control over that trust or firm. Again, the definition of significant influence or control in these circumstances is set out in the statutory guidance.
Where a PSC meets one of the first three conditions, the company does not need to identify on its PSC register whether that person also meets the fourth condition—I remember discussing that during the passage of the Bill. In summary, the company regulations set out the detailed requirements for the PSC register. They are: the scope of the register; the fees a company can charge for providing copies of its own register; the information to be included on the register; the contents of warning and restriction notices; and how the protection regime will work for PSCs at risk of harm by their information being made public. The limited liability partnership regulations—the LLP regulations—apply the provisions of both the primary and secondary legislation on the PSC register to LLPs, with appropriate modifications.
The full costs of the register of people with significant control are set out in the three impact assessments. First, the enactment impact assessment sets out the broad policy costs, including the costs of the provisions in the Act and many of the provisions in the regulations, which are calculated to have a net cost to business of £85.9 million per year. Secondly, the protection regime impact assessment sets out the costs and benefits of companies applying to the protection regime. This is calculated to have a net cost to business of £4.7 million per year. Thirdly, the impact assessment on the costs and benefits of making a company’s own PSC register publicly available calculates the net cost to business of companies giving access on request to the company’s own register. This is calculated to have a net cost to business of £10.9 million per year. A very important point, given the scale of these costs, is that they are spread over a very substantial population of some 3.4 million companies, including 59,000 LLPs. The average cost per company is estimated to be £25 per annum. As I explained earlier, this is an important policy and the benefits of the register have the potential to far outweigh the costs.
The PSC regime contains robust penalties to promote compliance with the requirements. These measures support law enforcement and the tax authorities’ existing powers and investigations. The most serious offences, when a company fails to investigate its ownership or when a person or body fails to respond to a request for information from the investigating company, carry a maximum sentence of two years’ imprisonment on indictment or a fine, or both. We will take strong action where companies and individuals break the rules.
Noble Lords will recall from the debates on the Small Business, Enterprise and Employment Bill last year that we put in place a protection regime because this Government believe it is important, where an individual is at serious risk of violence or intimidation, to protect a PSC’s identity from the public register. The PSC’s information will of course still be available to law enforcement, and the individual will still have to fulfil their PSC obligations. Through these regulations, we have set a high bar for the protection regime, so it cannot be abused or damage the utility of the public register. We have tightly drawn the grounds for protection where the risk of violence or intimidation is a result of the company’s activities or where the risk comes from the association of the PSC with that company.
Parts 6 and 7 set out who can apply for protection, what types of PSC information can be protected and how they can apply. Noble Lords will see that Part 6 follows the successful existing company law for directors, whereby a PSC’s usual residential address can be protected. I know I have benefited from that company provision in the past. Part 7 is novel and allows the protection of all of an individual’s PSC information from the public register. This is because we recognise that the nature of a PSC differs from that of a company director. As part of the broader package of changes to company filing requirements made by the Small Business, Enterprise and Employment Act, the date of birth—2 January in my case—will be suppressed on the public register at Companies House in the details of both PSCs and directors, so that dates of birth are not so freely available.
I will also set out the key differences in how the limited liability partnership regulations apply compared to the company provisions. The LLP regulations adapt two of the conditions mentioned earlier, so that they apply more appropriately to LLPs. The first condition is adapted to take account of the fact that LLPs do not have share capital. The revised condition is that an individual has the right to more than 25% of the surplus assets of an LLP on winding up. The third condition, which is adapted to reflect the fact that LLPs do not have directors, is that an individual holds the right to appoint or remove the majority of persons entitled to take part in the management of the LLP.
I will bring the other parts of the PSC register provisions to your Lordships’ attention. An important part of the PSC register conditions is the term, “significant influence and control” in the fourth and fifth conditions. During the passage of the Bill I explained that the meaning of this term would be set out in statutory guidance. The draft statutory guidance for companies was laid in the House Library alongside these regulations. I am very grateful to the company law experts and civil society organisations that helped develop this guidance throughout last year. I am also grateful to the businesses and individuals who commented on the guidance when it was published for final comments in December.
The draft statutory guidance for LLPs has also been prepared and is currently published on GOV.UK. This statutory guidance can be laid in Parliament only once the LLP regulations we are debating today have been made. My department has also developed, with the help of a working group of legal experts, business representatives and civil society organisations, non-statutory guidance for companies and LLPs to guide them through the requirements step by step. The guidance was published at the beginning of February and has been well received by businesses so far.
