Ministerial Visits: Travel Costs
Lord Rooker Excerpts(9 years, 8 months ago)
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Lord Wallace of Saltaire
My Lords, I am not, of course, aware of the incident to which the noble Lord refers. There are well established practices, which, as far as I am aware, have not changed under this Government, for dividing between ministerial roles and political activities that Ministers may undertake while visiting particular constituencies. Paragraph 10.14 of my 2010 copy of the Ministerial Code says:
“Where a visit is a mix of political and official engagements, it is important that the department and the Party each meet a proper proportion of the actual cost”.
Lord Rooker (Lab)
Is it not the case, now that we have a fixed-term Parliament, that Ministers and departments know the date of the election? It is a piece of cake to fix all the ministerial visits to coincide with that timetable, which did not exist before the fixed-term Parliament legislation. I know from personal experience how the departments watched things as we got close to the end of a five-year Parliament, but in a four-year Parliament, when the date of the election was not known, those rules did not apply. So is it not the case that, with a fixed-term Parliament, it is easier to manipulate government visits for party-political purposes?
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
My Lords, I think ministerial visits that include some party-political role have taken place in all the years of any Parliament. Every time I drive past the Humber Bridge, I am reminded that previous Labour Governments have on occasions used quite substantial gifts of public expenditure to influence the outcome of elections in particular constituencies.
Deregulation Bill
Lord Rooker Excerpts(9 years, 8 months ago)
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Lord Rooker (Lab)
I do not want to interrupt the noble Lord, because I agree with everything he has said. When he discussed this with Westminster, I am curious to know whether they discussed the insurance implications—not so much the contents, but one assumes that the owner in a block of flats pays insurance through the service charge. Quite clearly, the lease must be being breached in the sense of the numbers. The insurance companies must have some view about this, because it leaves everybody else liable and may leave the owner of the particular dwelling subject to sanctions by the insurance company. That may be a route to helping to solve the problem.
Lord Tope
The noble Lord asks if I discussed this with Westminster: specifically no, not with Westminster City Council. However, in the course of the many months that this has been going on, my noble friends and I have heard from numerous individuals and organisations involved in this. It is indeed one of the issues that others have raised and the noble Lord is right to draw attention to it. Others have been health and safety, fire regulations and all sorts of issues, which will be helped, to some extent, by whatever regulations are introduced.
I began by saying I wanted to be brief. I think that I am temperamentally incapable of being brief on this issue, but I will try. On registration, which is absolutely critical, I will quote from the letter that the leader of Westminster City Council wrote to the noble Lord, Lord Ahmad, on exactly that point. She concluded by saying:
“Having dismissed the suggestion of a simple, light-touch notification process for those seeking to let out their property on a short-term basis”,
which is what the Minister did at the previous stage, she asks,
“how will a local authority be able to identify and therefore enforce against a property being let for the 91st day within a calendar year?”.
I re-emphasise the point because it is critical. Unless we have some sort of notification and registration process, it is simply unenforceable, whatever else we say and do.
The other issue I want to speak to briefly is how we determine that the property concerned is indeed the residential property belonging to the person letting it. It has been suggested that this is done by the requirement, in the Government’s amendment, to pay council tax. We all know that lots of people pay council tax, but it is not necessarily their residence, let alone their principle residence. It is a bit unusual for a Liberal Democrat to quote Westminster City Council so frequently, but it does have the greatest experience on this. It says:
“This provision would therefore change nothing. The real change would be if the Government stipulated that only principal permanent residences were eligible for short-term letting”.
That is the purpose of the amendment in our package.
We are now at the last possible stage of this Bill in this House, apart from ping-pong, and we need to understand why we are at this stage. I raised this issue—as did others—at Second Reading in July, we had a considerable debate on it in Grand Committee on 30 October and we returned to it in February, one day after the Government finally published their policy guidelines and then only under considerable pressure from the noble Lord, Lord Ahmad, who realised that he would have to reply to the debate. We are now trying to put into the Bill details of regulations that should have been properly and fully consulted over that nine-month period. We should have tried at least to reconcile the differences between the different interests—and they are substantially reconcilable if the Government had ever tried. The one local authority most directly involved and with the most experience states in writing twice that up until a week ago, it had had no such consultation.
We are now at the stage where the Government have understood, as I pointed out on Report on 11 February, that it is too late for the regulations to be tabled to receive their 40-days waiting period to be considered in this Parliament. On Report, that was impossible; it is clearly even more impossible now. For this Government not to give a blank cheque to whomever forms the next Government and whoever is the next Minister, we are now putting in the Bill details that ought to have been in regulations, drafts of which should have been produced months ago, discussed and consulted on so that whatever we are to legislate for was clear—hopefully agreed, but at least we could agree where the differences are. We are at the last possible stage putting in the Bill just what the Government until now said that they would not do, but ought properly to be in regulations that have been consulted on and largely agreed.
Lord Rooker
Given the assuredness and spirit with which the noble Baroness is speaking for the Government, before she sits down, will she ask the Minister to tell us about the results of the consultation? In the mean time, will she tell us whether she has been privy to the results of the consultation in preparing her speech?
Baroness Shields
I am sorry, I missed that. I did not understand the last question.
Lord Rooker
I am asking the noble Baroness whether, in preparing her speech, she has been privy to the results of the consultation.
Baroness Shields
No, I have come to present the view of my declared interest in this new sector of the economy. I am not privy to that information.
The Government’s proposals aim to allow people to short-term let their residences while they are away, while ensuring that local communities are protected. I believe that the right balance has been struck. That is why I support the reform and urge your Lordships to vote in favour of the government amendment and against the other amendments which have been tabled on the issue.
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
My Lords, we are discussing short-term lets, and it is perhaps ironic that we have had a long-term slot when it comes to issues of deregulation. We are talking about London, and people have talked about London specifically. Let me put it into context as someone who was born in London, educated in London, worked in London, lived in London and represented a London council. Unlike my noble friend, who has had a very distinguished career in the London Borough of Sutton, I had the honour and privilege to serve in the London Borough of Merton, which, as we all know, hosts the great event that we know as Wimbledon. Therefore, it is my great honour also to carry it in my title. Perhaps there are people in Wimbledon who currently let their properties on a short-term basis.
It is important that we respond not just to the challenges and concerns that have been expressed today, to which I will come specifically, but acknowledge that this is commonplace not just in inner London; it is experienced, perhaps with a different perspective, in other boroughs across our great capital.
Starting with the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, first, I put on record his broad support at least for the spirit and principle of what we are trying to achieve. In noting that, I thank him for his constructive discussions. We have not always agreed on the issues, as is clear from our debate on Third Reading thus far, but I have always found him to be someone with whom I can have a constructive and honest exchange. I put on record my deep thanks to all noble Lords with whom I have had meetings since I have taken over this ministerial responsibility, but particularly to my noble friends Lady Gardner, Lady Hanham and Lord Tope, who have always been courteous in their exchanges. To “courteous” I wish that I could add “uncritical”, but clearly they have had concerns, which they have expressed again today. However, I assure my noble friends and all noble Lords that I have taken that in the spirit that it has been well intentioned and reflects noble Lords’ experience in local government.
In talking about the amendments to government Amendment 4, the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, asked about this being an integrated group of amendments. We agree that we are treating these amendments as consequential.
The noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, and my noble friend Lord Tope also raised issues about notifications to local authorities, as an addition to some elements that the Government have already introduced. Perhaps I may repeat something which have I shared with them at previous stages of the Bill’s passage: we believe that this would be a further burden on the person letting. It is not a restriction which applies elsewhere in England. Part of our principled stand on this is that we are seeking to bring London into line with other great cities around the country.
The noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, and others including my noble friend Lady Gardner also raised the issue of two periods of 90 nights being allowed to run across calendar years. We recognise that it would be possible for 90-night periods to run continuously across the calendar years but we also think it right not to be overly prescriptive about when the 90 nights should take place in the year. I commend my noble friend Lady Shields for her contribution and I congratulate her. When you are standing in your Lordships’ House, there is always the great expertise in what others have expressed—not only others; I pay tribute to her own expertise in this field. She highlighted what numbers of nights some of the other great cities around the world apply.
Several noble Lords asked why we need the Secretary of State’s consent. We believe that the Secretary of State’s intervention will ensure that the provisions are applied appropriately across London and that there is consistency and fairness to them. The noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, asked whether Amendment 4 could be used to disapply exemption from properties where there has been a statutory nuisance. I draw his attention to proposed new Section 25B(2), which allows the Secretary of State or a local planning authority to make a direction where,
“it is necessary to protect the amenity of the locality”.
Indeed, such a direction could be made when there has been a statutory nuisance.
I believe that the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, also raised limiting council tax liability, and whether that could still be done commercially. The council tax liability test has to be read and taken in conjunction with the 90-day limitation, as I said in my opening remarks. That will make it unattractive to undertake commercial letting on a long-term or continuous basis.
The noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, also talked about building on the government amendments. As I said at the outset of my closing remarks, I welcome the spirit in which our discussions have taken place. One of the contributions today alluded to the fact that Governments change positions, or that the Bill today is not where it had been. My noble friend Lord Clement-Jones raised a specific question on this. In my time as a Minister responding from this Dispatch Box, I find that you are in one of those situations where if you do not change, you are accused of being terribly rigid and not flexible in listening to your Lordships’ House. However, when you change you are told, “This is not what was presented to us initially”. Perhaps some answers on the back of a postcard would be welcome. I jest, of course, but the important point here is that the Government have listened carefully to the concerns and expressions that have been raised across Parliament, both here in your Lordships’ House and in the other place. We have sought to provide a correct balance in what the Government are presenting.
Several concerns were expressed by my noble friends Lady Hanham, Lady Gardner of Parkes and Lord Tope about the consultation. I regret that my noble friend Lady Gardner feels that the responses I have given in this respect have not answered her question. I gave my latest response only yesterday, as I believe she acknowledged. I wrote to my noble friend on the details of the consultation but in the interests of the public record let me reflect on the public consultation held last year, in which local authorities were asked the question. As noble Lords will know, including the Corporation of London there are in total 33 local authorities across London. Fifteen London authorities responded in total. Eight authorities opposed reform of the legislation. They were—I will feel a bit like a train announcer here—Haringey, Enfield, Camden, Westminster, Newham, Redbridge, Lambeth and the City of London. Seven were not opposed to a review, which included Lewisham, Sutton, Southwark, Hammersmith & Fulham, Harrow, Islington and Greenwich.
I also wish to set the record straight on the issue of Westminster. My noble friend Lord Tope is correct that I have received a letter from the leader of Westminster Council—indeed, I have responded to her—but I want to put officially into the record what has happened. In addition to taking full account of the written representations we have received, officials in the Department for Communities and Local Government have met a number of local authorities, including Westminster Council, on 20 June and 7 October 2014 and 26 February 2015. A further meeting with Westminster was also scheduled for 3 March. I hope that these specific dates give some reassurance to my noble friends, given the concerns they expressed.
I think that I have covered the concern about the Government changing position which my noble friend Lord Clement-Jones posed, but on transparency for police and local authorities, let me assure my noble friend that we believe that our measures will offer the assurance to Londoners that they can do what they like with their homes, as with anywhere else in the country. However, the police and local authorities do not have this power anywhere else. This does not affect the police and local authorities in acting against any antisocial behaviour, or in tackling the genuine concern about terrorism. My noble friend Lady Gardner raised that concern and talked of Sydney, but it is a tragic fact that we have been victims of terror attacks right here in our great capital city. Nothing is proposed in the Government’s amendments which seeks to lessen the importance or priority that they are giving more generally to tackling that. I know that that sentiment is shared by all noble Lords across the Chamber.
My noble friend Lady Gardner also raised the issue of the £20,000 fine for short-term letting. Enforcement action is of course taken at the discretion of local authorities. What is significant—this is what the government proposals are about—is that authorities still have the ability to take action, which acts as a disincentive and deterrent to anyone considering breaking the law. That will continue.
Lord Rooker
For the avoidance of doubt and so that it is on the record, when the Minister read the list of authorities out earlier he said that 15 replied. He mentioned that seven did not disagree; I take it that eight disagreed. Can we get it on the record that the majority of local authorities which responded to the consultation disagreed? Do I have that correct?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
When the noble Lord referred to the 15 and the seven, I thought, “I hope I have got my maths right”, so I am glad that we said that there were eight and seven. He is quite correct. I mentioned those authorities which did not want the review to happen and, subsequently, the seven which did not object. To clarify that point, I say that the noble Lord is quite right. I hope that I am being clear. I am being detailed in my response so, while I am not expecting it, I at least hope—and one should never give up on hope—that I shall carry the House in certain elements of what I am saying, and that there will nevertheless be clarity in covering the issues that have been raised.
My noble friend Lord Tope also raised council tax liability as a way of demonstrating residency. We believe that this provision distinguishes between private and business premises because it requires liability for council tax, which means that if a property was used as a residence, a hotel or a hostel, it would be liable for business rates. Combined with the 90-night limit, we believe that this provides an appropriate safeguard against short-term letting on an ongoing basis.
I welcome the interventions of the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, as I do those of all noble Lords. I listened to him attentively. He raised the issue of insurance. It is of course a matter for landlords to enforce, and for tenants to abide by, the terms of the lease and any insurance policies. Our amendments relate to the need to apply for planning permission and do not affect issues under an existing lease or indeed an insurance policy.
I hope that I have addressed most, if not all, of the issues raised in the hour and 10 minutes that we have had on this group of amendments. This is an important area, and I assure the House again that the Government have listened to the concerns expressed during the passage of the Bill. We believe that what is in front of us today, and what we are proposing more generally, is a balanced approach, with the objective of updating a law that would work for the benefit of ordinary Londoners wishing to let their homes in a legal way.
