Baroness Neville-Rolfe
Main Page: Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Conservative - Life peer)Small Business, Enterprise and Employment Bill
Baroness Neville-Rolfe Excerpts
Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Lab)
My Lords, I shall add a few words about this because we are talking about the products and services that very small businesses buy not on a regular basis or within their main business. In the next amendment, we will come to the Government’s welcome attempt to encourage the growth of home businesses, but in other ways aid that could be given is strangely absent from the Bill.
As my noble friend Lord Mendelsohn said, we argued that the Consumer Rights Bill should cover micro-businesses for things bought outside their main area of business. We can all give examples of this, such as when an employee gets married and the boss sends a bouquet of flowers, except that it never arrives; or a sole trader suddenly needs some cleaning done because of an unexpected leak but the dry cleaner damages the chair cover; or a book-keeper needs a new kettle, a radio or a Hoover, but finds she or he will have none of the new protections provided in the Consumer Rights Bill; or, similarly, a charity orders sandwiches for a farewell lunch for a volunteer which fail to turn up.
There is no good reason for those people in such circumstances not to be treated as normal consumers. Unless this amendment is accepted, they lose those rights simply because the cheque is made out on a business account. As my noble friend reminded us, in Committee on the Consumer Rights Bill the Minister told me that such consumer rights for small businesses were best covered in this Bill, but these rights are not there. This is surely the time to add them.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (Baroness Neville-Rolfe) (Con)
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for his amendment about treating small and micro-businesses as consumers. I welcome the opportunity to return to this issue. I am very glad to welcome back to the debate the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter. She reminded us of the good and graphic examples she always brought to the Consumer Rights Bill, which is very nearly on the statute book.
Since Committee, we have been giving this issue considerable thought. I remain concerned about the potential consequences of introducing such a wide-ranging measure in primary legislation. As I set out in Committee, we simply do not know the costs it might impose against the benefits which are assumed. The Government of course recognise that these concerns may not be realised, but nevertheless they, and the assumed benefits, require exploration.
Uppermost in my mind is the importance of small and micro-businesses to the UK economy, which the noble Lord, Lord Mendelsohn, rightly emphasised. As we know, these businesses make up 99% of all businesses in the UK and total 5.2 million businesses. Of these, 96% are micro-businesses, which in aggregate employ 8.3 million people and have a turnover of £655 billion.
The Government believe this underscores the need to move carefully. The Bill is designed to support small and micro-businesses and put in place the conditions for them to prosper. The unintended consequences of sudden changes in regulation have the potential to undermine these efforts. We do not know what the impact would be here. We only know that some business groups have concerns, which I will come on to in a minute, especially about the blanket application of consumer rights. This arises, I think, mainly because a protection for small businesses when buying could be a cost for such businesses when selling to others. The worst-case scenario would be where a small business buys an item from another small business and the item fails and causes a significant loss. The purchasing small business seeks to recover that loss from the supplying small business and, as a consequence, the supplier goes out of business. Currently, the businesses could agree in their contract to a reasonable limitation of this type of liability, whereas under this amendment they would not have scope to do so.
Since we last debated this issue, officials in my department have met business representatives and leading academics. As a result of these conversations, I am confirmed in the view that the issue is not straightforward. The British Retail Consortium considers that that the question of small business protection needs detailed consideration before any action is taken. For example, it raised concerns that the measure would remove businesses’ ability to reasonably limit liability in dealings with other businesses, and the possibility of this leading to significant claims for loss of business earnings.
Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town
I am sorry to intervene, but that suggests that the Minister is referring to things which are integral to the business. The example we gave in Committee was hair-dryers bought by a hairdresser. Of course if they failed that would create difficulties, but we are not talking about such things. We are talking about things that are not key to the core business, and therefore any failure would not lead to business interference.
Baroness Neville-Rolfe
I thank the noble Baroness for her clarification. The problem is that both the items she has described and other items might be covered, but perhaps I could make a little more progress.