Before I conclude, I will give the Committee an update on international progress, and highlight how the Government are building on the foundation of the PSC register and leading by example on the global stage by putting the register in place. In the EU, the fourth anti-money laundering directive was adopted in May 2015, which means that by early 2017 all member states must hold beneficial ownership information through a central register. I welcome the close working with my honourable friend Harriett Baldwin, the Economic Secretary to the Treasury in the other House, to transpose this directive.
The UK is taking the lead on extractives transparency. We were the first member state to implement reporting requirements for all large and listed companies, and we expect the first reports for UK companies detailing the payments they have made to Governments across the world to be made available later this year. In a similar vein, in October 2014 the UK was successfully admitted as a candidate country for the extractives industry transparency initiative. This in effect puts more information into the public domain and allows the Government to be held to account for our policies on the extractive industries in the UK. We continue to work with other countries, through the G7 and G20 fora, to implement international corporate transparency standards, which are of course very important. I commend these regulations to the Committee.
Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts (Con)
My Lords, I want to intervene briefly. My noble friend makes a powerful case for the regulations and I appreciate the changes which have been made, particularly as regards the protection regime to allow confidentiality where people may be vulnerable to intimidation or attack. However, I want to sound a cautionary word about how we can pile further regulation in with the best of intentions but which may have consequences that we do not really appreciate and do not want. It is the balance to be struck between transparency on the one hand and privacy on the other; that is to say, my right to confidentiality about my personal and private affairs and the right of the wider public to know about situations where my actions may affect them.
The regulatory balance that we are trying to strike must be to have a regulatory structure that is sufficiently robust and imposes sufficiently strong standards to attract people, because they have confidence in the way the markets are being policed, but not such high standards that the bureaucratic burden of doing business becomes too heavy and people therefore seek alternative ways of carrying out their businesses in markets in other parts of the world. We also need a structure that is risk-focused so that it looks at the points of vulnerability and worry. My noble friend was unwise enough to mention the money laundering directive in her remarks, which gives me a chance to say that this is a classic example of blanket regulation which achieves very little indeed. It makes wonderful work for compliance officers filling in forms. The accountants love it because they have to verify that it has all been done, and the thousands of our fellow citizens who are wandering around the country with certified copies of their passports and a utility bill under their arm beggars belief.
The Government have resisted and resisted a de minimis number, which would mean that when you wish to open a bank account for your godson that you can put £10 into on his birthday, you would not go through the ridiculous performance that we are going through now. I think that the situation has reached a level of fear among the regulated community that is hard to believe. Last week I happened to have a money laundering inquiry. When I left Oxford, I went to work in the United States. I had an inquiry saying, “We see that you worked in the United States in the 1960s. What were you paid?”. That was 50 years ago and I cannot remember. That sort of thing brings the regulatory system into disrepute.
Baroness Neville-Rolfe
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, for his support for these regulations and for his kind words about the Explanatory Memorandum. I will make sure they are passed on to those who worked on it. It always helps to thank people when things are good because that leads to yet further good performance. Let us hope that the regulatory structure works. As the noble Lord said, it is a big change, but this is an important new regime for companies and it is critical that the detailed requirements are correct and fit for purpose. Increased transparency about who owns and controls UK companies is important in maintaining the UK’s higher standards of corporate trust. As we have discussed in relation to many different issues recently, having the sunlight of transparency can be an extremely powerful policy weapon, and we as a Government seek to use it in a number of areas.
We have committed to a review: I think that both sets of regulations require the Government to review the costs to business within five years. I note the points that the noble Lord made, in particular in relation to the LLP regulations, and will make sure that we keep an eye on that. I also repeat the hope that other countries will move ahead as we have done with the PSC, because this only works, as in so many areas, if other countries do this as well.
It was a delight to see my noble friend Lord Hodgson returning to the debate. I am grateful for his cautionary warning about perverse effects, which one could write into many areas of regulatory life. As he says, we need the right balance between transparency and privacy. We focus on risk, and the National Crime Agency is fully on board to be involved in the protection assessment process. As an expert in risk assessment, the NCA is well placed to ensure that assessments are consistently applied and protection applications robustly interrogated.
I share my noble friend’s concerns about the operation of the money laundering directive, which I used to speak about when I was on the Back Benches. I am glad to say that the business department and the Treasury are doing work on its application as part of a deregulation review. I very much welcome the chance to have a discussion with him so that his examples can be fed into that work.
