Small Business, Enterprise and Employment Bill

Baroness Neville-Rolfe Excerpts

Wednesday 14th January 2015 Grand Committee

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (Baroness Neville-Rolfe) (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, and to the noble Lords, Lord Mendelsohn and Lord Stevenson, for tabling these amendments and giving us the opportunity to debate how these clauses interact with other legislative duties on contracting authorities, which is the nub of this amendment. I also share the noble Lord’s appreciation of the fact that my noble friend Lord Young of Graffham has joined us. I take this opportunity to thank him for all he has done for small firms and for public procurement throughout his distinguished career, and latterly as the Prime Minister’s adviser. My noble friend explained the background but, given the concern expressed by the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie of Luton, perhaps I could add, on the subject of the changes to pre-qualification questionnaires, that these could disadvantage procurements where there are important special requirements. As my noble friend Lord Young explained, we want to remove burdensome PQQs. However, I understand that special requirements can still be built into contract advertisements or the invitation to tender.

For the benefit of the Committee, perhaps I could stand back and try briefly to answer my noble friend Lord Hodgson’s exam question about what we are trying to achieve. I reassure noble Lords that our intentions are focused and more specific than the amendments tabled and the comments made would suggest. While regulations we may make under the Bill should improve standards across the public sector, they will not remove the autonomy of local authorities to run their own processes and take responsibility for procurement decisions. I associate myself with some of the warm words used by the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, about local authorities. I was glad to hear about the LGA’s work on procurement strategy because I know, from my many dealings with it over the years, that it comes to issues with an innovative and refreshing approach.

The clauses before us will allow the Government to place some additional obligations on contracting authorities about how they undertake their procurement processes. However, I assure noble Lords that this is not about taking control away from local government procurers, who will remain responsible for securing value for money. Moreover, when making regulations under Clause 38, the Government will ensure that the provisions of other legislation are properly considered and that the regulations do not conflict with them. Frankly, the last thing we would want is to be over- bureaucratic or Napoleonic, in the words of the noble Lord, Lord Whitty. Like my noble friend Lord Hodgson, we would like to see better, simpler documentation that makes contracts more accessible to small business and voluntary organisations. As my noble friend says, we need to bring in standards and yardsticks of good practice, although I am not sure that “comply and explain” would necessarily quite work here.

Turning to Amendment 35D, the Government are committed to both the Localism Act and the Public Services (Social Value) Act. We stand by the principles in those Acts. It is of course important for local authorities to be able to pursue legitimate policies that help suppliers win more business through procurement in support of their local economies. There is, however, a balance to be struck and EU procurement law, which we have implemented in our domestic legislation, places a duty on contracting authorities to ensure that procurements that are above the EU thresholds—essentially, £111,000 in central government and £172,000 outside it—or of cross-border interest, are awarded in a fair, transparent and non-discriminatory way.

To respond to a question that was asked, Clause 38 is not necessary to implement the directive. This is in fact being done under powers in the European Communities Act 1972—I can see that the noble Lord understands that—and we will be bringing forward regulations very shortly. The new Public Contracts Regulations 2015, implementing the EU procurement directive, will make it clear how contracting authorities can achieve policy through procurement in a legitimate way. The regulations will require that the policy to be delivered through procurement is linked to the subject matter of the contract, as well as satisfying the EU principles of fairness, transparency and non-discrimination.

Furthermore, having consulted on the use of the power in Clause 38, we have identified a number of examples on how we might use its regulation-making power. It may help if I mention one or two of those because they might help to meet some of the concerns expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Whitty. One example is of requiring awareness-raising as part of pre-procurement market engagement, which can of course help small businesses; another would be requiring procurement authorities to have due regard to lean procurement principles. This will increase efficiency and reduce timescales. Some of your Lordships will be familiar with these principles, particularly those who have worked in business. I have direct experience of using them on a clothing supply chain exercise to good effect. Of course, it was Dan Jones who did the original pioneering work on lean thinking in the automotive supply chain, which helped our industry to fight back.

We undertook an open consultation on these proposals and there was support from local government and the Local Government Association. The outcome of the consultation is published on the Cabinet Office website and this includes draft regulations to illustrate how we might use the power. The planned uses are complementary to the forthcoming Public Contracts Regulations that I mentioned. They also complement the existing best value duty created by the Local Government Act 1999, as well as the duties created by the Localism Act 2011 and Public Services (Social Value) Act 2012. We have placed the draft regulations illustrating the use of the power in the Library of the House. The noble Lord has obviously already seen them, but others may not have done.