I accept that the issue should not simply be dismissed for exactly the kind of point that the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, has made. There are various points that need to be explored, so in the spirit of collaboration the Government consider that a possible way forward is to hold a public call for evidence, which we need. If the noble Lord will agree to this and withdraw his amendment, I propose that my department publish a call for evidence before the end of this Parliament so this can be taken forward. As I have said previously, small businesses and micro-businesses are not unprotected at the moment. There are protections in the existing law and these also allow businesses to enter into flexible transactions. All businesses need the freedom to contract for their particular requirements, which the current framework allows.
The call for evidence—if this seems a positive way forward—would ask whether these current arrangements offer sufficient protection or whether a gap in the law exists. If such a gap was found to exist, it would enable the Government to better assess whether this could be addressed by extending some of the consumer protections in what should shortly become the Consumer Rights Act to small businesses and micro-businesses, or through other options if they seem better.
I wish to thank the noble Lord and the noble Baroness for the commitment they have shown to this issue. I know we share the same objective of ensuring small businesses and micro-businesses are well supported. I hope that on this basis he will feel able to withdraw his amendment.
Lord Mendelsohn
My Lords, I am very grateful to my noble friend Lady Hayter for her intervention. As always, she has been able to encapsulate this issue with the use of some very vivid and impressive examples and I pay tribute to her strong advocacy for small businesses and consumer rights.
I will start by saying a couple of words on what the Minister said on the substance of the amendments, and then I will turn to the other matters. I listened very carefully to what she said. I think that there is a limited issue on costs versus benefits in relation to this. The costs at the moment are heavy burdens on micro-businesses and I think that the cost-benefit analysis of this is quite limited. I am less concerned about some of the unintended consequences that she suggests because some of them are already the sort of things covered in the two Acts that she forced me to look at after Committee. I am not sure I enjoyed reading them but I did look at them to try and get better sense of what is contained in the Sale of Goods Act and the Supply of Goods and Services Act and how they operate. A lot of the issues which she raises are already covered there. In addition, the nature of the contractual relationships is clearly covered in the other Acts and is outside that. I know that she is extremely accomplished in her task, and that she does not just take the legal advice that comes from the department without scrutiny. There is an issue here about some of the caution always inherent in some of that legal advice.
Nevertheless, I thank the Minister for a very constructive suggestion and an excellent way forward, which we on this side strongly agree with and for which we are very grateful to her for suggesting. Outside this, I might try to persuade her perhaps to add a little money for a bit of research on the cost-benefit analysis—that will not be too hard a task. However, with appreciation for a very constructive response to our amendment, I beg leave to withdraw it.
Baroness Neville-Rolfe
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness for her amendment and for providing the opportunity to return to the matter of home businesses, and I was very glad to hear of her useful meeting with my noble friend Lord Ahmad. The UK is a great place to start and grow a business. There has been an increase of half a million home businesses in the UK since 2010, with business confidence at record levels. New technology has allowed millions more people to work from home, many creating innovative businesses. Home working allows people to enter the workforce who otherwise might not be able to do so, for example because of family or health constraints. These opportunities should not be limited to home owners, but should also be available to those in rented accommodation.
Part 2 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1954 gives tenants of premises occupied for any business purposes the right to renew their tenancies. Under the Act, this security of tenure would not apply if the landlord had prohibited business use in any part of the premises. So at the moment, private residential tenancies will commonly include a covenant against any business use to prevent a tenant gaining a security that they would not enjoy under a residential tenancy. The new model tenancy agreement developed by the Government for private landlords has highlighted the need for reform. The clauses before us today simply ensure that a business tenancy is not automatically created should a home business be permitted to operate in residential premises.