Baroness Neville-Rolfe
I thank my noble friend for that and will make sure that it is seen by the relevant reviewers. My husband has already provided some examples. He has to look after an elderly aunt—not an obvious money launderer—and has run into the same sorts of difficulties that I am hearing from my noble friend. We need to try to improve things in these areas, which is partly why the work we are doing on the deregulation initiative continues to be very important. The Treasury is in the lead of course on the transposition of the directive, but BIS has responsibility for article 30. The important thing is that the two departments are working together to try to make sure that this is done in a proportionate and sensible way.
My noble friend Lord Hodgson asked a very good question about the accuracy of data at Companies House and whether we receive complaints about that. Companies House will follow up on all complaints about company information being incorrect or incomplete. My noble friend may be right that there are not that many complaints but it will follow them up. In 80% of cases where there appears to be a breach of the Companies Act, companies correct the information straightaway. Most companies are trustworthy and want to provide the correct data, although there are occasionally errors. Where appropriate, investigations are passed to other enforcement agencies, and the changes we are making here will improve our chances of catching the bad guys.
Finally, the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, asked about capital. My officials considered whether using rights over profit and capital should be part of the approach to identifying the PSCs of the LLPs but, in consultation, business and others told us that this could be difficult conceptually and operationally. As I explained in my opening remarks, the regulations therefore operate on the basis of the closest analogy to owning a share of the company’s capital for LLPs, which would be the right to a share in the LLP’s capital if it were wound up. We will have to see how that goes, as we discussed, and we have the review provision, as I have already explained.
Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts
I am not asking my noble friend to reply now but can she give us the Government’s considered view as to whether 10 quid gives you the right of access to a limited liability company? Will she also comment on the citizens’ registration service that apparently—I may be completely wrong—enables you to go online and get a company registered with no money-laundering checks at all? It must be a hole in the dam if you set up this elaborate structure but people say, “If you do it this way, you can have no money-laundering checks at all”. I am not asking for a response now but it would be helpful if she could comment on that at some length.
Baroness Neville-Rolfe
My Lords, I should like to reflect and write to my noble friend. Obviously, we want to make it easy for people to set up companies. We have had a record level of company creation in this country, and that has been part of the Government’s success over the past few years. I will certainly write to my noble friend and look forward to engaging further with him on this important topic.
Enterprise Bill [HL]
Debate between Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts and Baroness Neville-Rolfe
Baroness Neville-Rolfe
My Lords, this amendment is designed to protect small businesses from cyberattacks. I was really pleased to hear about the knowledge of the noble Lord, Lord Mendelsohn, on this issue. I wish I had been at the conference which he described and I agree with his objective of amplifying the issue, especially in relation to small business. I also agree with him about the role of the City of London Police.
When I worked in business, an attack on personal data held by the company was one of my top risks and concerns. Recent events demonstrate that businesses need to take action on cybersecurity and can benefit from external advice and guidance. I think it is fair to say that the Government are doing a great deal in partnership with industry on cybersecurity. We have a strong strategic programme in place, which is right. There is a five-year plan for an £860-million national cybersecurity programme to provide a range of advice and guidance to businesses of all sizes, including a specific guide, Small Businesses: What you need to know about Cyber Security. I have copies of that guide.
We have stepped up this activity recently by relaunching the “Cyber Streetwise” campaign, which offers small businesses clear and simple advice on how to protect themselves. There is information in the press and the Committee may have seen advertising at train stations or on the tube. In addition, the Government’s “Cyber Essentials” scheme shows small businesses how to protect themselves against common cyberthreats. Since October 2014 the Government have required their suppliers to hold a Cyber Essentials certificate if they are handling personal data or sensitive information. That is all increasing awareness by amplification. There are more than 1,000 Cyber Essentials certificates, which have been issued to big organisations such as Vodafone, JCB, Barclays, the Royal Mail and BAE, as well as to colleges, universities and so on. We are working to get thousands of companies and their supply chains to adopt the scheme.
Our approach is to work with a range of law enforcement and other bodies to build partnerships with businesses, representatives and trade bodies, and to use these to increase awareness. We do not believe that the suggested amendment, which I think is mainly probing, goes beyond the existing approach in ambition or effectiveness. Putting guidance into legislation could result in a tick-box approach where guidance is merely published without the associated awareness-raising, partnership-building and behaviour change that is completely essential in this area.
We want to avoid unnecessary regulation. The amendment would create uncertainty as to what businesses were legally required to do and what was best practice, possibly even giving rise to litigation. It could also reduce our flexibility in dealing with what is, frankly, a very fast-moving issue. I think we were all astonished by the Sony leak and by recent events in the UK. We are not convinced that legislating in this Bill is the right thing to do. Following the information leak at TalkTalk, though, a committee of the National Security Council is now looking at this. Cyber Ministers are looking as a group at what further changes are needed. In addition the Digital Economy Minister, Ed Vaizey, promised last week that we would meet the Information Commissioner.
Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts
As my noble friend is talking about the broad range of plans that the Government have, could they address something with the European Commission? As the noble Lord, Lord Mendelsohn, pointed out, cybercrime is no respecter of boundaries. The Commission has located a cybersecurity centre in Heraklion in Crete, a place that you cannot fly to in winter because you have to go via Athens. In this very fast-moving area, it would be sensible to find a way of placing the centre more centrally where people would be prepared to work and operate. I mention that in passing because it is something that needs to be looked at. I underline absolutely what the Minister says—the Government are doing a very great deal here—but this is something that just does not fit with our plans, because the European convention is so important.
Enterprise Bill [HL]
Debate between Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts and Baroness Neville-Rolfe
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills and Department for Culture, Media and Sport (Baroness Neville-Rolfe) (Con)
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, for his clarity and succinctness, and for the other comments that have been made in this debate. If I do not answer all the points exactly, I hope to do so during the course of a series of amendments that we have; for example, I shall have some more to say on quality a little further on. I shall try to look at these amendments in the round.
Amendment 50 seeks to remove part of the definition of the term “public body” from the clause, which relates to bodies that are not public authorities but have functions of a public nature and are funded wholly or partly from public funds. The definition gives an overview of the types of bodies that might be covered by the duty. The Government think it right in principle—and I think that there is agreement—that public authorities and other bodies performing public functions should be capable of being subjected to targets. However, this is only a power to prescribe; it does not oblige all those that fall within the other public bodies category to be subject to a target. Therefore, a particular body will be subject to targets only when the Secretary of State makes secondary legislation—just to be clear. Our intention is that bodies with a workforce in England of more than 250 employees will be subject to the duty.
My noble friend Lord Hodgson is absolutely right that bodies are entitled to clarification as to which bodies are in and which are out, and we will set out the full list of public bodies affected in a consultation at that we intend to publish during the passage of the Bill. That will be an opportunity for those affected to respond to the consultation. I am sure that it is not yet available, but this Bill starts in this House, and there is an interplay between what we are doing here, which is perhaps relatively narrow, and the emerging policy on apprenticeships, which coincides with it. The list of bodies will be set out in regulations, and we will bring those forward for debate in both Houses, following the passage of the Bill.
Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts
So it is going to be a very long list of a series of charities and voluntary groups, and it will not be available until after the Bill has passed. Is that what the Minister just said, because that is not terribly satisfactory?
Baroness Neville-Rolfe
I shall try to answer on the specifics, to give a feel for bodies that will be in and those that will be out. A key concern was that, for example, bodies as small as Kids Company could be caught, but the receipt of the grant that it used to have, should it still exist, would not suffice to bring the body into scope. That is my understanding.
To respond to a point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, we are going to use the ONS definitions as a starting point for considering which bodies should be in scope. However, as I have said, we will be consulting. We appreciate that a body may feel that it has good reasons for not being in scope. For example, I know that the noble Baroness, Lady Warwick, is concerned about smaller housing associations. Following the ONS’s announcement on Friday, the Government have confirmed that they will,
“bring forward measures that seek to allow housing associations to become private sector bodies again as soon as possible”.
That would take them out of the scope of this duty, and we will take account of that when preparing our consultation. It is a fast-moving area, so I appreciate the complications, but I am happy to engage with people to give them as much clarity as we can. The scope will be set out for consultation, and the limit of 250 employees will help to some extent to make people less concerned about bodies that might be brought in.
Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts
One area causing particular concern is that of the larger charities providing overseas aid, and distributing it for DfID, which come above the 250-person ceiling or floor and are operating not in the United Kingdom but overseas. It would help if officials or the Minister could let us know whether they as a category will be included in the need for apprenticeships.
Enterprise Bill [HL]
Debate between Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts and Baroness Neville-Rolfe
Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts
My Lords, I just want to say a word about Amendment 30, to which the noble Lord, Lord Mendelsohn, has just spoken. On Monday, at our first meeting in Committee, I said that I thought that the SBC role had been drawn in a way that is a bit too focused, but I say to the noble Lord that Amendment 30 would take that role well beyond the bounds of what the Small Business Commissioner should be doing. The comments that I made on Monday about payday loans apply equally here. This is not part of his competence. Hundreds of bodies and people make recommendations about how to improve finances for small and medium-sized companies. That is a serious issue, but it is not part of what he should be doing. He is focused on a different part of the field. I am sure that my noble friend will not accept the amendment, as plenty of bodies are looking into the provision of finance to small business and this would be a distraction from the commissioner’s central task, albeit that I still think that the central task is a little too narrowly drawn.