This is not about centralising procurement. It is about ensuring that high-quality procurement processes are in place across the public sector. We are also looking to establish common standards of good practice, as the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, was encouraging us to do. The noble Lord, Lord Whitty, suggested that we might be able to deal with this through guidance, but I am afraid that in this area guidance will not be sufficient on its own. The power that we are taking will allow the Government to make targeted changes over time and to place legal obligations on contracting authorities in relation to the procurement functions. I hope that that provides some reassurance and an understanding that this clause will not undermine the localism agenda.

On Amendments 35E and 35T, while we strongly support the aims of best value to make sure that contracting authorities consider overall value, including economic, environmental and social value, when reviewing service provision, we consider that there is scope to improve procurement processes and open up opportunities to smaller businesses. The need to improve procurement processes is supported by findings made by our mystery shopper service, which investigates concerns about procurement throughout the public sector. This service has found that over a third of all its new cases relate to concerns with poor procurement practices by local authorities. Therefore, excluding all local authorities from the scope of the regulation-making power and from the scope of the mystery shopper service would mean that we were not able to help local authorities to improve their procurement practices and investigate mistakes. Nor would we be able to help small business to achieve the share in procurement that we all want them to have.

The additional obligations placed on contracting authorities will be proportionate. We are also clear that they are not intended to take control away from local government procurers, who will remain responsible for securing value for money. Retaining the scope of Clause 39 to include local authorities is necessary to help us to continue to improve procurement practices.

To turn to Amendments 35S and 35X, the Government are, as I said, wholly committed to principles that support development of economic and social issues and which are designed to allow contracting authorities to take account of how their decisions affect local business, the local area, the environment and social value considerations. The amendments are not necessary, as Clauses 38 and 39 do not amend or undermine the Localism Act, the Local Government Act or the Public Services (Social Value) Act. The power in Clause 38 cannot be used to amend these Acts or any other primary legislation. While I do not believe that the amendments are required, I am pleased to reassure noble Lords that, when making regulations under Clause 38, the Government will ensure that the provisions of legislation, including these Acts, are properly considered.

Finally, turning to Amendment 35K, I understand the noble Lord’s wish to see contracting authorities report on how they have met their duties under the Public Services (Social Value) Act. However, we do not wish to pre-empt the review of the Act launched in September 2014 and carried out by a panel led by my noble friend Lord Young, which is due to report in the coming weeks. The review is giving detailed scrutiny to the 2012 Act and is considering whether it should be extended and how it might be extended in a way that continues to help small business. The review may make a number of findings and recommendations and obviously it would not be right to second-guess those findings.

I hope that, in the light of these various reassurances, noble Lords will agree not to press their amendments.

[Lord McKenzie of Luton]

My Lords, I start by thanking the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe, for her detailed response. Listening carefully to what she said, I am a bit bemused as to why she feels unable to accept the amendments. There is nothing in them that conflicts with what she has said is the Government’s position. On Amendment 35K, I take the point that if the noble Lord, Lord Young, is in the process of undertaking a review, the wording might pre-empt that. From what the Minister said on timing, I hope that we will have the opportunity to revisit that on Report, as we will have the noble Lord’s report by then.

Can the Minister be more specific on what the problem is with Amendment 35D? If the Government support localism and the Public Services (Social Value) Act 2012, the amendment would simply ensure that due regard is given to the new powers in Clause 38, which are extensive, as my noble friend Lord Whitty said. On the reference to lean principles on procurement, what evidence can the Minister provide that that process has been successful in enhancing SMEs’ share of the public procurement process? That is important and it would be interesting to hear the Minister’s response.

The noble Lord, Lord Young of Graffham, gave us a first-hand exposition of why we have ended up here. My noble friend has further amendments on PQQs, which might be the opportunity to explore that.

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe]

Perhaps I may say a few things. First, the noble Lord asked why we could not accept the amendments. The difficulty is that we cannot accept amendments without legal effect. I shall think about what he is saying but that seems to be a problem. Secondly, he rightly reminds me that he asked about lean thinking in relation to local government. I do not know the answer today but it is a fair question and we will come back to him.