The Government have deliberately taken a broad approach to the definition of a home business, but the definition is clear. A home business will be a business run from a home, in a premises let as a dwelling, and a business of a kind that can reasonably be carried on in a home. I understand that the noble Baroness is concerned about the question of what is “reasonable” to be carried on from home. This will depend on the individual characteristics of the home: its size, its proximity to neighbours and the access to the property, to name but a few. If we attempt to legislate to restrict the definition of a home business and set out a list of the kind that the noble Baroness suggests within this huge variability, we risk restricting a tenant’s entrepreneurship and placing a brake on the growth of this exciting sector.
I know that there are also concerns about potential disturbance, but we are taking these steps because they are sensible, and there are safeguards in place. Planning and environment laws deal with these issues for all properties, owned and rented, and there is no evidence to suggest that these laws are ineffective in dealing with businesses run by home owners. Landlords can still prohibit all or any business use and are free to set the terms of the lease and limit the noise level, as now. Covenants in existing leasehold agreements remain in place, and taxes and building regulations remain unchanged. It would surely be unfair for the law to restrict a tenant’s home business opportunity more than a home owner’s.
With the second part of the amendment, I recognise that the noble Baroness is trying to provide clarity for landlord and tenant, but these clauses already include a definition of a home business, and I fear that her amendment could have perverse consequences. Our clause already allows landlords and tenants to use the tenancy agreement to permit a home business that fits that definition. The noble Baroness’s amendment goes further than this by allowing the landlord and tenant to define a home business themselves. This could allow the landlord to avoid security for business tenancies such as those for shops, which rely on this protection to build and develop their businesses. I am sure that this is not the noble Baroness’s intention for the amendment to add more uncertainty and risk for the tenant.
This clause should not be a vehicle for landlords to remove security of tenure from business tenancies. It would be much harder to broaden the scope of these provisions later to encompass new types of business than to narrow or refine them through secondary legislation. We have included within the clause the power to make secondary legislation which could further limit the scope of a home business, and I assure the noble Baroness that the Government will keep this under review.
Since the 1954 Act, the world of work has changed. We need to make changes to ensure that the Act is not stifling tenants’ innovation. We do not think it is for government to limit the business activity people can carry out in their homes, so long as it is not causing adverse impact on the landlord or neighbours. Existing protections are in place to guard against any adverse impact to others. Why should privately renting tenants be treated any differently from home owners who run businesses from their homes?
I greatly appreciate the work of the noble Baroness to scrutinise this provision, but there is little more that I can say. I hope that the reassurance I have given her today in this House and the discussions that she has had with my noble friend Lord Ahmad will mean that she feels able to withdraw her amendment.
Baroness Neville-Rolfe
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for his amendment and for the opportunity to return to the public sector procurement issue. I also thank him for his interesting and wide-ranging introduction, which I and the officials concerned will read afterwards with considerable interest. The importance of outputs, not inputs, the value of the mystery shopper and the strength of some local authorities in the procurement area are common ground.
In response, I should like to update the House on where we are. Only last week, we were pleased to announce that in 2013-14 central government gave 26.1% of its total spend to smaller businesses, up from 19.9% in 2012-13. This Government have delivered on the aspiration set in 2010 that 25% of this spend would go to small businesses by May 2015. Looking forward, of course we want to do better.
Furthermore, the Public Contracts Regulations 2015 came into force last week. These make it clear how wider policy issues can be delivered through procurement where this achieves value for money and satisfies EU legal requirements and where the policy is clearly relevant to the contract subject matter. This includes, where appropriate, factors related to stimulating local business and growth.
As a result of the recommendations of my noble friend Lord Young of Graffham, the 2015 regulations help to level the playing field for SMEs, working to remove barriers that prevent them accessing public sector contracts. I pay tribute to my noble friend for the work that he has done in this area. All new procurement opportunities will be accessible on a single portal—Contracts Finder—launched last week. PQQs will not be used for contracts below EU thresholds, and there will be 30-day payment terms in all public sector contracts. Clause 39 will build on these new measures to break down further barriers. Following consultation, and once the final regulations are made under this clause, any published guidance will reflect the new obligations in a proportionate and meaningful way.