I hope that noble Lords will accept the reassurances that I have given again today: we are proposing amendments to seek to prevent the loss of housing stock by allowing the short-term letting of homes for a maximum of 90 days without the need for planning permission. I stress again that there are safeguards in the Bill to check that the added freedom will apply only to those people who are providing their homes and paying council tax; and we are providing local authorities with the power to apply to the Secretary of State where exceptions may be and where local amenities need to be protected.
I believe that the Government have listened and present a balanced perspective on where we are today. If I may, I end with the words of the song:
“Maybe it’s because I’m a Londoner
That I love London Town”.
I believe that what the Government have proposed does just that.
Electoral Registration
Lord Rooker Excerpts(9 years, 8 months ago)
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Lord Wallace of Saltaire
My Lords, we are asking some large questions about the relationship between the citizen and the state. The noble Lord, Lord Cormack, might stand shoulder to shoulder with the noble Lord, Lord Maxton, on a number of these issues.
Lord Rooker (Lab)
In one of the Minister’s earlier answers—I think it was in answer to his noble friend—he used the phrase “much to my surprise”. Will he tell us what evidence he has that caused him to have such a surprise?
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
I apologise if there was a slip of the tongue. We are, of course, very concerned that this process should go through successfully, and we have been working very hard to make it go through successfully. I pay tribute to all those involved in National Voter Registration Day, which led to nearly half a million registrations coming in in one week. We all have to work extremely hard. I suppose that the origin of my surprise is that I meet—as I am sure we all meet—a great deal of voter disengagement and unwillingness to engage with politics. Those are the people who do not register to vote. We have to get out there and persuade them to vote. I trust that all parties, and all of us as campaigners—those Peers who go into schools and into universities—are getting this message across all the time.
Deregulation Bill
Lord Rooker Excerpts(10 years ago)
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Lord Rooker (Lab)
My Lords, I had not intended to speak in this debate but, given that my noble friend raised the Food Standards Agency, I want to put a couple of points on the record.
I had the privilege of serving as chair of the Food Standards Agency between 2009 and 2013—that is, during the genesis of this issue. The list of non-economic regulators on pages 21 and 22 of the guidance—I have not counted them; there are about 50—vary between executive agencies of government departments, non-departmental public bodies and free-standing, non-ministerial government departments. The staff of these regulators are either civil servants or non-civil servants, so there is a variety there. For example, the staff of the Environment Agency are not civil servants.
I make it clear that the Food Standards Agency is a non-ministerial department. Ministers have no role whatever in food safety regulation in this country. The legislation relating to food safety is entirely a matter for the board of the Food Standards Agency. The best thing about the board is that it meets in an open and transparent way and it transmits its meetings on a webcast. That is the only time that the board discusses policy. Of course, that is not the case with the rest, which are political departments operating behind closed doors.
My point is that the doubts about food safety do not hold water. That is not to say, of course, that people do not come with a try-on. During my time at the agency, at one point we were ordered—and Star Chamber’d more than once—over this Red Tape Challenge nonsense, which I keep coming back to because it is the Achilles heel here, not to inspect kitchens in village halls or the kitchens at paid childminder services. I told Ministers, as my successor has done, “Dirty kitchens kill and we’re going to carry on doing it. It’s as simple as that”. However, there was no problem whatever in embracing the growth duty. For example, the meat industry in this country is a £6 billion industry and exports are a big part of that. Exports to new markets such as China and Russia are crucial. You cannot export meat out of this country unless the premises in which it is prepared are signed off by the regulator—in this case, the Food Standards Agency, not Defra or the Department of Health. The certificates given to the Russians and the Chinese come from the FSA.
We saw that as our contribution to part of the growth duty. When we were asked to act, we got on and did it pretty quickly. Sometimes the requirements of the Russians in respect of food safety in the meat industry are greater than those of the European Union. Therefore, we came across companies which had to up their game in order to fulfil the export market. We needed to get in there quickly so that there was no delay. We once had a Member of Parliament churlishly complaining at Prime Minister’s Question Time on behalf of a company, but the abattoir in question was not up to Russian standards. I will not name it but it is on the record in Hansard. The fact was that it had to up its game, and we saw that as our positive contribution. We made sure that, when we got a request, we dealt with it pretty smartly and arranged early inspections.
The other part of the growth duty concerns retail. Anybody preparing food can get, free of charge, a Safer Food, Better Business pack. It almost tells people how to run a business, whether it is a care home kitchen, a retail kitchen or a restaurant, and it is provided free of charge by the FSA. It tells them how to run a better business by providing safer food. That is part of the growth agenda: making sure it is clear and applicable to small businesses. We did one especially for small and medium-sized businesses because we realised it does not always apply. Then the FSA was able to say to Ministers, who were actually asking us not to inspect kitchens used by vulnerable groups in village halls and childminders, that dirty kitchens kill. In other words, off you go. However, our contribution to the growth agenda was the two examples I have just given, so it is a balance.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
My Lords, I thank the many noble Lords who have contributed to this debate. When I was on the opposition Benches I did on one occasion attempt to challenge the extent clause of the Bill at about 9.45 in the evening, to the deep discontent of those on all Benches. My particular concern was with how far the legislation applied to the Crown dependencies—the Isle of Man, Jersey and Guernsey. It is clearly something that, at some point—as I said a good five years ago—the House of Lords could usefully devote some time to because of the extent to which UK law extends to the Crown dependencies, and how far they can cherry pick what they accept from UK law is a matter of considerable interest to us all. Perhaps that is something that the noble Lord and I could explore further off the Floor of the House. Part of the problem with extent clauses is that one almost always reaches them when everyone is exhausted by the Committee stage of the Bill and does not want to have another long debate.
However, this has been a long, serious and useful debate. We are of course ready to discuss further off the Floor to provide what assurance we can and to discuss whether the current drafting and guidance is adequate or whether it could usefully be strengthened. We have some time before Report to set that process in train.
The aims of the Bill are to reduce duplication. The consultation on this clause, as with others, produced a number of examples of duplication of different bodies attempting to regulate the same thing or requiring information from businesses for different purposes. If possible, we wish to reduce that and provide simplification. This is not an attempt to destroy vast areas of regulation. We all recognise that an effective and efficient market is a well regulated market. Our aim is better regulation. Efficient regulation also means no more regulation than is needed, but that is where many of the most difficult issues come up. How much regulation does one need? How efficiently and effectively is it maintained? That is the area that we clearly need to discuss further.
I was interested that the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, regarded the Ten Commandments as regulation. I rather regarded them as commandments, which is a stronger term. Leviticus and Deuteronomy, where one gets into dietary laws and cleanliness, are where one gets into the regulatory parts of the Old Testament. Again, that is a matter that we might discuss further.
I was interested that the noble Lord sees the Clean Air Act as being in the very distant past. When I was in my first job as a junior lecturer at the University of Manchester in 1967, if I left my papers on my desk on a Friday, I had to blow the smuts off on the Monday. It is not that long ago that we were still cleaning up the air, particularly in northern cities. I think it was probably in the late 1980s that I got off the train in Leeds and realised that I could actually see the hills in the distance. That was a mark that the air in Leeds had at last started to become clean again after probably about 150 years.
The constant message from all those who have spoken is that we have to be concerned about unanticipated consequences. I recognise that that is where we have to provide the best reassurance that we can and, in particular, to provide reassurance that those involved in the consultations that have already taken place have done their very best to consider what those consequences could be.
To start with, and before I answer any of the questions, perhaps I may set out as clearly as I can my understanding of the purposes of this clause. The purpose of the duty for non-economic regulators to have regard to economic growth—or the “growth duty”, which we have all been discussing—is to give regulators a statutory obligation to carry out their primary duty of protection in a way which does not undermine economic growth but is supportive of it, if possible.
The draft guidance, published in January, makes it clear that the growth duty will not override, undermine or cut across powers of protection; nor does it compromise the independence of regulators. It provides examples of ways in which regulators can have regard to growth without compromising protections. For example, they can: first, keep administrative burdens to a minimum; secondly, be proportionate in their decision-making; and, thirdly, understand the business environment and tailor regulatory activities accordingly.
This guidance is subject to the approval of each House of Parliament, and those who are subject to the growth duty are under a requirement to have regard to it. The growth duty does not permit regulators to ignore illegal behaviour—with particular reference to the Gambling Commission—nor does it diminish the responsibilities of businesses to comply with the law. The Government recognise that an environment where legitimate business is trusted and where protections are in place is a key factor in facilitating economic growth, as the noble Lord, Lord Collins, particularly made clear.
It is not appropriate for government to dictate how the growth duty should rank in relation to other duties and factors which regulators also need to consider. Some regulators will rank it higher than others for unavoidable reasons. Regulators are best placed to weigh up the desirability of economic growth against each of the other factors that they must consider and to tailor their approach accordingly. It will be for each regulator to use their expertise in deciding how much weight to afford to each factor in their decision-making. I hope that that makes it clear that we do not intend to compromise the independence of regulators.
A third of the regulatory bodies that were consulted replied that they already considered that they did take account of the need to promote and to have regard to economic growth in their interpretation of their duties, so we are talking about a tweaking of the range of functions concerned, not a revolution.
Listening to the debate, I was thinking that I might have a conversation with the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, as a former head of the Food Standards Agency, about the effect of tightening up the control of slaughterhouses some years ago in north Yorkshire on the reduction in the number of slaughterhouses. I know the area well because I walk there a lot and have done quite a lot of politics there. There was a much larger reduction in the number of slaughterhouses than I am told had been intended, and it had a very adverse effect on what one might call the home production of quality food by specialist producers. That is a good example of where, if they had thought about the importance of food exporting from farm industries in north Yorkshire, they might have paid attention to a slightly different interpretation of the regulation. I am not an expert on this and perhaps I might come for a tutorial with the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, at a later stage, but that is the sort of thing that we are looking at.
Lord Rooker
There is no need for that, because the story is that those slaughterhouses were not paying their proper costs. The fact is that the taxpayer subsidises the meat industry because neither Government have allowed the Food Standards Agency to reclaim its costs for checking the abattoirs. In that case, the smaller ones were paying a disproportionate amount for regulation—which is governed by Europe, by the way, as most of our food is—so it is probably to do with collecting the fees that they were required to pay for inspections. In that part of the sector there are charges and the FSA is not allowed to collect its full costs. Full cost recovery does not apply because Governments of both parties have not wanted to challenge the meat industry.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
I thank the noble Lord for that clarification; I was sure he would know the answer. I thank him for his extremely helpful contribution.
The duty will, I stress, complement existing duties and will not override or cut across regulators’ other powers of protection. The growth duty requires regulators to consider growth when carrying out their regulatory functions, so environmental and other issues that I mentioned will not be overruled by this. I should say in passing that when I saw the noble Lord’s amendment I was immensely impressed. My first instinct was to wonder whether we could add a government amendment to the amendment to add four or five additional things that people should take into account.
Those who have been regulators, such as the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, would probably say that a good regulator takes into account a wide range of issues and then attempts to strike the best balance among them. We also accept that, as the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, said in moving the amendment, the issue of how much risk, if any, one is prepared to accept in regulation is one of the most difficult issues in regulatory powers. You cannot guarantee that you can ever provide a situation of nil risk, but the question of how far away from nil you are prepared to move is one of the most difficult issues.
I am not sure that I can answer absolutely all the questions that have been asked about specific agencies, but again I am very happy to discuss this further off the Floor. However, on the question of responses to the consultation, a wide variety of respondents welcomed the growth duty. Many businesses and trade associations said that the first priority of regulators should be protection and that the growth duty should be added but should not take precedence over others, and we have taken that into account. I have already remarked that over one-third said they considered that regulators already had regard to growth. Respondents cited a variety of ways in which regulators could support growth. These include co-ordinating, providing more targeted advice, being generally risk-based and proportionate, and helping businesses to achieve compliance. I also mentioned that a care to avoid duplication of regulation—particularly the sort of regulation that asks businesses for information—is one of the areas that we wish to look at. The growth duty should make a difference in precisely those areas where there is duplication and where regulators have not thought about the growth dimension, but again we are not suggesting that this is a revolution—this is a modest change of balance.
The noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, asked whether the growth duty would have teeth. The answer is that, as with all other aspects that regulators take into account, businesses will have the chance to challenge a regulator which has not had regard to one of the dimensions of their task. They can challenge them though the regulator’s own internal mechanisms or statutory appeal mechanisms. They can, if necessary, challenge the enforcement decisions in court and, in the last resort, they can pursue judicial review if a regulator has failed to apply the duty, or applied it in a way that is clearly unreasonable. Again, we do not expect or anticipate that that would be a frequent dimension.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
My Lords, I shall do my best to ensure that written answers are provided to the very large number of questions that have been posed in this debate about a substantial number of different agencies. On that basis, I hope that the noble Lord will be willing to withdraw his amendment.
Lord Rooker
Before my noble friend gets up, as we are in Committee, and as the Minister has been very open in wanting to discuss issues that my noble friends have raised, I shall raise another for him, which I failed to do when I was at the FSA. Let us take all these regulators here. They are all a pinprick on the main department by which they either get funded or are attached to. They are not really the big player; they are a very small part of each function of a government department. As such, they never really get any parliamentary scrutiny. The issue arose when I arrived at the FSA in 2009, because at no time since 2000 had it ever been called before a Select Committee to look at what it does on the tin—the business plan or the forward plan, the strategic plan or the general plan. The Health Committee deals with doctors, nurses and hospitals, the sexy political bit of policy. I raised the issue with the Leaders of both Houses of Parliament. Because it is the non-politically sexy part that is ignored by MPs, it is ideal for this House.
I suggested after talking to people that this House should have a Select Committee on regulators; maybe every three years, every regulator would get in front of a Select Committee, not because something has gone wrong, in which case the regulator would certainly come before the departmental committee, but to check that it is doing what it says on the tin, to be asked about function, finance, forward and business and plans, and for some of them the science base. It would give them a raison d’être to know that they are actually accountable to Parliament—because that is the reality; at the end of the day, they are. But I was told, “Oh, we don’t want any more Select Committees”. As I say, I raised it with the Leaders of both Houses, the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, and Sir George Young, who was Leader and then retired and came back as Chief Whip.
