Regulatory Impact Assessments (Legislative Scrutiny)

Debate between Edward Timpson and Paul Scully

Wednesday 2nd September 2020 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Paul Scully)]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Sir Christopher Chope) for bringing this important issue to the House. Parliamentary debate and the exchange of views reflect the importance of parliamentary scrutiny.

When a policy decision is made, it is informed by an assessment of the potential impacts of a range of different policy options. The evidence and analysis informing these decisions will inform consultation and engagement with stakeholders, and for legislative proposals, it is usually presented to Parliament in a regulatory impact assessment alongside the legislation. In the UK, regulatory impact assessments present the outcomes of evidence-based processes and procedures that assess the economic, social and environmental effects of public policy on businesses and wider society. Their use has contributed to better policy making and reduced the cost to business, which is so important.

Our commitment to conducting such impact assessments remains strong. The analysis that goes into impact assessments ensures that Government consider the need for and likely impact of new regulations to support legislative change. They ensure that we consider how regulation will affect the operation of markets and best enable businesses to innovate, and, in line with the subject of this debate, they inform parliamentary decision making.

Where Government intervention requires a legislative or policy change to be made, Departments are expected to analyse and assess the impact of the change on the different groups affected. That is generally published in the form of a regulatory impact assessment. However, attempts to conduct regulatory impact assessments for public policy making, particularly in the current climate of the coronavirus pandemic, could be problematic. That is because responding to emergencies requires legislation to be introduced at a much greater pace than during normal times.

The Coronavirus Bill, introduced in March this year, provided powers needed to respond to the coronavirus pandemic. The powers enabled the Government to introduce temporary emergency legislation to respond to the pandemic. To allow the Government to deliver at the required pace, formal regulatory impact assessments are not required for better regulation purposes for the temporary measures put in place in response to the pandemic. Further flexibility in the approach to impact assessments is appropriate where permanent measures need to be enforced urgently.

My hon. Friend mentioned some specific examples where we have assessed the impact in a different way. He is right to talk about the importance of regulatory impact assessments. Some of the guidelines that he mentioned fall within my area. The specific residential landlord and tenant issue that he mentioned falls to my colleagues in the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, but in terms of the commercial Landlord and Tenant Act 1954 changes, we found from listening and speaking to businesses over a period that some companies that were struggling to pay their rent were being wound up by some landlords, so we acted.

This is on the basis of detailed, long-standing conversation and engagement with businesses on both sides of the debate. In my short time as a Minister, I have had around 500 meetings with, I estimate, 3,000 to 4,000 businesses, so I think I have a reasonable handle on retail, hospitality, weddings and the beauticians who do eyebrows and beard trimming that my hon. Friend mentioned. It is a source of great regret that we are unable to allow wedding celebrations of more than 30 people to occur at the moment. I have seen at first hand and heard from people in the wedding sector, which is an enormous contributor to the UK economy, how badly they are suffering as a result.

[Edward Timpson (Eddisbury) (Con)]

I know that my hon. Friend has been working hard with a range of different sectors, including the wedding industry. Will he reassure the House that work is ongoing to try to find a way for wedding venues to reopen more fully, beyond the current 30-person limit, so that they can see a future ahead of them?

[Paul Scully]

I am glad that my hon. Friend made that point. He has been working tirelessly with his local wedding venues in Eddisbury to try to get a road map. We continue to work and engage on that issue to make sure that the sector, which is a really important contributor to the UK economy, can reopen, and that people whose special day is being put off, and in some cases ruined, can come together.