I shall now look at the amendments, starting with Amendment 27. The Government’s intention is to improve procurement practice. It is not about taking control away from local authority procurers, whether in Manchester or elsewhere. The noble Lord is completely right to emphasise the scale of local government procurement and the opportunities for SMEs for the benefit of both local government and the businesses themselves.
I assure the noble Lord that Clause 39 complements the Localism Act 2011 and the Public Services (Social Value) Act 2012 rather than conflicts with them. It is true that the clause does not reference social value considerations but it does not prevent a contracting authority considering them under the 2012 Act. The social value Act places duties on contracting authorities to consider how they might achieve social value in what they procure and how they procure it. The duties in Clause 39 and those in the social value Act are therefore entirely complementary. The Localism Act is designed to devolve more powers from central government to communities and councils. It does not address the need for procurements to be run in an efficient and timely manner.
Lord Mendelsohn
I thank the Minister for that reply. I do not wish to sound churlish, but I hope she will forgive me if I raise a couple of points in relation to what she has said. I made the point twice that this was not about trying to create a process that was rigged in favour, but was much more about making sure that procurement was open to small business because everything—the skills, systems and outputs—was designed towards achieving a better outcome, so that small business would find it easier to compete to try to gain those sorts of contracts.
I think there are different ways in which the numbers have been calculated. I do not wish to doubt them too much, but some of the tier 1 classification subcontracting has been reclassified. It seems that the numbers have changed slightly. There is progress and I do not wish to undermine or contest that, but it is important that we maintain our ambition for this.
On Amendment 27, I am encouraged that the Minister stated very clearly that it was complementary.
This is important and I would be grateful if the Government would consider what they could do to make sure what they are trying to do was much more explicit. I am afraid that there is great concern about what local authorities must do; how they must act and comply. I think they are actually very good at the job. One of the guides I read recently was for Wiltshire. If the Minister can show me a better central government guide to how to procure than Wiltshire has produced, I would be very surprised and more than happy to give her even more fulsome praise from the Dispatch Box than I have already. An important dimension is that we are placing the onus on local authorities, which have been so good at doing it. I thank the Minister for her comments but an outstanding issue is that some local authorities have done a very good job and we should be mindful of that.
On Amendment 31, the procurement adjudicator has a very useful function. There are systems of redress, but this is not really about those. It is about systems of intervention. As the Minister rightly says, they are doing things on redress, like strengthening the mystery shopper, and we discussed this in Committee. There are also the usual methods of employing lawyers and going through the courts. However, the point of an adjudicator in these circumstances is to be much more dynamic, engaged and involved in encouraging the capacity of those procuring and the people involved in designing the processes. There needs to be a more dynamic conversation to make sure the skills are there. I make the point again that everyone will recognise at different times that there is a risk-averse culture; systems are repeated and there is a lack of a dynamic sense about how you procure better. In the private sector, some go through a sort of performance to make sure their procuring capacity becomes ever more skilful, but this is probably lacking in the public sector. That dynamic conversation, which may need a mediator, is what the adjudicator is for. It is not just about systems of redress.
I have had a quick look at Contracts Finder as it stands at the moment in its beta version. Although I welcome the initiative, it is not particularly user-friendly and needs a fair degree of work to make it so. If the Minister would consider making it available also as an app, then the design might be more useful and reflective of what is needed and it would be more accessible to some businesses. There is no point in putting it on one site if it is not as readily available as it could be. In summary, I would be very grateful if the Minister would give further consideration to what we have said and see if there is any way to deal with the areas we are trying to address on how to get the systems working to procure better. I am very grateful that the Government will look at what I said earlier but anything that would give a stronger indication of how we could do something a little bit more inventive, to add to the efforts that she has already outlined, would be greatly appreciated at Third Reading.
Baroness Neville-Rolfe
Before the noble Lord withdraws the amendment, I say that I am very happy to reflect further on the important discussion that we have had. I thank him for drawing attention to the Wiltshire guide, because I am a native of Wiltshire, and for his suggestion of making the finder into an app. I will, perhaps, pass that challenge on to those concerned at the heart of government and see whether they can deliver it.