I still think that there is a missing function for this House, in that regard, because it does not compete with the other place; all the big issues are dealt with by the departmental Select Committees, but they will never run the rule over the regulators, particularly when there are no problems, when they are carrying out their normal regulatory function. But once in a while—say, every three years—it would be quite useful for them to come for a couple of hours or an hour and a half before a committee to explain what they are doing and why and how they are doing it. In going back to have a think about things with the powers that be, perhaps this should be thought about, because it is a genuine issue of parliamentary accountability.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
That is a very interesting point but very wide of the amendment under discussion. I am very happy to discuss that also with the noble Lord off the Floor. Perhaps I could add that the pre-legislative scrutiny committee thought that the clause was a useful part of the Bill. So in recognising all the critical comments that have been made by the opposite side, we are pleased that the committee examined this and thought that it was a valuable addition to a Deregulation Bill. Having made all those comments, and looking forward to further discussions, I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, will be willing to withdraw his amendment.
Lord McNally (LD)
My Lords, I do not think I have ever seen such a galaxy of talent on the Opposition Benches. I counted eight Front-Benchers in that debate. It was extremely interesting and I do not envy my noble friend in his further discussions.
I did not find it entirely helpful of the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, to remind us that it was 52 years since he and I first met at University College London in that fierce, harsh winter of 1962-63. He and I think the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, also mentioned arm’s-length bodies. I am the chair of an arm’s-length body at the Ministry of Justice—the Youth Justice Board—but it is not in this capacity or due to anything related to that responsibility that I put this amendment down. It relates instead to my experience as an MoJ Minister responsible for human rights. With my right honourable friend Maria Miller, who was then Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, I conducted a very vigorous campaign to help the Equality and Human Rights Commission gain UN accreditation.
I may be able to shorten the Committee’s debate on the basis of a letter that has been sent to the chairman of the ECHR by the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, Vince Cable. Before I touch on that, I shall explain that at the moment, thanks to that exercise we conducted, the commission has the highest possible UN accreditation—A status—as a national human rights institution rated against the UN Paris principles which clearly and unequivocally require NHRIs to be independent of government. In addition, as a national equality body under EU equality directives, the body must be able to provide independent assistance to victims of discrimination. This need to operate independently is reflected in domestic legislation.
In the commission’s analysis, subjecting the commission to the growth duty presents a real risk of the UN NHRI A status being downgraded for non-compliance with the Paris principles because the growth duty is or could be perceived to be a constraint on the independent exercise of the body’s core functions. The growth duty also has the potential to compromise the ability to fulfil the requirement under EU law to provide independent assistance to victims of discrimination.
I hope that we are dealing with what the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, referred to as unintended consequences and that it was never the Government’s intention to compromise the EHRC in this way and that they wish to clarify the matter. Just to be clear, the Equality and Human Rights Commission believes that it needs to protect its ability to operate independently in order to preserve its a status as a United Nations-accredited national human rights institution and the UK’s compliance with European Union law, and to ensure that it can exercise that function and powers in accordance with clear and foreseeable legal limits. That is the objective of the amendment.
I was very pleased that, with his usual courtesy, Vince Cable, the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, copied me in on a letter that he sent to the noble Baroness, Lady O’Neill, the chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, in which he writes:
“I would like to take this opportunity to state that the Government has taken the decision to fully exclude the EHRC from the growth duty. This decision was taken to ensure that the Government mitigated the risk of this policy unintentionally triggering a review of the important ‘A’ status that EHRC holds as a National Human Rights Institution”.
At that point, I said “Yippee! I’ll be in and out in two minutes”. However, I thought it was worth checking with the commission what its reaction was. It said:
“While we welcome this undertaking we understand that this doesn’t mean that we’ll be removed on the face of the Bill”.
All I can say to my noble friend in the usual constructive way that I try to approach these matters is: get this out of the way clearly and now. If he is going to tell me that the letter is sufficient, or that somehow it will all be dealt with in the washing, he is inviting further grief and pain.
Lord Rooker
My Lords, as chair of the Joint Committee that scrutinised the Bill, to the best of my knowledge none of the regulators is mentioned in the Bill. The only time they are mentioned is in the guidance notes in preparatory work for the statutory instruments. If that is the noble Baroness’s worry—Ministers can confirm this—to the best of my knowledge, none of these regulators is mentioned in the Bill.
Lord McNally
Of course it is not mentioned in the Bill. Only one of the regulators is in fact part of an international scrutiny and accreditation process. The longer the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, stayed in office and had responsibility, the more a stickler he became for the rules. I am saying that this is an exception. I have already heard one argument that this would open the floodgates, but this is an exception, and a very important one. My amendment makes it very clear that it may be the only organisation mentioned in the Bill, but I assure the Committee that it is the only organisation where a great deal of work was done to get its A status accreditation with the UN. That A status accreditation is very important for the status of the organisation.
The letter from BIS is very welcome and very timely. I urge the Minister to consider accepting the amendment, although it concerns the exception that the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, referred to. Indeed, it is almost the kind of declaration that I want: that we are determined to declare beyond peradventure that this important international body, with its A status in the UN, is not part of this domestic legislation. That would most certainly remove any unintended consequences. I fully accept from conversations with my noble friend that these are unintended consequences, but those who are involved in this area believe that it is a real threat and could cause real damage, and I believe that my amendment is a very simple, quick, clean way of handling the situation. I beg to move.
Lord Rooker
“( ) The first time the Minister consults under subsection (2), the Minister must consult on specifying the regulatory functions of the Planning Inspectorate in the first order to be made under subsection (1), but only to the extent consistent with subsection (3).”
Lord Rooker
My Lords, I am really just probing. I flagged this up in October, when there was a debate on construction in the House, in which I spoke. I am pro-growth. There are bags of land for building in this country—we have more land than we know what to do with. While I was preparing for that debate it struck me that there is a lethargy among local government and the planners—they all get the blame, sometimes unfairly. I went back to the list on the growth duty and thought, “Hmm, planning inspectorates aren’t there”. I have to say that I did not personally draft this clause. I knew what I wanted to do, but I could not find a way of doing it in the Bill, so I pay massive tribute to the clerks of this House, who facilitated a form of wording that would get it on the Order Paper. I am incredibly grateful to them.
It is very simple. I support the planning process—I have no problem with it. If I could have done, I would have had an amendment put in a growth duty on planning departments of local government. That is probably where the real problem lies. I chose the Planning Inspectorate because it is the national body. The role of the Planning Inspectorate is obviously a very important one, as a referee—an impartial one in some ways—which would not be compromised by a growth duty. I suspect that parts of its functions are not in any way remotely applicable to a growth duty, but I suspect that it might have some functions that could be.
At the moment, planning is in chaos because it takes too long to prepare local plans. A duty to co-operate was put in the Localism Act, which, frankly, is not working, so nobody takes any responsibility for fixing housing numbers in this country at present. If we had a clear growth duty involved in the planning process somewhere, which would reinforce the report of the noble Lord, Lord Heseltine, because that is what is missing, we would stand a fighting chance of getting to build our 4,000 houses a week, which is what we need.
There is no shortage of land; if you read the Financial Times yesterday, you will have seen that Savills has produced a report which found that the Government own enough land to build 2 million houses. That is basically enough land for 10 years’ building, which is what we want. I do not share the hysterical view of those who, every time somebody talks about having more building, say, “You’re attacking the countryside”. The fact is, 54% of the land of England is not covered by green belt, national park, areas of outstanding natural beauty, or currently built on. That has got to be official, because it is in a PQ back on 15 July, in Written Answer 114-115. Therefore, when you add up green belt, areas of outstanding natural beauty, national parks and existing built-up land in this country—in England—it comes to only 46% of the land. Therefore there are bags of land, and we are dead short of housing.
More pressure needs to be put on the planning system. I fully accept that I am completely misusing this debate but there must be growth and more pressure to build those homes. I currently cannot see the magic bullet for releasing the logjam but I thought that maybe if there was a bit of growth duty somewhere in the planning system that might help. A growth duty could make a difference. It could send a signal, which is the point. If some aspect of the planning inspectorate function would be amenable to a growth duty, and that was said, it would be a message well received outside. I beg to move.
Lord Rooker
I shall certainly do that. I was astonished at my noble friend’s hysterical outburst, though. I deliberately avoided going down the road of the hysterical stuff from the former chair of the National Trust, because that is not what it is about. There is bags of land to build on in this country. As Savills identified, the Government own enough land to build 2 million houses. That is 10 years’ worth of work. Yes, I will gladly withdraw the amendment, but I have a parting shot, because I did not raise this. If there is a real inability to get going, my other suggestion, which I made in the construction debate, is that, if I were responsible for the machinery of government—which heaven forbid, I shall never be—I would moving planning policy to BIS. I would get it away from the mafia of local government and put it in BIS. That might be the ultimate solution to this.
I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Deregulation Bill
Lord Rooker Excerpts(10 years ago)
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Lord Wallace of Saltaire
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, for his remarks, which ranged much more widely than the limited proposals in Clause 72. Clause 72, on the whole, makes technical changes to the governance arrangements for the Electoral Commission. Clause 73 makes similar technical and modest changes to the governance arrangements for the Local Government Boundary Commission.
As the noble Lord said, the Electoral Commission is the independent body established by Parliament and overseen by the Speaker’s Committee with governance arrangements set out in Schedule 1 to the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000, known to us with great affection as PPERA.
At present, the Electoral Commission has to provide a five-year corporate plan, with the new plan having to be prepared and submitted annually. The National Audit Office is also required to undertake annual value-for-money studies. The Speaker’s Committee has reviewed these governance arrangements, comparing the Electoral Commission with other modest similar-sized organisations, and has recommended the following changes. First, a five-year corporate plan should be produced in the first financial year of a Parliament. The statutory requirement to update this on an annual basis should be removed, although the Speaker’s Committee should retain the right to request updated plans outside the five-year cycle. Secondly, value-for-money studies by the NAO should be linked to the production of the organisation's five-year plan and not on an annual basis.
Noble Lords will be aware that the approach that central government take to the funding of public bodies is through a spending review. These spending reviews are fixed and spending is planned over a number of years. As such, the existing statutory provisions for the Electoral Commission to provide annual updates to their corporate plan seem excessive.
In terms of removing the statutory requirements for annual value-for-money studies, the NAO has said that it supports such a reduction as the current statutory provisions are disproportionate to the size and spending power of the Electoral Commission. Clause 72 simply implements the recommendations put forward by the Speaker’s Committee. The Government see these as sensible and proportionate changes to the governance arrangements for the Electoral Commission
The noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, raised some wider issues about whether it is not now time, after 14 or 15 years of operation of the Electoral Commission, to review the overall balance, and whether the current arrangements, including, as he said, a Select Committee as well as the Speaker’s Committee, provide sufficient oversight. That is an interesting discussion to throw out. As he rightly remarks, we will not get very far with this over the next five and a half months. But this House may appropriately return to this after the election when we have seen how the Electoral Commission has operated with its responsibilities, which are most important in the course of and the run-up to an election campaign. Perhaps at that point he and I and others might talk together about how we take such wider issues further.
Lord Rooker (Lab)
My Lords, before we leave this clause, I would like to take this opportunity to ask the Minister a question. I am a strong supporter of the Electoral Commission, with no qualification whatever; but next year’s election will be the first time that it has had four and a half years to plan for the date. Therefore, is there an absolute rock-solid guarantee that there will be no chaos in any of the polling stations in this country of the kind that occurred in 2005?
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)
My Lords, I join my noble friend and add to what he said. My noble friend knows that I come from Birmingham and I was shocked by some of the behaviours I saw outside some Birmingham polling stations, to which I suspect he is referring. I particularly remember a polling station in Moseley, where large groups of men—about 20 or 30—were outside. This was clearly intimidatory; it was very difficult—particularly for women—to go and vote. The current system is so slow to react to situations like that when they arise. This is a very serious matter: in some parts of the country, people are not able to exercise their democratic right to go to a polling station free and unfettered.
For some years, the Electoral Commission took the view that it could only take measures that applied to each part of the country in an equal way. That was madness; it has been clear for a number of years that we have a real problem in some polling areas and we need a response from the Electoral Commission that recognises that.
Lord Rooker
I did not want to interrupt the noble Earl but perhaps I may intervene as he has raised that point at the beginning of his speech. I know that it will take time to write to my noble friend but in two days’ time this Committee will be discussing the growth duty. It would be useful to have a response before we start that debate because there are a couple of amendments relevant to the growth duty. The Joint Committee fully supported the Government’s response on the growth duty in January, but the committee received representations from certain regulators. I do not recall whether the CQC was one of them—I do not think that it was—but there was an open discussion when we were taking evidence about this. Therefore, it would be quite useful to have an answer by Thursday to the specific question raised by my noble friend because there would still be time to table an amendment. Sometimes it takes a few days or even weeks to get a letter, even with the best intentions of the Minister.
Earl Howe
I note the request from the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, and I can only undertake to do my best on that front. If I can get an answer to the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, by tomorrow, I will. I cannot promise that but I shall use my best endeavours to get an answer to him as quickly as I can.
The noble Lord referred to the administration process at Mid Staffordshire. He is right that the cost of administration has been significant. I cannot confirm the precise cost at this stage but it is substantial and I think that that serves to illustrate that the administration process is not one that any Government, or indeed Monitor, should give the green light to wantonly or ill advisedly. It is a last-resort solution and should always remain so. Clearly, in a challenged health economy, as that has been and still is, it is not surprising that the net result of the exercise is not just a substantial bill in terms of the trust special administration but a very substantial capital commitment by the Department of Health to augment the facilities in the trusts concerned to ensure that the quality of care is as we would all wish it to be. From memory, that net investment will be about £0.25 billion. Therefore, the people of that area should feel satisfied that this process has led to a result that will give them significantly enhanced facilities.
