Deregulation Bill

Lord Fowler Excerpts

Monday 7th July 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Fowler (Con)]

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the right reverend Prelate, who raised some important issues, not least his final point about gambling. My general position is that one of the most effective actions that any Government can take is to look at the regulations that are in force to see if they are relevant in the modern day. It may be that they were entirely sensible 20, 30 or 40 years previously when they were introduced, but the question is whether today they still have the same force. It is not only that they may have no relevance; it may be that they also hold back business development and, above all, prevent the development of services that are to the benefit of the public.

I will give three very short examples from my own experience. When I was Transport Secretary in 1979, we had an elaborate system for controlling the provision of coach services up and down the country. If I wanted to run a coach service from Birmingham to London, I had to go to the traffic commissioners and ask for permission. Invariably my application would be opposed by British Rail and the National Bus Company on the grounds that they already had services. Frequently the traffic commissioners would find for them. In other words, the decision rested with the commissioners, not with the travelling public. We abolished those restrictions and the result has been a very fast-developing coach service in this country, which has meant a tremendous addition in cheap coach travel, particularly for young people, up and down the land.

The second example is that when I was Health Secretary, we reviewed the regulations governing opticians. Competition was limited. It all seemed very much, frankly, to the benefit of the optician and not of the customer. Again, we deregulated, with the effect that today there is a very competitive market, which is also to the benefit of the public.

The third example is perhaps the best known: the abolition of the regulations and restrictions of the Dock Labour Scheme, about which my noble friend Lord Brabazon also knows a great deal. I do not doubt the original intention and justification, but the days of exploitation of labour had gone, and the trouble was that the regulations were standing in the way of port development and new employment opportunities. I remember going to Liverpool and being told—lectured, perhaps—on the need for me to direct sea traffic to the Mersey. This was self-evidently not something which it was in my power to do, but what we could do was to take away the restrictions. The result was that new business has developed in ports all round this country. We have seen an utter transformation of that industry.

I am, therefore, a great supporter of sensible deregulation—and, indeed, in one or two areas, which perhaps we can come to in Committee, I would go further. It encourages jobs when all too often regulation destroys them. As far as I can judge, the vast majority of the measures in this Christmas tree Bill—and I agree with that description—will be beneficial to the public. It is the interests of the consumer that must always be pre-eminent.

Having set out my belief, I have two questions. The first is on health and safety. I acknowledge that the Government have sought to be careful here, but I am concerned that too much of the public debate starts from the premise that health and safety legislation is almost by definition unnecessary. I dispute this. For many years I worked in the aggregates industry. In the 1930s quarries were notorious for their accident record. Even in the postwar years their record was not particularly good.

The irony was that, all too often, the injuries concerned people who were trying to help; they were trying to get into motion a machine that had stuck and were then drawn into it. What was needed was a culture of safety. To its great credit, the industry has taken giant steps to respond to that. When I was chairman of one company and then on the board of an international company, health and safety was the first issue on the agenda, before profits and the results of that particular month or quarter.

I think that, if we believe in wider share ownership for the benefit of staff, we should be in favour of measures to protect the safety of staff. The Government say that their measures will not harm safety. I say only that, in Committee—and I echo one or two points that have been made—we should be given more information on the self-employed occupations that will be excluded by this legislation.

My noble friend Lord Gardiner will not be in the least surprised that my second question concerns measures to decriminalise non-payment of the BBC licence fee. The most obvious question about that is, “What on earth is it doing in this Bill in the first place?”. We have a whole period of debate on the future of the licence fee and all the other broadcasting issues that go with the royal charter.

The Government’s reply is that we cannot wait, but when it comes to the future of the BBC Trust, virtually everybody agrees that it is a completely outdated and, dare I say it—well, “useless” may be putting it a bit high, but it is certainly an outdated body.

[Lord Rooker (Lab)]

Did the noble Lord say “useless”?

[Lord Fowler]

Yes; I said “useless”. We are told that we cannot consider that, and that we will go ahead with the appointment of a new chairman for a body which, self-evidently, has the executioner’s axe hanging over it.

The process of change here is not beyond criticism. We set up a review of an unspecified nature, and then, depending on the review—the result of which, obviously, we know nothing whatever about—we delegate to the Secretary of State the power to change the law, not by primary legislation but by regulation. However well intentioned this clause may be, I do not believe that giants of the past such as Enoch Powell or Michael Foot would have approved of it as a measure and as a way of developing legislation in this House.

Therefore, self-evidently, there is much to discuss in Committee. Indeed, you might say that the Bill provides the whole justification for this House, because we have the time to do that while quite clearly the other House does not. As I said, I strongly approve of the direction of travel of the Bill, but I also register that the detail deserves careful scrutiny and debate.