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[Lord Cotter (LD)]

My Lords, I strongly support the amendment. As the noble Lord, Lord Mendelsohn, said, implementation is vital to put steel into this requirement. We know from our many contacts in the construction industry that many areas of business have a real concern to ensure that people given contracts are monitored. I hope that the Minister will at least take this away to consider it and respond promptly in due course. In particular, I have in my mind a lot of evidence that has come forward from the construction industry to say that people implementing the main contract do not always—frequently do not—pay the small business sector promptly.

I will say no more, because the noble Lord has made these points, but—to be brief and to the point— we must ensure implementation. I hope that the Minister will take this away and assure us that this implementation point will be considered, because I have heard this issue raised time and again over the years, as have many colleagues, particularly giving a contract to a main contractor and finding that suppliers to that main contractor do not get payment. Those suppliers are often small businesses, so I welcome the amendment.

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe]

I thank the noble Lord for this amendment. As we discussed on previous days in Committee, prompt payment is an extremely important agenda and we wish to encourage both contracting authorities and businesses to pay their suppliers on time, so I shall say a little more, as noble Lords requested, about what we are planning to do in this area.

The Government are committed to leading by example on prompt payment. When we consulted on proposals to tackle prompt payment in autumn 2013, there was widespread support across industry and with procurers. This resulted, rightly, in a commitment to legislate. The new public contract regulations, which the Government plan to bring into force shortly, will place a duty on contracting authorities to pay their immediate suppliers in 30 days, and include terms in their contracts to pass these 30-day payment terms all the way down the public sector supply chain.

The regulations were consulted on last autumn and we intend to bring these into force early this year. That should provide reassurance to smaller businesses further down the supply chain that they will be paid expeditiously, and will address some of the findings of the National Audit Office report published last week, to which the noble Lord referred. I was about to cite the same figure that he cited: in a third of cases, public sector clients have taken more than 30 days to settle payment. That is completely unacceptable and that report helps to make the case for these regulations, which I hope will attract cross-party support. Our determination in this area cannot be doubted.

As part of these same public contract regulations, contracting authorities would also be required to publish the number of invoices paid late to their first-tier suppliers on an annual basis to show how they have performed in this area. The Government are committed to developing guidance to ensure that the reporting on late payment is understood and aids transparency.

Our mystery shopper service is strangely named, but it enables SMEs and other suppliers to raise concerns about public sector procurement with the Government and have it investigated. It is a Cabinet Office service and assists in ensuring that the contracting authorities comply with these new measures and will name and shame poor payers through the fortnightly publication of mystery shopper cases on GOV.UK. In future, the service will be able to ensure proactively that the 30-day payment policy is being embedded by carrying out spot checks on contracting authorities.

The noble Lord, Lord Mendelsohn, asked whether the Minister could commit to write to the main suppliers to ensure prompt payment. Yes, we would be happy for the Government to arrange for an appropriate Minister to write to the strategic suppliers about this before the end of the Parliament. We are talking about 100 or so suppliers. Those are the strategic suppliers to whom the noble Lord referred.

On monitoring and implementation, in view of the time I agree to write to the noble Lord to set out the arrangements. However, we believe that these reforms are the right way to address the prompt payment of suppliers in the public sector supply chain. I know that the position is a little curious—we have met the same issue in other legislation that the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, and I have debated—to have one set of regulations coming in under EU powers and then a domestic Act, but I am afraid that sometimes that has to be the way that we bring things forward, not least to make them happen in time. I hope that, if the noble Lord takes the two together, he will feel that we are approaching this in a sensible way and feel able to withdraw this amendment.

[Lord Mendelsohn]

I thank the Minister for that reply. I also thank the noble Lord, Lord Cotter, for his support. I reinforce the point that we both made that while all the measures that we have talked about have our support and we do not oppose this area, we raised the matter to make sure that the policy is strongly and fully implemented. While some of the measures that were outlined concern talking to the first-tier suppliers, the sheer notion of being able to challenge people, hold them to account and ensure that they understand they will never escape questioning on this issue is the power that we are keen for the Government to consider further. We remain strongly supportive of the measure and I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

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[Lord Deben (Con)]

My Lords, I would first like to say how pleased many of us are at the changes that the noble Lord, Lord Young, has just described. They will make a big difference for small firms around the country.