As for the noble Lord’s question about public consultation, this amendment has nothing to do with the process by which a decision is reached on a trust in administration or the consultation requirements that go with it. It merely streamlines the process that takes place after that final decision is taken so that it is not cumbersome.
The noble Lord asked me about the indemnity associated with PFI agreements in relation to a trust that has been taken over. My understanding is that the indemnity does transfer. That is the advice that I have received, but if I need to qualify it in any way, I will correct it immediately after Committee.
As regards the Secretary of State’s approval for trust mergers, it is important to point out that Section 56A provides for the acquisition by an NHS foundation trust of another FT or an NHS trust, and it confers on the sector regulator, Monitor, the power to grant an application for an acquisition. The section was intended to enable acquisitions to take place expeditiously with a minimum level of bureaucracy. The decision to undertake an acquisition, if it is between two foundation trusts, is taken by the FTs themselves with Monitor undertaking a minimal administrative function to implement the decision as long as the set legal process has been followed.
Lord Rooker
My Lords, I have to be brief but I think that I can say without contradiction that the speech that we have just heard from the noble Lord, Lord Sharkey, was made on behalf of the Joint Committee. I cannot think of a single member who would dissent from what he said, which was based, essentially, on our report. When the report was written, over 12 months ago now, it was of course written not just on the basis of Schedule 16, now Schedule 20. There was also the famous list of six other clauses, about which we took evidence on the basis that they were the worst and most offensive Henry VIII clauses ever put before Parliament. The Government took fright at that and took them out of the Bill, so they are not there. The Government were quite right to do that, so they have made the right decision.
However, the committee was faced with the context of cutting corners on parliamentary scrutiny. We had these six clauses, which were pretty bad, and we then got this great list of material, some of it self-evident, that was of no practical use. We also got the Law Commission in front of us. We also realised quite clearly from the evidence—not just the written evidence but what was before our own eyes—that there was a dispute between the Ministers and the Law Commission. It was self-evident, from both the body language and the actual language, that Ministers thought that the Law Commission was working too slowly—not getting on with it and not chopping enough legislation out of the way. But of course that is the way the commission works, and it quite clearly indicated to us that the staff and resources for this were pretty small beer.
The Advocate-General for Scotland (Lord Wallace of Tankerness) (LD)
My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Sharkey for moving his amendment and allowing us to have this opportunity to discuss Clause 82 and Schedule 20, which provide for a number of legislative measures to be repealed or revoked. I am grateful to the noble Lords who have taken part. I get the general message and I hope that I can respond to the points that have been made.
The conditions that are proposed in my noble friend’s amendment would include the need for the Law Commissions of Scotland and of England and Wales—to report, before commencement, on whether or not the legislation to be removed still has a practical use. The amendment, as my noble friend would acknowledge, does not require the Law Commissions to undertake this work. Rather, it indicates that it would not be possible to move forward with regard to the repeal or removal of these provisions from the statute book until such time as the Law Commissions had reported on the legislation contained in Schedule 20. In the absence of any report from the Law Commissions, the obsolete law would simply remain on the statute book.
I hope that there is common ground in this Committee that it is a worthwhile objective to make the statute book simpler to use for practitioners and those in different walks of life when they run up against the law. It is better if it is easier to navigate for the end users of the law. My noble friend makes the point, which I agree with, that the Law Commissions do not have a political agenda. While it is true that many of the provisions in the schedule are a product of the Red Tape Challenge in the sense that they come from a political origin, the purpose of this is to repeal redundant legislation and legislation that is no longer of practical use. The selection of this particular obsolete legislative list may have had a political element in its origin, but in the end the purpose is to ensure that redundant legislation is not on the statute book. Again, I hope that that is a politically neutral statement to make and something that we can all subscribe to.
As my noble friend fairly observed, and as the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, acknowledged, there are clauses that caused considerable offence to the Joint Committee. The Government have accepted that particular recommendation. Those clauses that contained future order-making powers for pieces of legislation that were considered to be redundant were removed. The argument that was made by my noble friend and by the noble Lords, Lord Rooker and Lord Stevenson, would have had greater force if the Government were still trying to defend an order-making position. That is not the case. We took into account the evidence submitted during pre-legislative scrutiny and in the Joint Committee’s recommendations, and the Government removed this power from the Bill.
The origin of this amendment is, of course, that the Joint Committee also recommended that the various items contained in Schedule 16—I think it was at that time—should be referred to the Law Commissions for confirmation that they were indeed no longer of practical use. As has already been alluded to by my noble friend, the Government did not agree with this recommendation. However, I begin by pointing out that one of the main criticisms of the order-making power was that there was an inappropriate level of parliamentary scrutiny.
This schedule, both in the form that it is in today and in its original form, has gone through pre-legislative scrutiny. I hear what the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, says—that he did not think that it was an adequate or long enough opportunity—but it has had pre-legislative scrutiny and Parliament has considered the Bill up to this point, and no evidence has been brought forward that the items contained within it are not redundant. There is an important exception to that, which we are about to debate in the upcoming group of amendments in the names of the noble Lords, Lord Grantchester and Lord Trees, where there was an issue identified by those with a particular interest in dog breeding, and we as a Committee will have an opportunity to consider this.
As the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, said, the report and legislation that comes forward from the Law Commissions takes about three minutes of parliamentary time. This—particularly these provisions—has taken up far more than three minutes of parliamentary time. That is not the point that I wanted to make. It is not just that Parliament has had the opportunity; it is that—and we know this through all the work that we do in Parliament, not just in this Bill but in a whole host of Bills—we are informed in our debates by a whole host of outside bodies that are more than happy to give us the benefit of their experience, expertise and knowledge on these issues.
The noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, referred to paragraphs 14 and 15 regarding the Atomic Energy Act 1946. In the 31 years since I was first elected as a Member of Parliament, I have never known the nuclear industry to be backward in coming forward if it thought there was a problem with something that Parliament was about to propose. There was also a reference to paragraph 28, omitting Section 10 of the Sea Fish (Conservation) Act 1992, which requires that a report on the operation of the Act be laid before Parliament within the period of six months beginning 1 January 1997. Clearly that had to be done by 1997. Having represented for 24 years, both in the other place and in the Scottish Parliament, a constituency that had very strong fishing industry interests, I make the point that the fishing industry was never slow in coming forward either. It had very good people working for it who would spot important issues. With the exception of the amendment that we are about to come on to, in the whole time that these measures have been out there—since, I think, the summer of 2013—no interested bodies have come forward and said that these pieces of legislation still have a purpose and should be kept on the statute book.
I believe that good housekeeping of the statute book is good governance. When we bring forward legislation in the normal course of events, a Bill often has a schedule attached to it that will have repeals. They have never gone anywhere near the Law Commissions, unless it happens to be one of the Law Commissions Bills, which now use the fast-track procedure. It is quite usual for Bills to have a whole series of amendments and repeals because they are no longer going to be of any use, given the new legislation that is coming through. What we are doing here is bringing together a number that one might say were not picked up at the time when other pieces of legislation were brought forward. Nevertheless, Parliament has been invited to accept, as we do on many other occasions, that they will no longer be useful.
Although it is true that some of the pieces of primary legislation contained here are repeal candidates for one of the Law Commissions’ Statute Law (Repeals) Bills, I also make three particular points. The Law Commissions tend to focus their resources on certain themes for each repeals Bill. If a repeal candidate does not fit within the theme of a Bill, it is uncertain whether it would be accepted by the Law Commissions for inclusion. The Law Commissions confine their repeals work to primary legislation. A number of the paragraphs—I think that my noble friend said that there were eight—relate to secondary legislation, which has not historically been within the purview of the Law Commissions when they do repeals work. Although secondary legislation can be revoked using the parent Act, this Bill provides an ideal vehicle to revoke these regulations in an efficient manner.
Secondly, many of the provisions contained within the schedule came out of the Red Tape Challenge. The noble Lord, Lord Rooker, clearly made the point that none of these had in the past been referred to the Law Commissions. I do not think that we are running away from the fact that many of them do come out of the Red Tape Challenge. However, many of the themes were launched after the Law Commission for England and Wales invited submissions from government departments in June 2011 on what should be included in what was its last statute law repeals report, published in April 2012.
The next repeals Bill will not be introduced until 2016, and it is my understanding that the focus of the Law Commission’s repeals work will be on laws relating to overseas territories and churches. The Government do not see why the removal of redundant legislation should wait when the Bill that we have before us provides a legislative vehicle for doing so.
Finally, it is worth noting that government departments are key consultees for the Law Commission in seeking to make these kinds of repeals. As the Law Commission for England and Wales states on its website:
“Sometimes it is impossible to tell whether a provision is repealable without factual information that is not readily ascertainable without ‘inside’ knowledge of a Department or other organisation”.
I know that my noble friend said that the Government were answering a question that they were not asked but it is important to make it clear that this is not arbitrary work and that we have within the departments a considerable amount of expertise. One of the examples that was given in, I think, the response to the Joint Committee’s report is in this Bill. I think that it was one of the other clauses which drew the short straw in having to deal with part 1 of Schedule 6 to this Bill. It repeals the Deeds of Arrangement Act 1914 as part of a package of insolvency measures. Research, conducted by departmental lawyers, indicated that there was still one person who had a deed of arrangement under the 1914 Act, and a decision was made to include a special saving provision in paragraph 3 of Schedule 6.
The noble Lord, Lord Naseby, was not here to move his Amendment 90 but my noble friend Lord Sharkey referred to paragraph 40, which relates to Section 13 of the Defamation Act. I accept and acknowledge that it is not what I would call a redundant provision; it can be argued that it continues to have legal effect. However, the position is that it was a non-government amendment—one that was accepted by the Government due to a previous commitment to remove Section 13 of the Defamation Act when an ideal legislative opportunity presented itself. I think that, left to the Government’s own devices, it would not have appeared in Schedule 20, but that is where it was moved and that amendment was accepted by the House authorities as the case was made that it fitted within the scope of the Bill. That is why it finds itself here and I think that generally it is a provision that is much welcomed. In those circumstances, I invite my noble friend to withdraw his amendment.
Lord Wallace of Tankerness
I do not think that there is a perfect answer to the earliest one being in the 19th century. If the purpose of this is to try to remove redundant legislation, it can be redundant if it no longer serves any useful purpose. An example is the Sea Fish (Conservation) Act 1992, which is very recent—indeed, I remember taking part in the debates on the Bill that became that Act in the other place. But the purpose of this provision is to remove from the statute book measures which, for example, may have expired or served their purpose, which have been superseded by other legislation or which are simply no longer relevant because they relate to an activity that no longer takes place. I accept that flying kites still takes place, but it takes place in a legitimate way. The fact that there was no provision identified prior to the 19th century I do not think in any way detracts from the ones which have been included, which I would certainly argue that Parliament has had a proper opportunity to consider.
Lord Rooker
I have one last, general question on this, which comes as a result of listening to these last two debates. Can the Minister give a commitment that the Government will not bring any new material forward for Schedule 20 at further stages of the Bill?
Lord Wallace of Tankerness
As I am not the Minister in charge of the Bill, I am not sure I can give that commitment and am wary of doing it, having just invited the noble Lord, Lord Skelmersdale, perhaps to suggest candidates—although I did qualify that invitation by saying that he should give plenty of time so they could be properly looked at and considered.
Lord Wallace of Tankerness
I am advised that it is not the Government’s intention to bring forward further pieces of legislation into this. We take heed of the warning that the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, has very effectively delivered.
Lord Rooker
It is not a warning; it is just the fact that it is quite clear that people inside the government machine—I do not blame them—are now looking at what is going to be changing in the future that will make legislation redundant before the action takes place. This is a very suitable vehicle for piling other stuff in, which is clearly the implication of what we have just heard about dog chipping. It is something that is coming in the future that will require this change—here is a nice vehicle. I just wonder what else is around. It would be very unwise from a parliamentary scrutiny point of view.
Deregulation Bill
Lord Rooker Excerpts(10 years ago)
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Lord Gardiner of Kimble
My Lords, I am fast becoming aware of that. I do not want to provoke my noble friends, but since local authorities took on responsibility for parking enforcement the income from parking has gone up significantly. Local authority surpluses from parking income have more than doubled from £223 million to £512 million between 1997 and 2010. There are obviously some local authorities that are increasing surpluses—clearly not the local authorities with which my noble friends have been associated or which they may know. I pass those figures on as a matter of record.
The Government believe that these proposals are necessary as a matter of principle. People should be able to see what they are accused of when they return to their vehicle, so that they have the opportunity to examine the area for themselves. It is not reasonable for drivers to receive a ticket in the post up to two weeks after the incident has taken place.
The Government also believe that some local authorities are ignoring operational guidance and using CCTVs in areas in which they should not do so. The Traffic Penalty Tribunal told the Transport Select Committee that adjudicators have found cases where camera enforcement is used as a matter of routine where the strict requirements for use in the guidance do not appear to be present. By bringing forward this legislation the Government are seeking to ensure that parking practices are fairer for people.
Lord Rooker (Lab)
What is the difference between getting a ticket through the post as a result of camera activity two weeks after the event and getting a ticket in the post as a result of camera activity two weeks after the event when you are whizzing up the M40 and there has been a police car on one of the bridges?
Lord Gardiner of Kimble
The noble Lord, Lord Rooker, used the word “whizzing”. I am not sure that anyone could start placing the ticket on a vehicle going at 80 or 90 miles an hour on the motorway. However, I take his point more seriously than perhaps is suggested by making that instant judgment as to why it would not be possible to adhere to these principles for someone going at 80 or 90 miles an hour on the motorway.