Baroness Neville-Rolfe
My Lords, I thank all noble Lords for their comments and the noble Lord, Lord O’Neill, for his humour and for his lessons in how to amend Bills, which will be useful when I return to the Back Benches.
We believe that the commissioner will be able to achieve maximum impact by publishing reports on complaints only if he or she has the discretion when to use this power in a targeted way. Amendment 25 would require the commissioner to publish a report on every complaint that he or she considers. We believe that that is unnecessary. The commissioner may, for example, consider a series of very similar complaints and may find that there is little value in compiling a report for each separate complaint when the activity could be captured instead in the aggregate annual report. In other cases, the complaint might have arisen from very particular circumstances, meaning that the determination had no wider application and was of little public interest. We believe that the commissioner should have the freedom to decide. This is a matter of his independence.
I turn to Amendments 26 and 27. A blanket approach of publishing the names of respondents, as set out in Amendment 26, has the potential to be unfair—for example, when a complaint is not upheld. It could indeed encourage mischievous complaints. Under this proposal, anyone who was complained about would be the subject of publicity. Giving the commissioner the discretion to choose whether to name the respondent will be a real incentive for businesses to work constructively with the commissioner, to pick up on the last discussion. We will see a real change in behaviour being encouraged.
Baroness Neville-Rolfe
My Lords, I thank noble Lords for their amendments and their constructive contribution to the Bill. I am delighted that the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, and the noble Lord, Lord Low, have joined the debate.
As has been said, the amendments would ensure that the EHRC could not be subject to, or required to report on, three key regulatory policies: the business impact target, the growth duty and the Regulators’ Code. Extending the business impact target to statutory regulators is a key part of Government’s aim to ensure that regulators across the board continue to achieve high standards of regulation in order to drive growth and ensure a strong economy. I think we have agreement on that broad principle.
However, although we are asking regulators to be transparent in reporting the impact of their decisions on business, the Bill will give us no powers to interfere in the decisions they take. There is a clear distinction to be drawn. The fact that a regulator may not be aimed at business does not mean that the regulator does not affect business or the voluntary sector. To my mind, there is nothing wrong with having an incentive to look at the impact of the way you design measures to ensure that, for example, they are constructed in a sensible way for small businesses. Regulatory independence of course underpins business confidence, and is vital to all regulators—it is not only true, as has been said, for the EHRC.
We have seen the EHRC’s briefing note on these issues, which says that it produces approximately 30 pieces of guidance a year and operates across the whole economy. So the range of business making use of the guidance is very substantial. For all those businesses to keep track of that guidance is a cost to business. Sometimes it can outweigh the cost to the commission of assessing the impact as and when it issues new guidance.
I know from experience that the EHRC issues very valuable guidance—for example, the religion or belief guidance for employers issued in 2013. I remember when I worked in the retail sector talking to the EHRC about what it might do to address concerns it had among big employers. So there is an interaction. It is important work, but obviously there is a need to ensure that the guidance is appropriately prepared for business and minimises the burden of any such directions. I hope that the EHRC will look carefully at its relationship with business and ensure that it reflects on the cost which it is imposing. This is what inclusion in the business impact target would achieve and why we have proposed it.
The EHRC—I am not sure people are aware of this—is already within the scope of the Regulator’s Code and is also covered by its predecessor, which was introduced in 2008, by the then Labour Administration. I understand that the EHRC already complies with the code and is transparent about its activities reporting annually. That transparency is just what Clause 14 is aiming to achieve. In practical terms, it will make little difference to what the EHRC currently does, which is why I am not convinced of Amendment 48F.
Amendment 49C prevents the reporting requirements for those in scope of the growth duty from applying to the EHRC. We had the debate less than a year ago when considering the growth duty. The Government’s initial view was that the duty should apply. However, in the light of debate and representations from your Lordships, we undertook that the EHRC would be excluded. I am happy to repeat that the Government will not seek to apply the growth duty to the EHRC. I want to be completely clear about that. The assurances were sufficient for your Lordships in the last Parliament and I hope they will be sufficient again.