Lord Mendelsohn
After such a fantastic response, how is it possible for me to say anything other than “I beg leave to withdraw the amendment”?
Baroness Neville-Rolfe
My Lords, I shall be brief in speaking to these relatively minor but important amendments, and I shall start with Amendment 28. The Government are grateful to the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee for its scrutiny of the Bill. In its report, the committee recommended that the power in Clause 39 should be changed from the negative to the affirmative procedure. The noble Lord, Lord Mendelsohn, also raised this in our debate in Committee, and so I am glad to be able to give effect to the recommendation.
Amendments 32 and 33 are technical amendments to update references to procurement regulations in Clauses 39 and 40 in the light of the new regulations that came into force last week. I hope noble Lords will support the amendments, and I beg to move.
The Deputy Speaker (Baroness Morris of Bolton) (Con)
My Lords, there is an error in the Marshalled List and the proposed amendment should read as follows:
Page 36, line 10, leave out from first “authority”” to “, or” in line 12 and insert “has the same meaning as in regulation 2 of the Public Contracts Regulations 2015 (S.I. 2015/102)”.
Lord Stoneham of Droxford (LD)
My Lords, I am pleased to follow the noble Lord, Lord Young. In my heart, I am with him 100%. The opportunity to encourage through public procurement the expansion of apprenticeships and training and development is certainly worth while. The trouble is that these clauses are very much concerned with trying to enable small businesses to have a greater chance for public procurement contracts. Obviously, if we over-complicate the procedure, that is a problem. However, I just wanted to register my hope that the Government are continuing to look at this. It is something that they can encourage in the public sector and, indeed, they are already doing so. We need to do much more and there is a lot of very good casework and examples of where this is being done successfully at all levels of industry. I hope that the Government will continue to give this particular priority.
In addition, the linkages to the work of the LEPs are very important. We also have in schools a big obligation to promote technical apprenticeships and encourage more young people to take part. I am dubious as to whether the Government will be able to accept something at this stage in this Bill but it is something that should be a continuing priority.
Baroness Neville-Rolfe
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Young, for his amendments and for allowing us to debate the important subject of apprenticeships, albeit rather late in the evening. I am also grateful to my noble friend Lord Stoneham for adding his wisdom to the debate, expressing concern about the particular provisions we are looking at but making absolutely the right point about the need to move the apprenticeship agenda forward and do ever more.
Starting with Amendment 29, I should, perhaps, remind the House that there is some outstanding work currently under way in this area. The noble Lord mentioned Crossrail as a trailblazer. It is an amazing project in all respects and has recently hired its 400th apprentice. Obviously, there is a huge opportunity to train apprentices on big construction procurement projects of that kind.
The Government have agreed to support apprenticeships growth in the provisions brought forward by city deal partners, linked to their growth sectors in the local economies. For example, 1,500 new high-value manufacturing apprenticeships have been created in the West Midlands and 420 apprenticeships have been created in Greater Cambridge in different priority sectors, from professional and scientific, through to advanced engineering. We are also encouraging employers to take on apprentices by creating the apprenticeship grant for employers and relaxing national insurance contributions for employers who take on apprentices. However, not every procurement is appropriate for delivering apprenticeships. I think the noble Lord acknowledged that. Trying to deliver a policy where it does not properly fit creates bureaucracy. We do not want a situation where suppliers are forced to meet a requirement to create new apprenticeship opportunities every time a new contract is awarded. This would change the very nature of apprenticeships, meaning that they were not linked to the company’s needs. Young people could be let go before their apprenticeship ended, a concern that I have heard from the Local Government Association. Even more important, it could be damaging to the individual apprentice.
We also have to follow legal requirements. For above-EU threshold contracts, a contracting authority must always be able to show that the requirement to provide an apprenticeship is sufficiently linked to the subject matter of the contract. Some contracts will have no links with apprenticeships, so forcing apprenticeships into all of them could even breach these EU rules.