Lord Rooker
Lord Rooker
My Lords, having noticed that my noble friend Lord Prescott is in his place I shall make my speech shorter than it would otherwise have been, since his expertise in respect of this issue both as a Minister and of course in his previous life is far greater than anything that I can contribute. At Second Reading on 7 July, I mentioned that the Joint Committee that I had the privilege of chairing and that looked at the draft Bill a year ago did not take any evidence on the clause relating to marine accident investigations, so there is no comment in the Joint Committee’s report about the issue. I also said on Second Reading at col. 30 that I thought that we should take a look at it more closely as it goes through this House. I said that in relation to two or three other issues as well. We had hundreds of submissions on a Bill that had 65 clauses at that time—this Bill has 91—so we could not do everything in the time allowed. There were one or two issues on which I thought Parliament should spend some time because it had not done so and it is important that the legislation is scrutinised.
I have gone back to look. Although the Joint Committee did not take any evidence on marine accidents, so far as I can check from the full list on the web it did receive three items of written evidence. One was from the UK Chamber of Shipping. I freely admit that, because the Joint Committee did not go into this in detail, this is the first time that I have read what the UK Chamber of Shipping wrote and I have not done lots of research on this. The UK Chamber of Shipping supported the logic of the change proposed. It pointed out that these changes were outlined in Marine Guidance Note 458 issued in 2012 and no concerns had been raised. There were a lot of red tape challenge issues relating to marine matters that I am not going to go into in great detail. The reference for the UK Chamber of Shipping written evidence is DDB0206. It is on the website.
Nautilus International also sent in written evidence, reference DDB0266, relating to what was then Clause 25 in the draft Bill. I am not going to go into great detail about this. Nautilus International is the union for maritime professionals. It certainly raised matters that ought to be considered. I do not think that it was wholly in support of the amendment as it was drafted. It,
“respectfully pointed out that in the case of the loss of the MV “Derbyshire”, that the technological advancement had been such that it was possible to locate the wreck and to ascertain more accurately its true loss and”—
I have no doubt that my noble friend will raise this—
“so as to bring about changes in the rules of construction that subsequently could save unnecessary burden and expenditure upon the industry”.
Therefore it is an important issue for relatives. It also said,
“it would seem pointless in removing this flexibility from the Secretary of State”—
about a second inquiry—
“that could be extremely beneficial in both allaying public anxiety following a marine incident and addressing the concerns of those directly or indirectly involved”.
The third piece of written evidence, reference DDB0294, was from RMT. It made clear that it strongly opposed the proposal in what was Clause 25. I am not going to go into detail about that because I am going to use part of the RMT brief now.
There were those three bits of evidence and it is important to put this on the record. The evidence was provided, the Joint Committee did not seek any further particulars, and we did not go into any detail regarding the Bill. The matter was raised during the passage of the Bill, which I am pleased about. It was raised while the Bill went through the House of Commons. Last week I apologised straightaway because I had been grossly misinformed about an issue we dealt with last week that I said had not been dealt with in the Commons, but it had been. In this case, the issue certainly was dealt with in the Commons. That is quite important. The issue was dealt with at Second Reading on 3 February and then in Committee on 11 March.
I want to make a couple of general points because the answer from the Government on 11 March from the Solicitor-General appeared to hinge on two key arguments. First, that it would remain mandatory to reopen the formal investigation if there are grounds to suspect a miscarriage of justice. Secondly, removing the duty to reopen will,
“facilitate the more efficient administration of reopened formal inquiries without compromising marine safety”.—[Official Report, Commons Deregulation Bill Committee; 11/3/14; col. 306.]
The RMT’s latest briefing turned up on the internet. I am privileged to have seen this amendment, which I thought was worth raising. I have now come to the conclusion that the clause should not remain in the Bill, but if it does it should be amended. The RMT’s point about the miscarriage of justice is that:
“The Secretary of State’s power in the 1995 Act (269(1)(b)) … to re-open an accident investigation if he/she suspects that a miscarriage of justice may have occurred is retained but we remain concerned that this places the bar too high in such instances and will further deter trade unions, NGOs and others from conducting the sort of campaign that led to the re-opening of the MV Derbyshire investigation and eventually secured justice for the families of those who died at sea working on a UK flagged vessel. We are clear that a duty to reopen an investigation in the circumstances set out here is far safer than the power to re-open on the grounds of a miscarriage of justice”.
So it takes issue with the central plank of the Government’s argument that they have got it right in the Bill.
The second point the Minister made related to the administration of marine accident inquiries. The RMT now says, having considered all these issues, that:
“This line of argument is consistent with that made by the Chamber of Shipping in support of abolishing the Duty. The argument goes that removing the Duty is just a bit of ‘tidying’ to bring the Merchant Shipping Act into line with recently revised guidance … on marine accidents and investigations. RMT continues to reject this line of argument for the following reasons, none of which were satisfactorily answered by the Minister … in Committee”.
I am giving the Minister plenty of warning now about the answers we want today.
As the Government acknowledged in Committee in the Commons, the Marine Accident Investigation Branch is not an enforcement or prosecuting body. Its role is restricted to establishing the causes and circumstances of an accident in the aftermath partly to prevent future accidents. The duty to reopen investigations under the 1995 Act therefore remains an important statutory safeguard over the longer term if the initial accident investigation board investigation is found to be lacking.
Secondly, the duty in the 1995 Act is not regulatory goldplating. Paragraph 6 of the Marine Guidance Note 458 states:
“The Regulations … set out requirements for reporting accidents and serious injuries. They do not require the requirements of formal investigations or other public inquiries”.
Therefore, the duty in the 1995 Act is untouched by recent changes through regulations, and needs to be retained in the event of marine accidents involving UK-flagged vessels, particularly in the deep-sea sector.
Lord Prescott
I thank the Minister very much for giving a response to the last point—I could not expect him to have all the details, but at least he is aware of the problem. However, I still believe it is the right of every British citizen to have an investigation or an inquest—if, for example, their daughter has died. We should surely be entitled to report back to the people and have our Government involved in an inquest, as the Americans are doing. Our Government say, “It happened on a ship registered in the Bahamas”—but the authorities there have not had an inquest, so we should do it. I do not expect the Minister to give an answer, as it is a highly technical point, but perhaps he could just write to me with information from the department as to why we cannot have an inquest on a citizen who has gone missing, whatever the circumstances. The Americans have acted on it, and the least we could do is offer an inquest in which our own police are involved.
Lord Gardiner of Kimble
The advice is not on that particular matter but on another one.
Lord Rooker
My Lords, I sincerely thank the Minister for his response. This is not an area I have any detailed knowledge of whatever, but I understand that over the years there have been considerable improvements, and heaven forbid there is another big loss. Part of the briefing that I have is about the size of ships. The “Derbyshire” remains the largest UK-registered ship to have been lost at sea—I was unaware of that. It was big, with a gross tonnage of 91,000. As my noble friend said, at the time the bulk carriers accounted for only 7% of the world fleet but for 57% of lost ships, so there was clearly something wrong there that had to be looked at. I find it astonishing that it was found on the sea bed at 4,200 metres. That is an astonishing depth at which to locate and recover a ship.
I will refrain from saying too much about the “Trident”, because with my noble friend here I am trying to cut down my material, but the Minister referred to it. The “Trident” was lost for 35 years. Was there not a sniff at one time that because it had been lost for so long, the cost of reopening the case was considered by some people disproportionate to the potential benefits? Only one recommendation came out of that, while 22 came out of the “Derbyshire”. The Government’s argument—my noble friend raised this because of his detailed knowledge—completely ignores the benefit of emotional closure for the families. The Minister did not refer to that at all, but it is a matter which should be addressed. If there is a sniff about cost here, I would like some further and better particulars before Report. No one is making a cost argument, I am just naturally suspicious and it is a factor that I think has to be considered at the back of our minds.
I am on record as supporting the Bill and am very much in favour of deregulation. The Government do not go far enough sometimes, and the Bill introduces regulation to avoid regulation, so it does bits of both. However, the issue here, unlike other parts of the Bill, is that we know that people have died or have been missing for decades. As a result, we know we have the issue of the families, which should be considered. There are very few cases, as has been said.
Finally, my noble friend is quite right about the discretion of argument. Just looking around the Room, I see former departmental Ministers. I do not know about the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, but there is a difference in the coalition between being Whips and being answerable for other Ministers; I fully accept that. My noble friends Lord Whitty and Lord Prescott and I have been departmental Ministers—I was at a much lower level than my noble friend Lord Prescott—but the issue of discretion is interesting. You are allowed, as a Minister, to choose the colour of your car.
Lord Rooker
I did not mean to raise that. My driver always chose the car; but I was allowed to choose the colour. When it comes to big issues where there is discretion, the lawyers pile into the offices, because they are always worried sick about setting a precedent. They will admit that you have discretion and say, “Minister, it is your decision. However, our job is to advise you”. You get this pile of stuff about the pros and cons of creating a precedent. You are almost warned that you are not allowed to create precedents; it goes against the grain. Then their advice will be given to you in writing as part of the audit trail for the Permanent Secretary. If your decision leads to public expenditure that they might not agree with, that note will go to the National Audit Office and the chairman of the Public Accounts Committee.
So all the pressure on the Minister is not to do it: do not use your discretion. We are talking about inquiries. Inquiries cost money; we know that. I have been in six different departments and I have watched that happen in each one—except in Northern Ireland, which was slightly different. There is pressure not to use discretion. I am not saying that it is never used, because clearly it was in the case raised by my noble friend, and I have seen it in other cases, such as when I was at the Home Office with David Blunkett.
When it is legal, it is clear cut. You think, “There is no decision to take; it is taken for me”. That is where seniority comes in. When you are considering chief executives, how much discretion do they have? If they do not have a lot of discretion, the pay grade is lower than for those who have discretion. Those who have discretion are, by and large, pressured in a very subtle way not to use it. As I said, it is about the lawyers, the accounting officer’s certificate and the Perm Sec. Discretion is there on paper. Good examples can be given—I freely admit that—where Ministers exercise it, and it is right and proper that they do. I am just saying that my experience across departments was that, by and large, the pressure is not to use your discretion.
In this case, I have come to the conclusion that we should leave this well alone and I hope that in due course, the House or the Government—it would be better if the Government did it—remove the clause or substantially rewrite it. I hope that that is the message that Ministers will take back to the department: that the provision is unsatisfactory. Obviously, we will return to it on Report. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Deregulation Bill
Lord Rooker Excerpts(10 years ago)
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Lord Wallace of Saltaire
My Lords, I thank noble Lords who have taken part in the debate. As I came in, I was thinking that I have mixed views on housing standards. I first became aware of housing standards because of Parker Morris, when a number of houses in the Yorkshire dales were being condemned as back-to-earths which were not suitable or up to Parker Morris standards. Nowadays, those houses that remain would be regarded as extremely environmentally friendly and valuable; they were indeed beautiful homes. I once sat in on a violent argument between someone who lived in one of them and a particularly modernist Liberal councillor who believed that the Parker Morris standards were the absolute minimum and that any house that did not meet them should be immediately demolished.
On the other hand, having with my wife delivered to a large number of houses on the other side of the Aire from Saltaire just before the local elections this spring, with road names such as Cliff Rise and Steep Avenue—one house had 41 steps up to the front door—I recognise that accessibility is an issue with new housing. As I was listening to the debate, I reflected that if I wish to get out of bed in the middle of the night, in our house in Saltaire there are 15 steps down to the bathroom, whereas in my house in London there are five steps down to the bathroom, which, for someone approaching middle age, as I am, is much easier. The question of suitable and unsuitable accommodation is one which we all need to be concerned about.
First, this is not a dumbing down. As there is in much of the Bill and much government legislation at present, there is an inherent tension between local autonomy and central direction. I must say to the noble Lord, Lord Tope, that no Government can ever say that they understand in full the consequences of what they propose. We do our best to conduct impact assessments, but we are never entirely sure where we will be—especially after the High Court has had a go at our provisions in a few years’ time.
The optional requirements are intended to allow local authorities to set higher requirements for development than the building regulations minimum. They are a new concept in building regulations, and we are enabling local authorities, as a condition of granting planning permission, to require a developer to meet a higher building regulation requirement than the national minimum.
Lord Rooker (Lab)
Is it not the case, however, that if the local authority wants to do that, it must change its plan and go through the planning process for its local plan? So it is not just a question of a committee of councillors meeting to say, “We will let this go. We want higher standards”. It has to go through the process of changing its public local plan. Does the Minister accept that?
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
That is my understanding, but I am a great deal less expert on this than the noble Lord, so I shall have to consult and write to him if I am mistaken.
The intention is of course to raise standards for new builds. We understand the reasons why there is this strong push for lifetime building standards; we also recognise that that imposes costs and that there are parts of the country—certainly the part of the country in which I live when I am in Yorkshire—where finding a sufficiently large level site on which to build, which is part of the requirements, is not easy. A great deal of housing is therefore not entirely suitable for the high standards which are suggested.
The Government intend to issue planning guidance on matters to be taken into account by local authorities in applying optional requirements, and we are consulting on the matters to be covered in that guidance.
This will mirror the approach taken with planning guidance, which supports the National Planning Policy Framework. I promise that I will write to the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, on the point he has raised just to make sure I am correct.
Lord Rooker
I can give advance warning—it would be nice if we could have the answer before we start the debate on the next amendment, because it is a fundamental issue. The time it takes for a local authority to change its local plan is enormous, and it is a huge cost as well. All I am asking is whether it is a requirement based on what he has just said in relation to this particular amendment. It ought to be straightforward to get an answer to that—yes or no—from his officials.
Lord McKenzie of Luton
My noble friend is absolutely right. I think the consultation document makes it very clear that it has to be part of the planning process for planning authorities to be able to impose it as an optional requirement.
Lord Rooker
My Lords, I have a few reasons for seeking to have a short debate on Clause 33. First, let us be clear: this clause was not in the draft Bill that the Joint Committee scrutinised. That is a statement of fact. I am not complaining about that, because there are other things in the Bill that were not in the draft Bill and which I totally support. Indeed, I have signed one of the later government amendments. However, the fact is that it was not in the draft Bill. It was not even discussed or scrutinised in the House of Commons. I often wonder what happens down there. I spent 27 years there. We used to go through the minutiae in great detail. Half the Bills that come up here now have not even been debated. I question that. This clause was not in the draft Bill and was not discussed or scrutinised in the House of Commons; therefore we in this House ought to ask a few questions about it.