However, there is another part to this on which I hope that the Minister will be able to help. There are reasons to disagree with the specifics put before us, but the noble Lord, Lord Mendelsohn, has made it clear that he is seeking a response from the Minister that shows that she understands the real problem that is being adumbrated, which is that small firms often find that they are not competing fairly simply because what is asked of them is a much bigger ask than the same thing asked of a big firm. That is the fundamental issue.

There is a second part to that, which is the reaction of those who place the contracts. I am increasingly worried that, in the public sector, there is a safety culture that means that people would prefer to have a firm whose name they know and which they feel no one can blame them for taking on, even if that firm does not in the end do the job properly. It is much easier if it is a national company with a national name—when you have taken it on, nobody can make the complaints that they might make if you were taking on a smaller firm.

Even if the Minister is not able to accept these aspects, I wonder whether she would help us by saying what the Government intend to do to try to make it easier for the public sector to take on companies that might be less assured because they are smaller and because they have not had a contract of that kind before. Are there not serious institutional ways in which we could make that easier? I have not yet seen any indication that, in their plans, the Government have sought to make it less dangerous for a public servant to take on a firm that has perhaps not previously worked with the public sector or perhaps does not have such a long history of doing so. Where there is a risk involved, I think that it is a risk that the public sector ought increasingly to be willing to take if we are to have entrepreneurial innovation in Britain.

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe]

My Lords, as the noble Lord, Lord Mendelsohn, said, there is a good deal of common ground here, although we believe that we have most of the powers that we need, either in this Bill or in separate, regulation-making powers. I thank my noble friend Lord Young of Graffham for explaining the mystery shopper so clearly, and how PQQs have changed. I will come on to Contracts Finder in a minute.

On Amendment 35G, we consider that requiring a small business to pay a fee to access a public contract opportunity is a significant barrier to entry and should be stopped. That is why the Government’s intention in the draft Public Contracts Regulations 2015, which I have mentioned several times, is to help ensure that small businesses have free access to contract opportunities in one place. Moreover, the power in Clause 38 can already be used to make regulations to ensure that documents, information and any process involved in bidding for a contract are made available free of charge. The Cabinet Office will assess the impact of the reforms to be introduced through the draft Public Contracts Regulations before deciding whether to use Clause 38 to make regulations about providing free access.

The noble Lord, Lord Mendelsohn, asked how we will ensure that there is early engagement with suppliers and that small businesses are included. This is a very good question. Noble Lords will recall that our draft illustrative regulations demonstrate how the power could be used to require authorities to carry out pre-procurement engagement in a way that increases interest in bidding for procurement for SMEs. This could also help to bring in new SMEs and deal with the reputational issues, which was the issue behind my noble friend Lord Deben’s helpful intervention. I recall that, when I was in business, we had a similar wish to encourage new small and local suppliers. We held pre-engagement road shows to talk to the suppliers. Bringing in suppliers that we had not had anything to do with before led to new contracts being let to smaller suppliers outside the mainstream. That is not public sector experience, but it gives me confidence that we should be able to use this pre-engagement process to improve things.

We support the spirit of Amendment 35H and we are already doing more to promote transparency in public procurement. The procurement directive, which was intended to be transposed earlier this year, will require contracting authorities to disclose the number of above EU threshold contracts awarded to small and medium-sized enterprises, based on the EU definition. Contracting authorities will also be required to provide information on the number of bidders for a procurement, as well as reporting on the value of any contracts awarded.

The noble Lord, Lord Mendelsohn, said that too many prime contracts go to large suppliers. I cannot help but agree with that. The new Public Contracts Regulations will require contracting authorities to explain why they have not broken down large requirements into smaller lots. As my noble friend Lord Young, said, there will be a new Contracts Finder website, which will advertise all central government contracts over £10,000 and local government contracts over £25,000 free of charge. As has been said, the site is already attracting international interest and comment. The regulations will also place an obligation on a contracting authority to report, for contracts of £10,000 and above for central government and £25,000 and above for other authorities, on whether the successful bidder is a small or medium-sized enterprise or a member of a voluntary community social enterprise organisation, and on the value of the contract awarded. I think that that is important. Contracting authorities will be required to publish this information on Contracts Finder.