The noble Lord might say that the amendment refers to requiring an “appropriate number” of apprenticeships so this does not apply to every procurement. But how would a contracting authority or Government know what an appropriate number was? A blanket requirement about apprenticeships as proposed in the amendment would not work. However, the Government support the appropriate inclusion of training and apprenticeship criteria in procurement and we believe that such requirements are most likely to be relevant on major construction and infrastructure projects. We need to adopt a thoughtful and considered approach, working with industry. I assure noble Lords that we are actively working to achieve this.
I turn to Amendment 30. I should like to reassure the noble Lord that we support schools and local enterprise partnerships working together with SMEs to deliver more training and apprenticeship opportunities. There are some highly successful examples of this work taking place. Indeed, following a debate we had on an Oral Question that the noble Lord asked, I shared some of those good examples with him. I will not delay the House by repeating those this evening.
I understand that the noble Lord’s intention is to place general duties on local enterprise partnerships and educational institutions such as schools to encourage, develop and promote these apprenticeships. However, I do not believe that moving away from good practice in this area to regulation is the right way ahead. Local enterprise partnerships are flourishing because we are addressing exactly the barriers identified by employers, getting them involved directly, simplifying the system and giving them a free hand so that they can do the right thing. The Government are working with a number of such partnerships as part of the city and local growth deals to drive up business demand for apprenticeships in their localities. This allows local enterprise partnerships to choose the most effective way to promote apprenticeship development.
I share the noble Lord’s concern about the way apprenticeships declined in the first part of the 2000s. As he knows, we are getting back on track and doing many of the right things. My noble friend Lord Stoneham is right to urge us to do more and to make it a priority—which I can confirm that it is. However, I do not believe that legislation of the kind proposed in the amendments is right or sensible. While the noble Lord, Lord Young, knows I share his wish to increase apprenticeships, it is wrong to introduce new bureaucratic regulatory burdens in a small business Bill. I fear that these amendments could be perverse in their effects and I hope that on reflection he will feel able not to press them.
Lord Young of Norwood Green
I thank the Minister for her response. Like my noble friend Lord Mendelsohn, I do not want to appear churlish, especially at this time of night, but it was a predictable response and a rerun of the previous analysis. Of course, I do not want to introduce any level of bureaucracy that would act as an impediment to SMEs in bidding for contracts. That would be perverse. However, that does not need to be the case.
I am not suggesting that the words within this amendment are by any means perfect. We do not establish the criteria one would need to apply in introducing this. However, I do not believe that there is a legal barrier. We proved that with the Olympic requirement and the Crossrail requirement. If it was approached in the right way, this could be positive. I listened carefully and tried to think of a scenario where somebody bidding for a significant public procurement contract could actually say, “Well, no, we don’t need any apprenticeships in this circumstance”. I find that hard to believe. It is interesting: when I look at the analysis of the types of apprenticeships that have occurred under the Crossrail experience, they are rich and varied, including finance, accounting and business administration. There is a whole range. It is not just the engineering things. They have been much more imaginative in their approach there, so I am baffled by this idea that somehow there are significant public procurement contracts where no apprenticeships would be merited. Then, on the question of the role of local employment partnerships, of course we want them to flourish and be imaginative and proactive.
My concern is that we still have significant numbers of schools and colleges that are not carrying out their legal requirement to give a full range of career guidance to their pupils and students, and that they have not established the kind of links with business that they should. The idea that it would again be bureaucratic to put a requirement on them to establish these links is not a bad one: it would be a good practice for them. They should also report annually, so that we could see the progress that they are making.
I hope that the Minister will reflect carefully on this brief discussion and see whether she will be able to address these issues when we come back to them on Third Reading. In the circumstances, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
the Public Contracts Regulations 2015 (S.I. 2015/102) apply, disregarding for this purpose the operation of any financial threshold provided for by those regulations;”