Deregulation Bill

Debate between James Duddridge and Chris Williamson

Wednesday 14th May 2014 Commons Chamber

[Chris Williamson]

The hon. Gentleman would have more credibility on the concerns he is articulating about the barriers facing businesses starting up if he had supported the amendment in Committee, which called for a review of the licensing regime. For example, someone setting up a restaurant needs to comply with seven or eight different licences. Surely that would be a more appropriate approach to take, rather than undermining health and safety.

[James Duddridge]

It would be an additional benefit to look at these things sector by sector, as the Better Regulation Commission is doing—and is reducing regulation. However, I fear I am straying slightly, as we have done today, away from the pure health and safety issues. The hon. Member for Chesterfield kindly took an intervention on the concept of who is protected on a building site and I must admit that I am still confused. There is a case for stopping people being self-employed from an employment rights perspective—we can debate that, although not today. But although these bogus self-employed individuals take themselves out of a certain type of health and safety liability, by being on the site—by being in the care home or on the building site—they are subject to health and safety rules. There may be a case to make that those rules are too weak or that they are not the same as in an employment relationship, but people are still subject to them.

As I said at the start, something more nuanced could have been proposed, because there is a risk that people do not set up businesses because they are concerned about the overall level of bureaucracy. The hon. Gentleman prayed in aid the World Bank, saying that we are already at the cutting edge for being able to set up businesses, but if we do not look to move forward and constantly improve, as our competitors are doing, biting at our heels, we will fall behind in business growth, in growth and in employment. I say that on a day when I learned from the BBC that employment is at its highest level since 1971, when records were first kept. There is no health and safety protection if one does not have a job. Getting people into employment is a step in the right direction, and getting people involved in high-quality jobs with high-quality health and safety is a further improvement, but it is still a stepping stone. For those reasons, while I support Government new clause 1, I would vote against amendment 72 if it were pushed to a vote.