Draft Pollution Prevention and Control (Fees) (Miscellaneous Amendments) Regulations 2022

Debate between Alan Whitehead and Paul Scully

Tuesday 24th May 2022 General Committees

[Paul Scully]

I am glad to hear that overall I have provided the necessary assurances for the Committee to approve the statutory instrument, but I appreciate the valid questions that have been asked.

OPRED’s accrued income is about £6.2 million per year, as the hon. Member for Southampton, Test said. The majority is charged to the offshore sector, with less than £100,000 charged to the North Sea Transition Authority, which is largely for the provision of advice related to licence transfers, and the appointment of operators and monitoring compliance with an offshore licensee’s obligations to make adequate provision to cover potential environmental damage liabilities deriving from their operations.

OPRED bills about 120 companies and the NSTA on a quarterly basis, but the fees are determined by adding together the number of hours worked by specialists and non-specialists on cost-recoverable activities multiplied by the applicable hourly rates. That is the chargeable amount, but there is something like £10 million of overall running costs for OPRED’s environmental operations unit, including the cost of the office in Aberdeen and corporate support supplied from London. The recovery is 65% of those costs.

[Dr Whitehead]

Does the Minister accept that it looks like there are a number of other recoverable costs liable to OPRED that have not been mentioned this afternoon? It would be helpful to know what those costs are.

[Paul Scully]

I will write to the hon. Gentleman about the costs and to the hon. Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun about the qualifications. OPRED’s operating costs are more than £6.2 million—about £10 million—but the recoverable costs have been established in previous years. The amendment is just a recalibration of the hourly rates according to the annual uprating, and indeed downrating for the non-specialists, as they relate to the administrative costs around the hourly rate that the individuals get themselves. I hope the hon. Member for Southampton, Test will accept my explanation if I provide more detail in writing.

[Dr Whitehead]

indicated assent.

[Paul Scully]

The regulations will enable OPRED to recover the costs, which we do not want to pass on to the taxpayer. I therefore commend them to the Committee.

Question put and agreed to.

Fireworks: Sale and Use

Debate between Alan Whitehead and Paul Scully

Monday 8th November 2021 Westminster Hall

[Paul Scully]

We are never going to get a perfect situation. It was terrible to hear what the hon. Lady faced. One Member talked about the Republic of Ireland having tougher restrictions than we do, and it was terrible that only last month a lady in Galway had a firework fired into her face. Even with those tougher restrictions, there is no perfect situation, but we need to take an evidence-based, careful, proportionate approach. As I say, there is always more we can reflect on, but local police are best placed to understand what is driving the behaviour in question and the impact it is having, and to determine the most appropriate response.

[Dr Whitehead]

I hope that the Minister will not conclude his remarks on the question of evidence-based activities without saying where the report he mentioned last year actually is, and what he intends to do about it.

[Paul Scully]

I was not going to. Let me tackle that issue now: I talked about the fact that legislation already exists to limit the noise levels of fireworks available to consumers to 120 dB, and we said that we were going to work on a report on that topic. I freely admit that that report has not been published: the testing work on the noise was delayed due to covid and adverse weather conditions impacting the laboratory’s ability to carry out the necessary testing. However, the result of that testing will be available in due course, and we will reflect on what is in that report as we proceed.

DRAFT INTERNATIONAL ACCOUNTING STANDARDS (DELEGATION OF FUNCTIONS) (EU EXIT) REGULATIONS 2021

Debate between Alan Whitehead and Paul Scully

Thursday 15th April 2021 General Committees

[Dr Alan Whitehead (Southampton, Test) (Lab)]

I ought to indicate immediately that we do not intend to oppose this regulation. Indeed, we see the need to ensure that the international standards, which have now been put in place across the world, are properly placed into a UK context, particularly given the UK withdrawal from the EU. There is also a context in terms of an independent body that can bring those standards forward and into the mainstream of UK accounting life, in good order, with confidence behind it so that the UK can be seen to be playing its part in the international structure that is now the norm for those accounting standards.

However, I have a couple of questions for the Minister about the process by which this has been set up. I thank him for going substantially beyond the explanatory notes in his introductory comments this morning; he has fleshed out one or two things that I wanted to focus on.

My concerns are that the SI itself, by way of a preamble declaration, states that:

“It appears to the Secretary of State that—

(a) the UK Endorsement Board is able and willing to exercise the functions transferred by regulation 2 of these Regulations, and

(b) that body has arrangements in place”,

and so on. I suppose the Secretary of State would say that, since it was the Secretary of State who very recently indeed created the UK Endorsement Board, as the Minister has set out. It is difficult to see how the Secretary of State could know that this brand new board is indeed

“able and willing to exercise the functions”,

as it has no track record and it has not undertaken any significant activities.

The only activity of the UK Endorsement Board so far has been to bring itself into being, and that has been done by a rather curious route. First, the chairman was appointed—by the Secretary of State, I assume—and the chairman then essentially constructed her own board. That is not absolutely normal practice: the board usually elects the chairman, rather than the chairman electing the board, but perhaps that is a part of the process of bringing these things into being.

Then we have the question of the independence and accountability of the board; I wonder to whom exactly the board is accountable. It is barely accountable to Parliament. One could say that it is perhaps rather more accountable to the accountancy profession, as most of the members of the board who have been appointed are accountants. The potential danger for the board is that, in a circular way, it reflects its own view of the profession on the profession itself. I would like reassurance from the Minister that that, in his view, will not happen as a result of the work of the endorsement board as it goes forward.

The other matter, as far as independence is concerned—I always look for it when such things happen—is how the board is funded. Has it got independent pay and rations, and can it guarantee the funding that the Minister elucidated was £2 million or so?

[Paul Scully]

It is £2.9 million.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Alan Whitehead and Paul Scully

Tuesday 10th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Paul Scully]

We will address and respond to the Bill when it comes before us. We have to reach the balance between protecting jobs and allowing employers who are in difficulty to have the necessary flexibility. We are one of the most flexible employment countries in the developed world, and we want to remain so, but we do want to make sure that businesses have their responsibilities and use those responsibilities wisely.

[Dr Alan Whitehead (Southampton, Test) (Lab)]

Surely the Minister must understand that fire and rehire tactics are not part of a negotiating tactic: they are a gun to the head of every worker in the organisation. It has nothing to do with negotiation: it says, “You will accept lower terms—otherwise we will chuck you out.” British Gas has recently become one of a number of large companies threatening their workforces in this way with this medieval tactic. I think the Minister must agree that it is not only a terrible way to reward the thousands of energy workers who have worked day and night to keep our energy supply constant and reliable during the covid crisis, but must be seen as a completely unacceptable way to conduct industrial negotiations. Will he join me in condemning the use of this practice and, specifically, write to British Gas demanding that it withdraw its threats to its employees?

[Paul Scully]

In my first answer on this subject, I talked about the fact that we believe that making threats about firing and rehiring as a negotiating tactic is totally unacceptable. I hope that the situation with Centrica will be satisfactorily resolved both for employers and employees. However, it is important to retain the flexible labour markets where we remain 11th out of 140 countries with regard to the ease of hiring and, indeed, firing workers to make sure that we can protect important sectors across this country.