The key reason given for excluding EHRC from these three policies, as far as I can see, is that it might prejudice their international A status as a human rights body, which is obviously incredibly important. However, there is not a risk with the growth duty, as it does not apply to the EHRC nor does the EHRC have a small business champion for the reasons that we discussed last time and on which the noble Lord quoted me. We know it is not the case with the code, because it has applied successfully to the EHRC for years, and it has been accredited internationally while it has been in place.
The business impact target is a transparency measure. It does not fetter the independence of the regulator to make its own decisions in relation to the changes it introduces. Inclusion in the target would require EHRC to measure and report its impact on business, and have the figures validated by the RPC. The RPC is not government, as we discussed, it is a body of independent experts and looks only at the evidence and analysis.
The noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, talked about the Charities Commission. The point has been made that it does not affect business. However, the business impact target covers the impact on both the private sector and the Third Sector. The Charity Commission certainly affects the third sector. We will consult in the new year on the list of regulators and welcome the views of Peers and regulators. We are trying to reduce red tape in life; reduce red tape for small business. I believe that a lot of charities—the noble Baroness may play this back at me on another occasion—have quite a lot in common with small businesses.
How does the inclusion of the Charity Commission help those who donate? In her inimitable way, the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, talked about the consumer. Including the Charity Commission would encourage it to minimise burdens on charities ensuring, I would say, that more of donors’ money benefits good causes rather than being tied up in meeting the commission’s requirements.
There was also a point in Amendments 56 and 57 on retrospectivity. The focus of concern is the potential to change the legal effect of actions already taken.
Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts
The Minister might like to look at the statutory objectives laid down in the Charities Act on the Charity Commission and its effective operation. We may get into duplication here. Five statutory requirements have to be complied with, one of which certainly overlaps. Unfortunately, I do not have the Act with me and I cannot remember the precise wording, but it might be worthwhile looking at it, otherwise, we may get a degree of duplication. Perhaps the Committee can come back to that.
Baroness Neville-Rolfe
I thank my noble friend for tabling this amendment, which seeks to include in the Bill a specific reporting requirement for regulators subject to the code to provide details of the activities, including costs, of any organisation employed to undertake work on their behalf. At the heart of the amendment lies a concern about the hidden costs to business. The example that he gave was that financial service regulators may seek to discharge their regulatory functions by using their powers to commission reviews by “skilled persons” and charging the businesses concerned for the cost of that work. As I understand it, that is at the heart of the problem that my noble friend has identified.
My noble friend is right to seek transparency and accountability about how these powers are used and I think that we have made some progress in this area. Both the FSA and the PRA now routinely publish information on their Section 166 Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 activity. This includes quarterly reporting on the number of skilled persons reports that they have commissioned and annual reporting on the aggregate costs of these reports. As my noble friend probably knows, this information is available online. It seems to me that the disclosure that he seeks is being addressed and I am not sure that there is harm elsewhere that justifies creating new regulation in this area. In the interests of brevity, I do not see a case to amend the Bill and ask him to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts
I am grateful to my noble friend for that full response. One of the questions is, of course, that I just happen to know about the financial services area, where there are lots of regulators that we are considering as part of this section of the Bill. It would be helpful if we could try to ascertain whether other regulators are engaged in the same process because it enables them to add to the regulatory burden very considerably. I am grateful for the comments and the further research that the Bill team have done on this matter and I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts
I cannot resist, although I know that the Committee is like a horse heading for the stable, therefore I shall be very brief indeed. On the comments made by the noble Lord, Lord Mendelsohn, on money laundering, this area has a life of its own, and the impact on smaller businesses is stupendous and without any real evidence of any efficacy whatever. This area is still growing, and the tentacles of bureaucracy are widening all the time, therefore the burden will be greater. I therefore very much support the idea that we take any steps to make sure that it is effective—not that we should not do it, but that it is effective. That is the thrust of the noble Lord’s Amendment 49B and trying to make sure that we try to prevent the further spread of this. I have today received a request about money laundering from my clearing bank. When I left university in 1964 I went to work in America. The bank has written to me saying, “We see you worked in America in the 1960s; tell us what you were paid as part of our money laundering investigation”. What that can possibly add to its knowledge of me 50 years ago I cannot possibly imagine. If you use the term “money laundering” everyone says it must be a good idea. It will require a big effort to make sure that we are effective. The question is: are we stopping people doing these terrible things, not just spraying information around and ticking boxes? Therefore, all power to the Minister.
