Enterprise Bill [HL]
Debate between Lord O'Neill of Clackmannan and Lord Cope of Berkeley
Lord Cope of Berkeley (Con)
My Lords, I was interested to see this amendment, and I understand what the noble Lord is proposing and have some sympathy with what he says. There was one interesting aspect which caught my eye when I read it. I was not sure whether it was deliberate, but the noble Lord has left in place that although the commissioner will be appointed by Letters Patent, the Secretary of State will appoint one or more deputies to act for him, even though the commissioner appoints the rest of the staff. Is it the intention to leave a deputy commissioner—of one or more deputy commissioners within the commissioner’s office—as the representative of the Secretary of State, which is what one would assume from their appointment if all the rest of the staff are appointed by the commissioner? If the amendment were carried, would the noble Lord seek to refine those proposals?
Lord O'Neill of Clackmannan (Lab)
My Lords, the Minister has had a distinguished record in public service and in the private sector. I imagine that in both of those areas she has had responsibility for the appointment of people to significant positions. As my noble friend Lord Mendelsohn was going through the amendments, I thought about what kind of person we will have as the Small Business Commissioner. The commissioner will be someone whose terms of reference are quite clear. He will be the creature—the satrap—of the Secretary of State. He will be appointed by that Secretary of State with little security of employment. He will be capable of being thrown out at the whim of the Minister. He will have little or no say over the appointment of the staff who will be working under him or her. I am sorry if I slipped into sexist language and assumed that the individual would be a man. I should have thought that a woman would be too sensible to do the job.
The truth of the matter is that this is a bit of a non-job. For it to masquerade as the defender of business, without an iota of independence of the Minister, means that the commission is, in effect, a state-run citizens advice bureau for businesspeople. Unless the salary is fabulous and the hours and conditions are not very onerous, there is not much incentive to take this job. Frankly, one would immediately ask questions of anybody who took the job in the first place.
It is for all of those reasons that the amendments tabled by my noble friend would make this appointment worth while. It would afford the business community a sense of confidence. A small business that has problems with payment and other concerns about administration will find that this place-person is in a job that affords the small business little or no protection and little or no opportunities for redress of an independent character. At the end of the day the operation of this office will be subject to the most minimal scrutiny and the reports will be given not to Parliament but to the Secretary of State alone, which leaves one with grave concerns.
I return to my original point. If the Minister were working for Tesco and it was going to appoint a customer ombudsperson on the basis that he would be hired or fired at the whim of the Tesco management and that reports would not be subject to public scrutiny—not necessarily by all the account holders of that company, but perhaps by the people who work in trading standards offices in local government, for example, who make it their job to protect the customers’ interests—would the public have any confidence in a person of that kind? I doubt it. I doubt whether any business establishing a position of this kind would have the nerve to present it in this way. Frankly, it is not worth a light. One can have no confidence in the appointment of this nature under the terms of reference that the Government envisage. They are missing out a tremendous opportunity and bringing the appointment into disrepute by the manner in which it is being presented and the terms of reference under which the individual to be appointed would have to operate.
At this early stage in the Bill, and given the significance of this appointment, we are missing an opportunity which would be filled by the amendments which my noble friend has just introduced, with which I am happy to be associated.