This is about lowering building standards. I do not want to be unfair to the Minister, because it is not his Bill—it is Oliver Letwin’s Bill. We were told that in the Joint Committee; Ken Clarke said to Oliver, when they came in as witnesses, “It is your Bill”. Is the Minister aware that he will be the first Minister in the coalition to speak in support of lowering housing standards? When the Environmental Audit Committee in the other place looked at this, a civil servant was sent to give evidence, not a Minister. He is out on a limb today. Is this what he went into politics and into the coalition for, to advocate the lowering of housing standards, from a Liberal Democrat perspective? That is what this is about.
I do not know all the background to this, obviously. There is a limit to my time. I looked at the clauses which were not in the Bill that we scrutinised in the Joint Committee that I had the honour of chairing. This one popped up one day on the system and my attention was drawn to it. I can see the Home Builders Federation’s fingerprints all over the clause; there is no question about that. I cannot see the fingerprints of the Construction Products Association, though—the people who actually make the products that make our houses energy efficient and more sustainable. Of course, they are small firms; there is probably not much by way of political donations from that part of the economy. So the message to the building products companies from this clause is, “Do not bother to invest in sustainable products”. What a message to send to a vital part of our manufacturing industry.
In the previous debate I raised the question of the local plan, and I fully accept that the Minister has to come back on that. However, in respect of this clause, my understanding is that the required local plan changes will effectively mean that nothing will happen. There will be a real problem here if local authorities have to change the plans at massive cost due to Clause 33. I say to the Minister that it will put a blight on housebuilding—the very opposite to what we need. We need 4,000 new homes every week. Local authorities which want to build sustainable housing or have a sustainable housing requirement will have to change their local plan when this clause becomes a reality and the code is no longer in use, and I will come to the details of the code in a minute. They will be forced to go to public inquiries at massive cost and that will take time. As my noble friend said, it will take two or three years. In other words, they will be advised not to bother, and we will end up getting housing of a lower standard.
My questions to the Minister are more specifically about this clause than the previous one, to which I was not paying full attention, although I listened to what the noble Lord, Lord Best, said. It struck me that the question about the local plans was quite legitimate. To say that you are giving local authorities choice is fine if the choice is theirs to make and they can get on with it, but if the consequence of the change is that they have to change the local plan and they may be opposed in doing that, it could take years and money, so they will not do it. Therefore, their choice is actually removed. The clause is giving them a freedom but constraining the way they use it in such a way that they cannot use it. It is a bit like saying that this is a Deregulation Bill but it is shot through with more regulation. There is a real difficulty here. I should like the Minister to be more specific about the effect of local plans because that will be important when we come to Report.
What is going to be lost in this? What will be lost are rules relating to materials and life cycle, pollution, site waste, internal recycling, energy efficiency, water efficiency, surface water flood risk, drying space in homes, white goods facilities in homes, daylight and sound. These are all issues relating to the environment and energy, and they will be lost because the code will not apply. That is what it is all about. There is no doubt that there will be a drop in housing standards exactly at the time when we do not need that.
The Environmental Audit Committee of the other place looked at this. It said that unlike building regulations, the code for sustainable housing,
“incentivises developers and designers to think about sustainability from the outset and throughout the development process”.
The coalition agreement stated that the Government would,
“require continuous improvements to the energy efficiency of new housing”.
Since 2007, the code for sustainable housing has delivered continuous improvements in the energy efficiency of new housing and other aspects of sustainable construction. On the Government’s decision to wind down the code, the Environmental Audit Committee of the other place stated, as part of its consultation, that the:
“DCLG may have overstated the case in dismissing”,
the code,
“as ‘unnecessary bureaucracy’. Retaining and evolving the CSH may offer a better way of driving incremental increases in sustainable home building than the proposed options set out in the … consultation”.
The LGA has said that it is going back almost to square 1 in terms of decent standards.
Manufacturers of building products have highlighted that long-term investment in sustainable building products might be affected by the new regime. The Construction Products Association pointed out that,
“sustainability represents an important business opportunity for UK manufacturers and represents market growth and export potential. Regulation and Standards are required to drive this forward”.
The BRE, which I will come to in more detail in a minute, said that the consultation proposals would restrict the ability of local planning authorities to adopt proactive strategies and would run counter to the Government’s stated aim to allow greater local choice.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, often raises difficult issues for Governments, and I give all credit to him for the attention he pays to this. It is an entirely proper role for a Member of the House of Lords to look with deep suspicion at government proposals and to make sure that the Government can provide the rationale for them. Perhaps I can assure him that Oliver Letwin spoke on this on the Floor of the House and it was discussed in Committee, so it has not been entirely ignored by the House of Commons.
Lord Rooker
Then I apologise. My advice was that it had not been looked at in the Commons. Obviously I was wrong there.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
The noble Lord is entirely right to be suspicious and to make sure that this is properly scrutinised, particularly an umbrella Bill such as this. I in no sense criticise him for raising a number of important points.
This is in no sense intended to lower standards; it is intended to continue the process of raising energy efficiency standards and to achieve zero-carbon aims. I was already briefed to make the point that the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, just helpfully made. This is not intended to commence until it replaces the other standards. The code on which representation has been made is a fairly complex piece of legislation. Those parts will not be abandoned; they will be incorporated into the building regulations. I stress that we are raising standards, not lowering them. I will make sure that I can say that with confidence again on Report, because I recognise the concerns of noble Lords.
By 2016, the Government plan to have tightened building regulations to deliver zero-carbon housing. I repeat that the Section 1(1)(c) amendment will not be commenced until then; meanwhile there will be no dip in standards. We intend to consolidate necessary standards to ensure that sustainable housing can be built. The current situation means that insufficient housing is being built because authorities are applying too many different standards, making sites unviable. This is a rationalisation, not a deregulation of the sort that lowers standards and enables people to move further away from the zero-carbon housing that we all very much want.
Clause 33 amends the Planning and Energy Act 2008 to ensure that local authorities in England will no longer be able to set energy efficiency standards via local planning policies for new homes in excess of the building regulations. It does so by disapplying Section 1(1)(c) for dwellings in England where government policy is that such a requirement should be found only in national building regulations. However, local authorities will still play an important strategic role in delivering carbon reductions and the Act will continue to enable them to do so.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
I thank the noble Lord for that interesting suggestion. May I consider it and consult? Perhaps we can also discuss that off the Floor, between Committee and Report.
Lord Rooker
I thank the Minister for his reply. I am not sure what I am supposed to do now on the clause stand part because there is no amendment.
Deregulation Bill
Lord Rooker Excerpts(10 years, 1 month ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lord Rooker (Lab)
My Lords, I chaired the Joint Committee, and we produced a report that mentioned Clause 2 only at the end, in the paragraph on “Wider concerns”. However, that report was published a year ago and things have moved on a little. What I would ask noble Lords to think about while we consider this clause on employment tribunals is: who does it affect? It affects only employers who have broken the law. I repeat: it affects only employers who have broken the law. So this is a completely different debate to the one we have just had on Clause 1. We have a specific target—those employers who have broken discrimination law. They are the only people affected by Clause 2. We therefore ought to look at it in that context.
We had a lot of evidence on Clause 2. I did not count the amount of time that was spent on it, but it was less than on some of the other issues. We noted the wider concern from opposing forces, if you like, at paragraph 190 of the report. There was an absence of evidence in favour of the clause from some groups, whereas the other side claimed the power in the clause had rarely been used since being enacted three years ago and that therefore it should go. I do not think rare use is an excuse or should be used as a reason of itself to abolish a power that was put in by Parliament only three years ago. That reason is not sufficient. Not many companies have been affected by it. In their response to the Joint Committee’s report, the Government said, at paragraph 103:
“around 28 Tribunal cases have been given wider recommendations”.
The emerging pattern was that 70% of the recommendations focused around training and management. It is unlikely that that pattern is going to change.
The Government’s response was published in January this year—a long time ago now. However, in order to assess the effectiveness of the power, the Government Equalities Office, which I think is buried deep in the Home Office, wrote in autumn 2013 to 27 of the lawbreaking employers who had received wider recommendations at that point. The Government Equalities Office asked whether those employers had taken forward those recommendations and how much it had cost them to do so. Eight bothered to reply, six from private and civil sector employers. The Government’s response states that:
“All the employers who responded had implemented the wider recommendation”—
that is, those lawbreaking employers found the extra recommendations quite useful to prevent further discrimination, which would cause them more problems if they were found guilty of discrimination again. They had taken the sensible course of doing something about the wider recommendations, at an average cost to business of around £2,000.
The Government Equalities Office—bless it—obviously thought that was sufficient. It could not even be bothered to chase up those who did not answer. That beggars belief: it did not bother to chase up those other 19 lawbreaking employers that could not be bothered to tell us what they had done. Thank heaven, therefore, for the Equality and Human Rights Commission. This is the central point that I want to make. I want to ask the Minister to take this away and think about it again. I freely admit that there is a justified case either way, but my view is that the decision here ought to be based on the evidence. The Joint Committee published its evidence by 16 December last year, as required by Parliament. The Government responded in January and the Bill has been through the other place.
However, the Equality and Human Rights Commission decided—bless it—to have a look at what had happened since the Government’s report was published, after it had already given evidence to the Joint Committee. It has gone away and had a look. It reviewed more than 400 employment tribunal judgments received from the employment tribunal between December 2012 and September 2014—note that: September 2014—long after the Government’s response to the Joint Committee.
I shall not go through the whole EHRC report, which many noble Lords will have received, but the criticisms of the wider recommendations power, as expressed by government and business, can be summarised as follows. One criticism was: “They impose a burden”—I think that is very polite—“on employers” who have broken the law. I repeat: all the employers affected have broken the law; they have all been found guilty of discrimination.
Lord Rooker
Is the noble Lord, Lord Curry, really arguing what used to be the case before we had health and safety and had low pay, that the backstreet crooks who are cutting corners—and in this case breaking the law—get a free ride, whereas all the other companies that are following the rules on discrimination and not breaking the law are then taken to the cleaners by being undercut by companies that are breaking the law? Does the noble Lord realise that that is the argument he is actually making, defending lawbreakers undercutting legitimate businesses that are following the law and not conducting discriminatory practices?
Lord Curry of Kirkharle
The noble Lord, Lord Rooker, knows perfectly well that I am not recommending that.
This is a small measure, a power that employment tribunals may or may not exercise. I am happy to say that as an employer I have never been subject to this but for those companies I am aware of, the lesson they have learnt through having broken the law and failed the tribunal process is in itself sufficient for them to improve their behaviour and the way they treat their employees afterwards without this power needing to be exercised.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
My Lords, this has been a useful and serious debate. I listened carefully to what the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, said, as he always does his homework extremely seriously—although the suggestion that you could find even a cigarette paper between the approaches which Oliver Letwin and I take to the Bill is one that I find quite remarkable. As a coalition Government, we are absolutely solid and arm in arm.
The noble Lord raised a number of serious questions. First, on the GEO inquiry, the 26 companies were of course under no obligation to reply; those that had the most interest replied. The GEO had taken the need to collect evidence seriously by contacting every employer at that time but there is also a question about the burden on industry and companies that one provides by pushing harder on those issues. Secondly, he raised the question of equal pay audits and how those are compared. As I think the noble Lord may know, an equal pay audit ordered by an employment tribunal is a precise and mandatory requirement, with sanctions for non-compliance, to advance equal pay in the small number of organisations where a breach of equal pay has been found. It is also directly a transparency measure, as it has to be published. By contrast, as has been stated in this debate, wider recommendations in other discrimination cases are effectively discretionary for employers and cannot be imposed.
On the question of how much evidence we have on all this, these wider recommendations have been handed down in fewer than 2% of all successful tribunal discrimination cases since 2010.
On the Red Tape Challenge, I say to the noble Lord, Lord Sharkey, that the presumption is that if the legislation does not serve a useful purpose then it should be removed. The fact that it is not terribly useful but confuses people as it stands is not a reason for leaving it on the statute book.
The noble Lord, Lord Ouseley, in a very helpful and powerful speech, raised the Howard case, which we are all well aware is one of the most difficult cases in this area. I should point out that the wider recommendation was intended for use in those cases where the complainant has left the relevant employer. In this case, as it happens, Miss Howard was still a Metropolitan Police employee, which would mean that the tribunal would still be able to make recommendations that benefited both her and her colleagues in the continuing workforce. Of course, even if Miss Howard had left the Metropolitan Police when the case was brought, it would remain open to the tribunal to express the same criticisms as observations in a non-statutory context.
What the Government are proposing will not result in any reduction in either the rights of complainants or the effective powers of tribunals, nor does it reduce the rights of other employees in the businesses concerned as the wider recommendation cannot be enforced on their behalf. Nevertheless, under the Red Tape Challenge the Government are committed to removing legislation that does not serve any clearly defined purpose, particularly where it none the less creates a perception of burden and unfairness. It is not just a question of those who, as the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, powerfully put it, have broken the law; we are concerned about the perceptions of unduly onerous legislative demands.
The power to make these wider comments, a somewhat anomalous one in a claimant-based adversarial system, came into effect four years ago. It has proved problematic. It is rarely used—we are aware of around 40 cases, as has been said, where they have been made—and trade organisations have told the Government that the power has led to additional cost, and that it is confusing.
Most of the wider recommendations made by tribunals are generic. Of the 40 or so that we are aware of, over 90% concern training for management or the updating of company diversity policies. However, as I have said, tribunals do not have the power to enforce such recommendations. Post-tribunal action is largely taken voluntarily by employers that have lost a discrimination case. Unless it was a one-off incident, business sense would drive changes in workplace practices to avoid a similar case being brought against them in future.