Baroness Neville-Rolfe
My Lords, I share the sentiment behind Amendment 49B to ensure that regulators have regard to the needs of business when dealing with money laundering requirements. As I used to say when I was on the Back Benches, the regime was excessively burdensome and some businesses feel confused by overlapping or restrictive guidance. However, these concerns cannot be addressed by simply looking at how regulators deal with small business. There may be examples of requirements that are particularly difficult for certain entities, but it is the interactions between different types of business and with the banks that is at the heart of the problem. So small companies with innovative business models or ways of complying with requirements, to know their customers, may find it difficult to maintain business relationships with large banks which do not understand how a particular model works. The bank may simply decide not to do business, rather than expose itself to the risk that the small company is being used for money laundering.
Difficulties can be caused by the guidance that is produced by the various regulators and supervisors. That is why we are looking at the regime in the round. We are now running a Cutting Red Tape review of money laundering controls. It is important that companies that are genuinely confused about what they need to do have this confusion addressed. Our call for evidence is open until 6 November—my husband is planning to send sacks of stuff—and we are keen to speak to all NGOs, businesses and trade associations with an interest, particularly SMEs.
We want to examine more seriously the potential to improve compliance and efficiency, by identifying aspects of the good supervisory regime that appears to businesses in the regulated sector to be unclear, cumbersome, conflicting or confusing. We are already speaking to a broad range of sectors and we would be very pleased to have examples from your Lordships. The Government understand that the regime can be improved. We published the first national risk assessment for money laundering and terrorist finance risks on 15 October and one of the findings was that the supervisory regime was inconsistent. We accept that this needs to be addressed.
The evidence being gathered by the BRE will help to inform work under the Government’s action plan to reform the regime and to ensure that it is consistent; treats large and small businesses sensibly and proportionately; and follows a truly risk-based approach allowing resources to be targeted at the areas that are at greatest risk of money laundering and terrorist financing. These are also important policy objectives which must not be forgotten in today’s discussions.
I hope that gives some reassurance. I have a good deal of excellent detail on Amendment 49D in relation to investment fraud, but given the lateness of the hour, I wonder if the Committee would like me to write about that. I think it means that we do not need to amend the Bill, but a lot of good work is being done by the FCA which I would like to share with noble Lords and give more publicity to in order to get after the scammers. I hope that the noble Lord will feel able to withdraw his amendment.
Enterprise Bill [HL]
Debate between Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts and Baroness Neville-Rolfe
Baroness Neville-Rolfe
My Lords, the proposal before the House is set out in the Bill. I think we have all agreed that this is quite a challenging office to set up. We want to get off on the right footing, and for today’s purposes the focus is on where this imbalance of power is.
Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts
Before the noble Lord, Lord Stoneham, finally withdraws this amendment, I hope that, if he is to persist in this at a later stage of the Bill, he will reflect on how one distinguishes payment from monitoring and contract. If you accept a payment-by-results contract, you are committed to it long before you get to the payment stage. If you change the monitoring methods in the middle of the contract, the payment flows from that because it is then paid a different way. The yardsticks, the key performance indicators, will be different. While it is very neat for the Government to say this is about payment, it washes back up the chain to what was done before. I understand what my noble friend Lord Cope and the Minister said, but these are not discrete silos. They are all interlinked.
Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts
Amendment 35 just says,
“including details of any visits to the different regions of the United Kingdom”.
It does not say that the commissioner has to make them. If they do not say anything, we will assume that they have not gone. Without constricting or constraining the Small Business Commissioner’s judgment of the best way of executing the task, there is, nevertheless, an inherent idea that a certain number of visits should take place.
Baroness Neville-Rolfe
I thank my noble friend for that clarification. This is an eminently sensible approach: we need to make sure that the interests of regions are taken into account. Although we try not to be, some of us tend to be a bit M25-focused. I think my noble friend is saying that there is a wider wealth of opportunity on payment issues right across our great nation.
I have tried to respond to the various questions which have been raised and I hope that, in the circumstances, my noble friend and the noble Lords will feel able to withdraw their amendments.
Baroness Neville-Rolfe
My Lords, that would be excluded in the approach we have adopted in the Bill.
Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts
I am grateful to the noble Lords, Lord Mendelsohn and Lord Stoneham, for their supportive remarks. I am also grateful to my noble friend for giving a degree of assurance that we are not expecting the individual to be stuck within the M25 but to get out and about. I will, obviously, read carefully what she has said. I am interested in how we are going to have equality of arms with regulators. My noble friend made some interesting comments on that which I will reflect on. In the mean time, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Mendelsohn
Briefly, I support this amendment, which dovetails quite nicely with an issue that we will raise later on the powers of the Small Business Commissioner. There are many difficult cases, on which many people receive letters, where the ability to use legal processes works massively to the detriment of small businesses, and it is exceptionally difficult to be able to extend those procedures. I think that the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, made the point that it is not about getting involved in the legal case in and of itself but about using the convening power and sense of the Small Business Commissioner to help to get these processes streamlined to make sure that small businesses are not affected by that asymmetry. This is a very sensible and proportionate amendment and we support it.
