Small Business, Enterprise and Employment Bill
Debate between Lord Watson of Invergowrie and Lord Naseby
Lord Naseby
My Lords, I, too, pay tribute to my noble friend on the Front Bench. I thank her for arranging the briefing session last week that I took part in, which helped me understand this in greater depth. It did not assuage many of my worries but at least I understood more clearly where Her Majesty’s Government were coming from. I think that the House should be indebted to my noble friends Lord Flight and Lord Borwick, who have taken a detailed interest in the Bill. Both have raised issues that have always been there. I listened to my noble friend Lord Flight and, indeed, corresponded with him at an earlier stage.
Since the Bill was conceived several things have happened. First, we should be aware that the United States proposes to take no action at all. The President of the United States maintains that he is there as a central body, and that he is not permitted by law and statute in the United States to take any similar action because it is a state matter. As far as the states of Delaware, Wyoming and at least two others are concerned, they are going to carry on business as usual and, in fact, probably benefit from any Bill that we start off as a wonderful, transparent initiative.
The other dimension that has been clarified is that the OECD has indicated that if the United States is not going to comply, it sees no reason why it should. That is a second block. The G20 and the G8 have already been referred to; there does not seem to be much movement there other than what is likely to come out of the EU. That seems to be a very strong case for waiting to see exactly what comes out of the EU in preference to going forward on our own. At least then there would be a significant number of countries that would have come to a conclusion about what can be done and what is proper and ideal in terms of helping the law enforcement agencies. That to me is absolutely crucial.
Perhaps I could raise a point about timing. I listened to what my noble friend on the Front Bench said about timing. I do not know how closely she knows the timings of the implementation of the pensions Bill, but small businesses are currently having to register—as far as I know, by 1 April. It all has to be done online—it is not an easy thing for anybody to do; it is not the most user-friendly process—but those small businesses are registering for a policy to be implemented in 2017. Obviously, that department, in a fairly complicated area, has decided that it needs a couple of years to get the whole thing up and running properly. But my noble friend on the Front Bench seems to be saying that, although we are starting later with this Bill—it has not even had Royal Assent yet—the whole thing is going to be up and running by 2016. I just wonder how realistic that timescale is.
I know that Her Majesty’s Government want to do everything online but, frankly, the software that has been produced in a number of areas leaves much to be desired. Can my noble friend reassure me that the software that is associated with this is almost ready to be set forward for the market to use, or is it still being produced somewhere? Has it been trialled yet? I do not know but I am asking my noble friend to have a close look at timing. Finally, I repeat that for small business to have to face a charge of over £1 billion when this is supposed to be an enterprise country is, frankly, absolutely ridiculous.
Lord Watson of Invergowrie
My Lords, I oppose the amendments in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Flight. Frankly, they are quite in contradiction to the whole thrust of the Bill, which is to increase transparency. They would have the opposite effect and I very much regret that. I am not going to rehearse the arguments that we traded in Committee a couple of months ago but I would just like to point out that he has brought up a new point about proper purpose. I dare say we could be here till this time next week before getting any sort of consensus on what a proper purpose was—in fact, we might not have succeeded even by then. I really think that that would be a backward step.
Surely the basic premise of the legislation is that public scrutiny will root out corruption more effectively, and indeed quickly, than the legal authorities themselves could do. I cannot understand noble Lords being opposed to that. To a certain extent, as far as companies are concerned, there is a case of, “If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear”—but, equally, what do companies have to fear from transparency? The analogy with the former Prime Minister Tony Blair was not particularly apt in this situation. Personal privacy is one thing but companies have to be prepared to be open about the way in which they operate. Commercial confidentiality is one thing, but it has its limits.
My final point is about removing the requirement for a business to make its register publicly available. That is an essential element of this part of the Bill. I find it strange that the noble Lord, Lord Borwick—