Perhaps I can give a few numbers in the areas that the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, raised. In 2012-13, the Government Equalities Office partnered the British Chamber of Commerce in events across the country, explaining the Act to small businesses. Around 300 businesses attended the events, and a follow-up booklet, Business is Good for Equality, was more widely distributed by regional chambers to their members, which altogether employ around 5 million people. Some 300 businesses attended the 10 short sessions to learn first hand about their obligations under equality law; that is more than seven times the number of employers that have received a wider recommendation in the four years since 2010. I hope that that provides some more detail of the sort that the noble Lord was asking for.
I know that concerns have been expressed that this repeal will reduce protections against discrimination in the workplace. That is not the Government’s intention and it will not be a result of this reform. Tribunals will continue to have the power to make recommendations and observations on their behalf. The question is: has this power done its job? I would say that for the employer, the wider workforce and the business in general, the answer is that it has not. There is instead a very small and unenforceable benefit balanced against the larger cost and the problem of uncertainty for business. I therefore urge that this clause remain part of the Bill.
Lord Rooker
Well, I thought that was a disgraceful speech, defending law-breaking employers. I have been where the Minister is. If I had sat through the debate I have just heard, I would have said, “Actually, I will take the recommendation back”. I would go to my Secretary of State and say, “I was going to screw this up anyway; the House was against me. We need some better arguments”.
I say to the Minister that the Government need better arguments, and the Red Tape Challenge is not one to use; you cannot rely on it for this. During the Red Tape Challenge, I came across an example where anecdotal comments by two environmental health officers caused the weight of the department and the committee led by the noble Lord, Lord Curry, to come down on the Food Standards Agency and say, “Keep unsafe kitchens in parks and village halls”. We said, “No, unsafe kitchens kill people”. They said, “But the Red Tape Challenge has actually identified this”. It was two anecdotal comments from environmental health officers on a website. That is the intellectual weight of the Red Tape Challenge. It is nonsense when you actually look at it.
I say to the Minister that he cannot rely on the Red Tape Challenge in this case because I do not recall it being used when we did the committee inquiry upstairs. I say to the Minister what the then Prime Minister said to me: “One last chance”. Would he like to take this away, come back on Report, and have a little think about it with a bit more fresh evidence—fresher than we have at the moment? Does he not think that would be a good idea?
Lord Rooker
Well, I know that that noble Lord would not want any evidence, but he is not the Minister. I am asking the Minister. Would it not be a good idea to get more up-to-date evidence and take it away to have a little think about it? That is all that I am asking him to do.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
My Lords, of course, between Committee and Report, as the noble Lord is well aware, the Government take things away and have discussions in the Corridor. Officials look at the speeches that have been made and attention is drawn to their implications. Of course we will undertake to do that, and I am happy to talk further to the noble Lord, Lord Rooker. That is the way in which we always operate in this House: we take very seriously all the arguments made in Committee.
Lord Hardie (CB)
Can I clarify in my own mind what the argument is? As I understand the Minister, the justification for the clause is that it would meet the test of the Red Tape Challenge. However, I also understand that the burden of the power will still exist for a tribunal to make an observation in the same terms as a recommendation. I am struggling to understand how that does not impose upon the employer the same burden as exists at the moment. Perhaps the Minister could help me out.
Lord Curry of Kirkharle
My Lords, I will correct something that the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, has just said. The Red Tape Challenge process is not influenced by two environmental health officers. There is a robust process which follows up the public consultation process which is part of the Red Tape Challenge. There is a star chamber with Ministers, independent representatives and government officials who thrash out the various comments that have come through the Red Tape Challenge process, and which have eventually arrived as part of the Bill.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
I simply answer that the argument is that these provisions are unnecessary. It will make a small amount of difference, but the fact that we have removed them will mean that the sheer weight of regulations and expectations that employers have will be reduced a little. That is, in itself, useful.
Deregulation Bill
Lord Rooker Excerpts(10 years, 4 months ago)
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Lord Sherbourne of Didsbury (Con)
My Lords, I was very pleased that, in introducing the Bill, the Minister reminded us that one of its main purposes was to create jobs and enterprise. That was echoed by the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, who hoped that the Bill would stimulate the economy. My noble friend Lord Fowler told us quite rightly that it was important that restrictions and regulations that were brought in some time ago to meet the circumstances of the time should be looked at again, as the world has changed. That brings me neatly to the one point that I want to make today, which is about Sunday trading.
It is now 20 years since the Sunday Trading Act became law and, of course, the world has changed considerably since then. Sundays are now a huge family day, with great sporting events—people go to football in a way that never happened on such a scale previously—concerts and cultural activities. It is a fantastic opportunity for families to get together. The Government recognised this two years ago during the Olympics. They recognised that, in the new world, the current restrictions were not appropriate, so they relaxed the Sunday trading laws for eight consecutive weekends. They knew that people and their families wanted to shop at a time of their choosing and not at a time laid down by officialdom and red tape.
Sunday trading was mentioned in passing by the noble Lord, Lord Monks, who is not in his place. I say to him that there has been one other major development in today’s world, which is the number of people who work right through the week on different days and at strange hours. They do so because they want to meet the needs of their customers. In particular, there are those in the public sector, the public servants on whom we all rely, who have to provide 24/7 service to their customers, patients and so on. Should not those public servants be on the receiving end of similar flexibility on a Sunday as well?
There has been another change since the Act came in 20 years ago, which is 24-hour online shopping. I think that younger people find the idea very quaint that people should not be allowed to shop between certain hours on a Sunday.
Under the current law, shops of more than 3,000 square feet can open only for restricted hours on a Sunday. Smaller shops do not have restricted hours. As a result, the big supermarket chains have been opening their own small stores of less than 3,000 square feet and then charging in them significantly more than in their larger supermarkets. Surveys show that, in some of these supermarket “mini” or “local” stores, prices are on average 10% higher. Customers rightly see that as something of a rip-off.
Lord Rooker
The noble Lord gives an excellent example. About six months ago, I did a shopping survey in the town where I live, Ludlow. I bought identical products in One Stop, which does not label itself as Tesco but is wholly owned by it, and in the Tesco supermarket in the town. All the products went to the food bank afterwards. The noble Lord is absolutely right: there is a 10% difference in price. A small store can open from 6 am to 11 pm because it is not governed by the Sunday trading laws, but there is definitely a premium to be paid in those small stores owned by the supermarkets.
Lord Sherbourne of Didsbury
I am grateful to the noble Lord for that comment, which is reinforced by surveys that show exactly the same thing: prices are on average 10% higher. That is a rip-off in my view.
An anomaly in the current law is the way in which garden centres have been caught up in these restrictions—I do not think that that was ever the intention—because their products are spread over a larger area than 3,000 square feet. Garden centres are a big part of family outings.
I am not asking the Minister for much. This is a very large Bill, with more than 200 pages, so I am sure that it would not be impossible for him to add perhaps one extra page.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
My Lords, I start by declaring an interest of which the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, in his opening speech reminded me. My wife was a member of the previous Government’s Better Regulation Commission from 2006 to 2008. She reminds me that after the change of Prime Minister the previous Labour Government abolished it.
The noble Lord, Lord Rooker, reminded us that what the House of Lords does best, and what is indeed becoming our core role, is to examine the details of legislation placed before us. We can all agree that this Bill has a wealth of detail. Those who got all the way through to Schedule 20 understand that fully and thus we shall have lots to explore at the Committee stage. It is evident from today’s debate that there is particular concern over Clause 1 and Clauses 10 to 12. Many other clauses and parts of schedules have been warmly welcomed. Some have been queried, with much more information requested, and there will indeed be much to explore in Committee which will start when we return in October. I note what is being said about generous time being needed for that stage.
Between now and then the Government, as always, are open to consult off the Floor, with all those who wish to do so, including the Local Government Association, although not within this Bill taking on the whole universe of local licensing, which the noble Baroness, Lady Eaton, perhaps suggested. The noble Lord, Lord Sharkey, requested hyperlinks to previous legislation. In informal consultations the other day, the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, asked for a Keeling schedule for the entire Bill. We have noted both of those requests and will see what we can do. The noble Lord, Lord Tope, talked about the distinction between better regulation, smart regulation and fit regulation. As the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, and others said, there is a difference between deregulation and re-regulation.
One of the things we have learnt over the past few years is that there is a constant need for adjustment and adaptation in regulation. We need to look constantly at what is no longer necessary, even as we look at what is now needed. We need a great deal more regulation of the internet, for example. If the noble Lord, Lord Maxton, were here, he would have linked the transformation of broadcasting with that of the transformation of the taxi market by things like Uber and the transformation of short-term lets by the arrival of Airbnb. These are all new phenomena that technology has pushed on us in what one of the contributors remarked as being this fast-changing digital world.
I note, however, that excessive regulation does sink economies. It was not until the crash of the Greek economy and finances that we discovered just how amazingly overregulated the Greek economy was and how much that held it back. I remember as a student the beginnings of the deregulation of the British economy by that nowadays underestimated politician, Edward Heath, in his deregulation of the retail market. The growth agenda is important and we always have to look at it in making sure that old regulations go even as new regulations are sometimes needed.
Underlying some of our discussions there have been suspicions of a hidden agenda: whether or not the health and safety culture is threatened—I wish to assure noble Lords that it is not; whether the BBC is about to be undermined; whether the proposals on marine accidents are really an attempt to get away from marine accident investigations. Again, I can assure noble Lords that they are not. We will come back to those issues in detail in Committee.
A number of other issues have been raised that are not currently within the Bill. The noble Lords, Lord Dubs, Lord Clement-Jones, Lord Grade and Lord Macdonald of Tradeston, referred to the issue of retransmission revenues. I listened with interest to some of this. I think I have received nearly a dozen communications from Virgin Media in Saltaire over the past 12 months. Since it put cable through Saltaire it is extremely keen for us all to subscribe and is sending me some extremely generously printed brochures almost every month.
I take the point that public service broadcasters should not be subsidising commercial enterprises. We are of course willing to talk to others about how and within what framework we address Section 73 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, although the Government may be reluctant to concede that that fits appropriately within this Bill.
I noted in Schedule 20 that anyone who keeps a pigsty is part of what we are now repealing. I am just old enough as a small boy to have visited farms where they still had pigsties and indeed once visited a farm where they were in the action of killing a pig. That is part of the thing that no longer takes place and therefore we no longer need it.
We also touched on busking and Sunday trading. I share the feeling of the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, that it is probably quite a good thing that we are not tackling Sunday trading as well as everything else on this occasion. Perhaps the next Government will wish to reopen that immediately.
The noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, asked where the figures for savings from the Bill came from. Officials have prepared a summary table of the Bill and I am very happy to share this with the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, following the debate and to put it in the Library for all noble Lords. It is part of the Red Tape Challenge. Many of these are estimates but we are fairly confident that they are not too imprecise.
Clause 1, the health and safety clause, has clearly set a number of concerns running. The prescribed list of high-hazard activities is now being consulted on. The consultation went out today and is available online. It will run for 12 weeks which means that it will be completed by the Committee stage and the regulators will thus be able to issue at least some guidance towards that by the time we are in Committee. The new regulations will use definitions of health and safety already present in law, which means that we are not changing the context of health and safety. In answer to the noble Baroness, Lady Donaghy, I am informed that Professor Löfstedt wrote to the Commons committee in support of the clause as drafted. We will both investigate further to see who is quoting Professor Löfstedt more directly.
On the question on whether the number of self-employed workers is growing because of the expansion of bogus self-employed contracts, the Government are taking parallel action in other forums to stop the use of such bogus contracts. For example, in this year’s Finance Bill, the Government introduced changes to the agency tax rules to put a stop to the growing use of those requirements. This is not intended to allow any expansion in that area. We are looking at professional people who work at home and do not employ others. That is the category from which we hope to lift unnecessary regulations.
The noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, and other noble Lords raised the question of tribunals. There is no evidence to suggest that the wider recommendations prevent reoffence. That is why the Government decided to remove this burden. In one very clear recent case involving the Metropolitan Police and a diplomatic protection officer, the tribunal made no wider recommendations but the Metropolitan Police has made it clear that it recognises that there are wider concerns. I do not think this is such a difficult issue. There is some evidence, which was presented to the Government in the consultation, that this involved additional cost for smaller employers and did not produce great benefit for others.
A lot was said about taxis and private hire vehicles and I am sure that we will have an impassioned debate on this issue in Committee. We are conscious that there is a range of concerns including, as a number of noble Lords have said, questions of safety. The question of the use of private hire vehicles by others when they are off-duty clearly needs to be examined. However, we have looked at the Law Commission recommendations and are satisfied that taking these measures forward neither undermines the Law Commission review nor necessarily means that we will not take the Law Commission proposals into account at a later stage when it produces its Bill.
Parking has also raised a lot of issues for many noble Lords, with the question of CCTV and parking fines. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Oldham, that we have not considered the risks of removing the use of CCTV as we are not talking about doing that. There were a number of questions about how CCTV is used at a local level, on which all of us have slightly different and ambivalent views. Again, we will come back to that in detail in Committee.
On short-term lets, as someone who had never really thought about this problem previously, I listened with interest. I live close to Wimbledon where, every year, a number of well-off local people seem to let out their houses for two weeks at a time for remarkably large sums. I have to admit that the Wallaces had considered whether we should go away for two weeks. My wife, however, said no, because she actually likes going to Wimbledon herself rather than sitting and watching it on TV. There are some important issues about, first, what is now happening; secondly, why the regulations in London are different from those in the rest of the country; thirdly, how far the evolution of short-term letting through the internet is beginning to change the situation anyway; and fourthly, therefore, how we respond to that.
On the right to buy, we recognise worries about whether there is an underlying agenda and how this will affect the future provision of social housing. A problem we all face with social housing is that the previous Government did not build enough social housing and this Government have so far, disappointingly, not been able to build as much social housing as we would like. Part of what is required under the Bill is that councils which sell houses use the money to build new social housing as part of the deal.