Baroness Neville-Rolfe
I thank my noble friend Lord Hodgson for his amendment and for his examples, including the IP examples—an area that he knows is close to my heart. I like the Scylla and Charybdis parallel, which one could use more broadly in public policy. I did Latin A-level, being in an era when they did not teach women science.
Clause 3 provides for publication of general advice and information relevant to small businesses and their supply relations, and to resolving disputes. Under existing drafting, obviously this could include information about the timings of and risks of delays within legal proceedings. However, I think that the intention of my noble friend is much broader than the provision of advice and information to small business. As I see it, he intends that the commissioner should shine a light on where delays in legal processes and litigation tactics are used in a manner that is detrimental to small business as they frustrate efforts to resolve a dispute, as he said in examples that he raised.
Clause 9 requires the commissioner to publish an annual report on its activities. This must include a summary of the matters raised with the commissioner by small businesses that the commissioner considers are the most significant. It can of course include any recommendations that the commissioner may have in relation to such matters. Therefore, if issues related to delays in legal processes are brought to the commissioner’s attention and she or he considers them significant, he or she may include them in the annual report.
It is difficult to develop this further without impeding the right of business to have access to the courts. However, obviously, as the noble Lord, Lord Mendelsohn, says, the commissioner has a certain convening power. I do not think that my noble friend Lord Hodgson was trying to get him involved in individual cases, and that convening power will be able to be used to survey what is happening in these areas—as I said, to shine a light on them. I therefore agree with the spirit of the amendment, which is to shine a light on delays, on aspects of the courts system or on the exchange of legal letters that are preventing or deterring small businesses from resolving disputes. However, the Small Business Commissioner has sufficient powers in this respect and I am not persuaded that we should go any further in this area.
Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts
My Lords, I am again grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Mendelsohn, for his support on this set of amendments.
I am slightly disappointed by my noble friend’s response. The reason is this. Lawyers are extremely jealous of their territory. When the Small Business Commissioner decides to say something critical of the law without having specific powers built into the Act, he will come under considerable criticism. There will be a danger that he will flunk the issue. These are tricky, difficult issues; they are not easy. There are always two sides to the argument, but we need someone who has the responsibility to speak out on specific issues, and the legal issue is one where a specific duty is important. Otherwise, I can see it being shuffled to the side and put into the pile of complaints that are too difficult to deal with. The commissioner will say, “Let us leave that, because we shall only have trouble. We will only have the lawyers getting after us for interfering with due process”—my noble friend even referred to the question of due process in her response.
I shall reflect a bit further on this but of course, in the mean time, for this afternoon, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Baroness Neville-Rolfe
I certainly agree that the convening power is one of the key strengths of setting up a new Small Business Commissioner, joining the dots and noticing perhaps that there are a number of cases in an area and putting that into the annual report, or drawing attention to it. It may be that we are not as far apart as I had thought. We are reluctant to make amendments or change the role of the Small Business Commissioner in this area. In the light of the discussion that we have had, I hope that the noble Lord will feel able to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts
We have heard a lot about navigation and the website, and how that will work. Will the Small Business Commissioner have his or her website, or will it be part of the government website? In that connection there has been a lot of criticism about navigation through the government website. The Charity Commission has now had to move into the government website and accessibility has dropped dramatically. There have been many complaints. If we were going to put the Small Business Commissioner website into the government website we would want to make sure that accessibility is better than that currently experienced. I am not asking for an answer to that question now. Perhaps the Minister can write to me about it in due course.
Baroness Neville-Rolfe
Of course, I am very happy to write to my noble friend. I have to say that I was a GOV.UK sceptic to start with, which is perhaps the point that he is making. I have found that there have been transitional problems, particularly with those organisations that have been unfortunate enough to have to, as it were, migrate from their website to the new website, but actually it has a lot of strengths. I think we are talking here about a new website—the Small Business Commissioner’s website. I think it would be rather odd not to have it on GOV.UK because that is where small businesses go. Obviously, it has to be a special website and suitably promoted. However, if I have any further thoughts I will certainly write or we can talk about it because we need to get this right. It is very similar to the Consumer Rights Act, where we spent a lot of time discussing how the new rules would be described to business and passed on to consumers.