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[Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts]

My Lords, I share the wish of the noble Lord, Lord Young, to encourage vocational education. It is exceptionally important as a means of improving youth employment. However, I am slightly concerned about the route for apprenticeships, He knows far more about this than I do, but when I take part in the Lord Speaker’s outreach programmes and we talk about apprenticeships to sixth formers, too often they feel—and I think they are probably right—that the apprenticeship is a time-based qualification, not a performance-based qualification. That is to say that you have to spend a certain amount of time doing a job before you can get a qualification.

That puts off sixth-formers, who think that even if they are good they cannot move through the apprenticeship scheme at the speed at which they acquire the skills. That is something I have often referred to. I would be nervous about trying to put too much weight on apprenticeships. I am keen on youth employment, but apprenticeships are potentially too narrow, particularly given the comments made to me by sixth-formers, which may or may not be entirely accurate.

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for his amendments. I am delighted to see him joining us in the Committee and giving us this opportunity to debate apprenticeships, about which both he and I feel a great passion. I will try not to let that get in the way of objectivity. Apprenticeships are also at the heart of the Government’s drive to equip people with the skills that employers need to grow and compete. It is great to have so much support for apprenticeships in the Committee today. It was interesting to hear about the experience of the noble Lord, Lord Cotter. We need as big a body of support for apprenticeships as we can get, and one needs to encourage people one knows in business and where there are public procurement opportunities to think about apprentices more.

We have already delivered 2 million apprenticeship starts in this Parliament, and there are 20,000 apprentice vacancies around England at any one time. However, I share the noble Lord’s concern about getting enough young apprenticeships. That is one of the reasons why the Government are trialling a new approach to apprenticeships in 2014-15 and 2015-16. He and I have talked about that, and I am involved in work with the electronics industry and the professional services to try to bring forward new thoughts and new numbers. The Government have made the apprenticeship grant available for employers—£1,500 targeted on smaller businesses taking on young apprentices. That ticks two boxes at once.

I also agree with the comments that the noble Lord, Lord Young, made on Crossrail. The work that it has done on apprenticeships has been a model. Like him, I have been under Fenchurch Street station and have seen what it is doing there. It has also been very good about trying to employ smaller suppliers both directly and through subcontractors—and small suppliers outside London.

We want it to become the norm for young people to choose between an apprenticeship and university as alternative routes to a career—an experience that I am familiar with in Germany—and this Government’s reforms lay the groundwork for that. I pay tribute to all that my noble friend Lord Young of Graffham has done.

On Amendment 35L, I have sympathy for the noble Lord’s intentions that a contracting authority should require an appropriate number of apprenticeship opportunities. However, as I am sure he is aware, not every procurement will be an opportunity. Contracting authorities are entitled to deliver legitimate policies through their high-value procurements but, under EU law, these must be linked to the subject matter of the contract and the procurement must meet principles such as equal treatment, fairness and transparency. It would, therefore, not be possible to require that every procurement delivered an apprenticeship.

There would also be a danger that requiring the provision of apprenticeships by contracting authorities could pass on costs to bidders and actually deter smaller businesses. If so, this would undermine the purpose of Clause 38, which is to open up procurement opportunities to smaller businesses and remove barriers to their participation. If contacting authorities must require an appropriate number of apprenticeships, assuming that that could be determined—it sounds quite difficult—would that stop smaller suppliers bidding, as they might not have resources available to allow them to meet the expectations and duties of the contracting authority in this regard? I know that that is not a perverse effect that anyone wants but it is one reason why the Government are concerned about that amendment.

On Amendment 35M, I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Stoneham, that there is a huge scope for local enterprise partnerships and schools to work with SMEs to deliver more training and apprenticeships when these organisations bid for public contracts. The new Contracts Finder—to look at this amendment in the light of the previous one—will be helpful in spreading knowledge of opportunities, with details of contracts on the website. However, as with Amendment 35L, we must be careful that any provision for delivering apprenticeships through procurement does not have the unintended consequence of adding to the cost of public procurement for contracting authorities and bidders. We encourage schools, LEPs and other public bodies to work with SMEs on apprenticeships, but we are not convinced that they should be under a legal duty to do so.