On optional building regulations, Clause 32 will not amend standards related to safety. It will allow for certain requirements to be adapted locally, but will provide for the range of what standards are permissible to be set nationally. I am happy to discuss this further with the noble Baroness, Lady Andrews, and others as part of the consultation between now and Committee stage.
Lord Rooker
The Minister referred to 12 weeks earlier. We are going to have at least 12 weeks between Second Reading and the start of Committee stage. That is very unusual. I can see at least 800 or 900 amendments. If events take their course, they will not be tabled until 10 October. Would it not be a good idea for the staff of the House, and the Minister’s own staff who are providing those responses, if we were able to table amendments from, say, 1 September rather than have to put them all in on the day we come back, which would not be conducive to having a decent debate on the Bill? It is a bit unusual, but we are in unusual times. We can do it if we decide to do so. Perhaps the Minister could take some advice and come back on that.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
That is a very constructive suggestion. I will take it away and we will discuss it.
On short-term lets in London, I am told that the question was included in the consultation issued in February last year on a review of the property conditions of the private rented sector. Nearly 100 responses were received and the Government will publish their response shortly.
One of the happy surprises I have in facing this Bill is that my initial feeling that the rights of way clauses of the Bill would be the most difficult turns out not to be the case. The Ramblers, the Country Land and Business Association and others have written to me to say that they are united in asking for no further amendments to this part. I hope that we can all hold to that. It is remarkably unusual to find a situation in which all those involved in a deeply contentious area, which has been contentious for a very long time, have come to an agreement and are asking us to put it into law. Let us see how far we can get on that following their consensus.
The noble Lord, Lord Stoneham, and others asked about the TV licensing review. As a matter of course, I can tell him that the terms of reference will be laid in the Libraries of both Houses and the review itself must begin within three months of the Bill receiving Royal Assent.
Deregulation Bill
Lord Rooker Excerpts(10 years, 4 months ago)
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Lord Fowler (Con)
My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the right reverend Prelate, who raised some important issues, not least his final point about gambling. My general position is that one of the most effective actions that any Government can take is to look at the regulations that are in force to see if they are relevant in the modern day. It may be that they were entirely sensible 20, 30 or 40 years previously when they were introduced, but the question is whether today they still have the same force. It is not only that they may have no relevance; it may be that they also hold back business development and, above all, prevent the development of services that are to the benefit of the public.
I will give three very short examples from my own experience. When I was Transport Secretary in 1979, we had an elaborate system for controlling the provision of coach services up and down the country. If I wanted to run a coach service from Birmingham to London, I had to go to the traffic commissioners and ask for permission. Invariably my application would be opposed by British Rail and the National Bus Company on the grounds that they already had services. Frequently the traffic commissioners would find for them. In other words, the decision rested with the commissioners, not with the travelling public. We abolished those restrictions and the result has been a very fast-developing coach service in this country, which has meant a tremendous addition in cheap coach travel, particularly for young people, up and down the land.
The second example is that when I was Health Secretary, we reviewed the regulations governing opticians. Competition was limited. It all seemed very much, frankly, to the benefit of the optician and not of the customer. Again, we deregulated, with the effect that today there is a very competitive market, which is also to the benefit of the public.
The third example is perhaps the best known: the abolition of the regulations and restrictions of the Dock Labour Scheme, about which my noble friend Lord Brabazon also knows a great deal. I do not doubt the original intention and justification, but the days of exploitation of labour had gone, and the trouble was that the regulations were standing in the way of port development and new employment opportunities. I remember going to Liverpool and being told—lectured, perhaps—on the need for me to direct sea traffic to the Mersey. This was self-evidently not something which it was in my power to do, but what we could do was to take away the restrictions. The result was that new business has developed in ports all round this country. We have seen an utter transformation of that industry.
I am, therefore, a great supporter of sensible deregulation—and, indeed, in one or two areas, which perhaps we can come to in Committee, I would go further. It encourages jobs when all too often regulation destroys them. As far as I can judge, the vast majority of the measures in this Christmas tree Bill—and I agree with that description—will be beneficial to the public. It is the interests of the consumer that must always be pre-eminent.
Having set out my belief, I have two questions. The first is on health and safety. I acknowledge that the Government have sought to be careful here, but I am concerned that too much of the public debate starts from the premise that health and safety legislation is almost by definition unnecessary. I dispute this. For many years I worked in the aggregates industry. In the 1930s quarries were notorious for their accident record. Even in the postwar years their record was not particularly good.
The irony was that, all too often, the injuries concerned people who were trying to help; they were trying to get into motion a machine that had stuck and were then drawn into it. What was needed was a culture of safety. To its great credit, the industry has taken giant steps to respond to that. When I was chairman of one company and then on the board of an international company, health and safety was the first issue on the agenda, before profits and the results of that particular month or quarter.
I think that, if we believe in wider share ownership for the benefit of staff, we should be in favour of measures to protect the safety of staff. The Government say that their measures will not harm safety. I say only that, in Committee—and I echo one or two points that have been made—we should be given more information on the self-employed occupations that will be excluded by this legislation.
My noble friend Lord Gardiner will not be in the least surprised that my second question concerns measures to decriminalise non-payment of the BBC licence fee. The most obvious question about that is, “What on earth is it doing in this Bill in the first place?”. We have a whole period of debate on the future of the licence fee and all the other broadcasting issues that go with the royal charter.
The Government’s reply is that we cannot wait, but when it comes to the future of the BBC Trust, virtually everybody agrees that it is a completely outdated and, dare I say it—well, “useless” may be putting it a bit high, but it is certainly an outdated body.
Lord Fowler
Yes; I said “useless”. We are told that we cannot consider that, and that we will go ahead with the appointment of a new chairman for a body which, self-evidently, has the executioner’s axe hanging over it.
The process of change here is not beyond criticism. We set up a review of an unspecified nature, and then, depending on the review—the result of which, obviously, we know nothing whatever about—we delegate to the Secretary of State the power to change the law, not by primary legislation but by regulation. However well intentioned this clause may be, I do not believe that giants of the past such as Enoch Powell or Michael Foot would have approved of it as a measure and as a way of developing legislation in this House.
Therefore, self-evidently, there is much to discuss in Committee. Indeed, you might say that the Bill provides the whole justification for this House, because we have the time to do that while quite clearly the other House does not. As I said, I strongly approve of the direction of travel of the Bill, but I also register that the detail deserves careful scrutiny and debate.
Lord Rooker
My Lords, I was very pleased to chair the Joint Committee on the draft Bill between October and December last year, because I was coming to the end of my four years on the Food Standards Agency, so I had not done much committee work in the House. I volunteered to do the job that nobody else wanted to do, and that was the one that came up. However, I must record that in my view and that of members of the committee, the Joint Committee received the most exceptional support from the clerks in both Houses, and we let their respective bosses know about that at the end of our deliberations.
By and large, I am pleased with the Government’s response to the report. The Joint Committee ceased to exist once it had reported on 16 December last year, so I only speak for myself on the Bill. Ministers removed and amended material, and carried out further consultations as recommended by the Joint Committee. The key removal was of the massive Henry VIII clause, which was described as an outstanding example of its type, and which would have caused your Lordships’ House much waste of time. The lawyers and the constitutionalists would have loved it, but it would have been a complete and utter waste of time. It is not there any more. It was a bit cheeky that it was in the Bill in the first place; Ministers and civil servants need to be on notice not to try to bypass Parliament again in the way they tried in the draft Bill. I do not say that out of any romantic attachment to the House of Commons, as the Minister patronisingly implied the previous time I spoke, but because that is not a good way to do legislation. That is the fact of the matter with Henry VIII clauses.
I will refer to just a handful of matters in this Christmas tree Bill. It is true that, unlike most Bills, the Long Title allows Members to hang any subject they like on this one. If the House of Commons was full of campaigning Members of Parliament at the present time, they could have had a field day on economic, social and constitutional issues that could have lasted for months and months. However, it would be quite wrong for this House to do that, because we are unelected, and I will not give examples of the kinds of issues, because it will only give noble Lords ideas. I would have liked to have done some of that myself, but the opportunity was not taken by the elected House, so the chance has been lost.
The Joint Committee concentrated on areas we had submissions on—several hundred of them, although half were on the rights of way issue, which is a separate issue. Our view was that if that was amended in any way and dealt with again, it should be a separate Defra Bill. We think the package in the Bill should be maintained, because it is an agreed one, which is important.
There should be two procedures to assist our scrutiny as the Bill comes to this House. They are not new; I raised them before the previous general election. First, we should have a list of subjects that have been added to the Bill after pre-legislative scrutiny and which therefore have not been subject to pre-legislative scrutiny, and confirmation that they have been consulted on. I do not think anything should be added to the Bill that has not had a consultation. It is quite right to add things after pre-legislative scrutiny, but they have to be consulted on. Secondly, a list of areas should be set out where the Commons, under the timetable of the Bill, has not done its work. It has not discussed much of the Bill. The draft Bill had 65 clauses; it now has 91. The draft Bill had 132 pages; it now has 204. As I said, I have no problem with extra subjects being added—I know at least one which I fully support that will be added by the Government and which has been subject to consultation. That is a key element.
Although this is not dealt with in the Bill, the Joint Committee had views on the use and abuse of the Law Commission, from which we took evidence. It was crystal clear that there was massive tension between the Law Commission and Ministers in the Cabinet Office. The plain fact is that Ministers in general take no interest at all in the Law Commission’s trawl tidying up Bills every three years. As such, the departments do not take any interest. For example, when the Law Commission did its trawl of departments in 2011, the legislation listed as being “no longer of practical use” in Schedule 20—originally Schedule 16—could have been offered up by the departments. Not a single subject in that schedule was offered by the departments because of uninterested Ministers and lazy Permanent Secretaries. However, in this case it is the result of Cabinet Office Ministers saying to their colleagues in other departments, “We want three or four subjects that are no longer of use and we want them in a Bill”. When Ministers do that for colleagues, the department then takes an interest because the Ministers are interested. We then end up with Schedule 20. That is not a good way to deal with legislation.
It appeared as though there was an attempt to bypass the Law Commission. I do not say that in a critical way, but that is what it looked like. I plead guilty, by the way, because I have been there, so I know what happens; there is some guilt there. The Law Commission has been doing this work for 60 years, and there is only one occasion when it recommend abolishing a subject that it later turned out was still in use. It has a good track record on this; both Houses trust the Law Commission. Can the Minister confirm whether the issues in Schedule 20 have been checked again?
I will briefly mention two or three points from the Bill. I strongly support non-economic regulators having to take growth into account. I accept there will be problems regarding the Equalities and Human Rights Commission, but the growth duty must complement and not override the regulator’s existing duties. That is what we were informed would be the case. At all times it is essential that consumer and public confidence is maintained in the relevant regulator.
I used an example in the committee from when I was at the Food Standards Agency—before the Bill saw the light of day. We constantly pointed out that we regulated on the basis of risk, not size. However, we had no problem embracing a growth duty, simply because the meat industry cannot export to Russia and China, for example, where requirements on abattoirs are greater than in the EU, unless the FSA has regulated and can sign off those businesses. We encouraged growth because we ensured those businesses conformed to the rules and requirements of, for example, the Russian Government. That was an important element. At another time we said no to the idea of stopping regulating kitchens in village halls. Kitchens in village halls can kill people if they are dirty, just as kitchens in large hotels can. It is not a question of size, but of risk. It can therefore be adequately embraced by non-economic regulators.
There are two or three other changes. I am coming to the end of my speech and I will be brief. We did not take any evidence on the clause on marine accident investigations. We ought to look at that a bit more closely as it goes through this House. We should look at removing the automatic duty to reorder a hearing in the light of new evidence. The cases of the “Gaul”, which sank in 1975 and was discovered in 1997, and the MV “Derbyshire”, which sank in 1980 and was found in 1994, are both highly relevant.
I shall not say much about health and safety, although we took a lot of evidence on it. Like the noble Lord, Lord Fowler, I had an interest in this. My maiden speech in the other place 40 years ago was on industrial safety. All my experience had been in manufacturing industry, with people doing things wrong, guards not working and so on. I realise that that is not necessarily covered here but it is the culture that is important. I remember that I sat as a member of the Standing Committee on the health and safety Bill which resulted from the work of the Robens committee. Industry in this country had a disastrous record on safety in general. It has vastly improved over the years and we do not want to turn the clock back.
I do not think that the Government have got the legislation right on insolvency practitioners. Clearly there was a massive difference in the evidence from Ministers and from the insolvency profession. I do not think that the Bill should be left as it is, with three choices. In most cases, practitioners told us that they cannot work out what kind of case it will be until they start working on it. It might look like a private case but, at the same time, it might also be corporate. Therefore, there is a real problem and it will lead to confusion. This needs to be cleared up. I think that the Government have got it wrong here.
The Government have also been stubborn in Clause 61 in abolishing the powers of the Senior President of Tribunals to report on standards. Frankly, I think that tribunal standards ought to be reported on by the senior president so that Parliament knows whether the tribunals are up to the job. That work is not burdensome. Likewise, as has already been referred to, the Government have persisted in getting rid of the power of employment tribunals to make wider recommendations. I think that that is a mistake and that it ought to be looked at again.
As for the new material, the Government have only themselves to blame here. I am not complaining about the new material, but we have to do our job properly. This legislation will affect millions of people in their daily lives in very diffuse ways that cannot be pinned down because it is not just one piece of legislation that is relevant here. As we have heard, a massive amount will affect at least a dozen departments.
This House has to be given the opportunity and the time to do its job, particularly on the clauses not dealt with by the House of Commons due to the timetabling of legislation. That is not a complaint; it is the reality and it is what we are here for. We are a revising Chamber—we are not here to start this Bill—and this will be a really good test of whether we do our job properly. Whether we are elected or unelected does not make any difference.