Enterprise Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Curry of Kirkharle and Lord Stevenson of Balmacara

Wednesday 28th October 2015 Grand Committee

[Lord Curry of Kirkharle (CB)]

My Lords, I just add one comment on this, prompted by the comments of the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull. The prevailing culture with the regulator is very important. I value the Minister’s comments on that. Part of my role has been to try to encourage a better relationship between the regulator and the business community—namely for it to regard the businesses as clients it needs to work with to deliver an outcome. I believe that we made some progress in that respect. As noble Lords know, in the small business Bill we had the small business champion. I hope that businesses will feel they have a recourse to approach the small business champion if they are dissatisfied with the regulator.

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara]

My Lords, I think that this session has been one of conciliation and support. I do not think there is any sense of a divide between us, and that last contribution helps to say that this is a cultural issue but it is also important, and if we can do more to help as we go forward then we would like to do so. I hope that the idea we had of trying to use the new structures to create even more impact is taken on, although I reflect that the fact that so many new ideas are bouncing around suggests that there might perhaps have been some advantage in taking more time over the Bill and taking more advice from others before it came forward. Still, we are where we are. There may be time to build on some of those issues, and I look forward to reading Hansard carefully and to seeing what happens as we move on to Report. With that, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.