Finally, Amendments 35N and 35W relate to assessing and reporting on the extent to which apprenticeships form part of public procurement. Again, I have sympathy with the noble Lord’s intention, but I fear that these amendments could again risk passing a burden down the supply chain to smaller businesses. Only by asking them to report on this could we determine the number of apprenticeships and recruitment practices involved. It is precisely that sort of red tape that we seek to cut in this Bill. While I agree that transparency, reporting and reviews are helpful in this sphere of apprenticeships, we need to be careful to balance that with the reporting burdens that it would place on small businesses. Again, I am sure that that is not the noble Lord’s intention, but it could be a perverse effect of legislating in the way proposed.

I hope that the noble Lord feels reassured, understands that we share a similar objective on apprenticeships, and will understand why we feel that we cannot accept the amendments. I ask him to withdraw Amendment 35L.

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[Baroness Neville-Rolfe]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lords for their amendments. I shall start by commenting on the wisdom of my noble friend Lord Eccles, who often causes us to pause in our legislative discussions. I am not sure whether he was present when we started this afternoon and I took the Committee through the rationale and explained how we plan to use the regulations. I am glad that he is planning to look at the draft regulations and I would be very happy to discuss them further with him if need be. The clause will provide the Government with the powers to make regulations that help small businesses bid for public sector contract opportunities that are currently worth £230 billion per annum. That is at the heart of our problem: as many noble Lords have asked this afternoon, how do we get the share of that cake up for small business? That is our common wish.

As for these amendments, I want to reassure the noble Lord that the Government are considering carefully the recommendation of the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee, but we also need to consider the implications for timely delivery. The Government are not yet convinced that it is necessary for the affirmative procedure to be used every time the power in this clause is used. Regulations about procurement have in the past been made under the negative procedure and some of the matters dealt with in regulations in this area are very technical and need to be adjusted over time.

Taking an example, the illustrative regulations we have recently published list a number of practical steps that could be taken; for example, on pre-procurement marketing. It may be necessary in the future to amend that list to describe new recommended forms of pre-market engagement. Is the affirmative procedure necessary or appropriate for every such change? Similarly, as the recently published Cabinet Office policy statement makes clear, regulations could be used in the future to prescribe minimum and maximum timescales. Would a modest change to one of those require the affirmative procedure?

We are actively considering these issues and what we can do to increase the level of parliamentary scrutiny attaching to this clause, which is the purpose of this amendment. One option would be to have an affirmative resolution on the first occasion to set the strategy for the regulations, and negative thereafter. It would be good to understand how noble Lords feel about that.

Turning to Amendment 35Q, as we have debated in relation to previous provisions, the use of “may” instead of “shall” is standard practice in relation to drafting of this sort. Our intention is to issue guidance about the regulations and to publish it in a way that makes it accessible to contracting authorities and suppliers. I can reassure the Committee that, if the Government consider that guidance would help contracting authorities or others to understand the regulations, we are committed to issuing it. We will also implement—I think that this is called for, from the conversations we have had today—an extensive communications strategy prior to the implementation of the regulations in order to ensure that key messages are understood and embedded. That will appear on GOV.UK and be very accessible. I hope that, in the circumstances, the noble Lord will agree to withdraw these amendments and, clearly, I would be interested to discuss the issue of parliamentary scrutiny.

[Lord Mendelsohn]

My Lords, I thank the noble Viscount, Lord Eccles, for his observations and I apologise if I was not clear. The issue here, as was pointed out by the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee, is that there are no limits in the Bill on the kinds of duties relating to the exercise or procurement functions that can be imposed and it does not derogate the generality of that power. So there is a question about the breadth of that power and that is why there is great benefit in debating these things.

The committee, whose view we share, was also unconvinced by the arguments of the Government. If there is an issue about some of the technical aspects as described to the committee—the economic circumstances or elements where speed is of the essence—we would be more convinced if the Government were able to give more detail on the circumstances in which those would be applied. Given everything, it does not sound particularly compelling and we are in deep sympathy with the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee on that. In the circumstances, since it may be possible for the Minister to write to give us more details, I will use this opportunity to beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

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Moved by

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe]

36: Schedule 2, page 151, line 34, after “fine.” insert—
“(2) Until section 85(2) of the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 comes into force, in subsection (1)(b), “a fine” is to be read as “a fine not exceeding level 5 on the standard scale”.”