Deregulation: Public Services and Health and Safety

Lord Shipley Excerpts

Thursday 13th July 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Shipley (LD)]

My Lords, I remind the House of my vice-presidency of the Local Government Association. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Andrews, for the opportunity to have this very timely debate today.

We have heard the words “red tape” a number of times today. It is a long time since red tape was used to bind official documents in the Holy Roman Empire. The Holy Roman Empire was a big, complex organisation and no doubt had to use plenty of red tape to bind its regulations. However, the term has altered over time to mean bureaucracy, unnecessary paperwork, unnecessary licensing systems, too many committees approving a single decision and the creation of unnecessary regulations that make running a business more difficult and expensive. But the problem is that most regulation is beneficial to the general public and most of the time to businesses themselves, because it can lead to higher quality and higher productivity and can make businesses better able to compete. As the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, reminded us, it enables markets to work better.

For 20 years or more, Governments have been trying to reduce unnecessary red tape. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Patten, that we do need better regulation and that, where regulations are out of date or no longer needed, it is right to review. The Red Tape Challenge in 2013-14 identified regulations that should be improved or that were out of date. Inevitably, regulations have to be kept under that constant review. They become outdated, and sometimes they need to be added to on the basis of experience or new products and requirements.

There is nothing inherently wrong with regulation, because regulation protects the general public. Health and safety at work is not red tape. Basic employment rights are not red tape. Personal safety at home is not red tape. Successive Governments have taken action to address perceived problems with regulations—hence the Better Regulation Task Force and the positive work done by the coalition Government, of which my noble friend Lord Stunell reminded us. One-for-one replacement, which was undertaken in that period, can encourage regulations to be kept up to date. I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Young, that we need to be careful not to abolish bodies and organisations that help to deliver better regulation.

The one in, one out principle was changed to one in, two out, as we have heard. I have never understood the logic of that. As the noble Lord, Lord Best, reminded us, the pendulum has swung too far. As the noble Lord, Lord Smith of Finsbury, and other Members identified, the logic of numbers and targets of one in, three out seems to have no basis. Setting numerical targets does not seem right to me. We should note the report of the Regulatory Policy Committee in 2015 on the overall impact of the regulatory proposals that became law in the period of the coalition Government: 214 had reduced regulation on business but 119 had increased the scope of regulation.

I conclude that, until 2015, a balance had been struck in regulation: it was about better regulation. But in July 2015, the Government announced the Cutting Red Tape programme, seemingly to do things that they had been prevented from doing during the coalition years. It was announced that it was going to save some £10 billion—an enormous sum of money. In the words of the Secretary of State, it was about wanting to free British businesses from “heavy-handed regulators”. How is the potential saving known? How had the “heavy-handed regulators” been identified and what impact assessment had been undertaken by freeing British businesses from those “heavy-handed regulators”? For example, does it imply cutting the national living wage, or the national minimum wage, or perhaps the plastic bag carrier charge? Or is it about the day-to-day protections that the public benefit from?

I hope the Minister and the Government will look again at the Cutting Red Tape programme in the light of professional knowledge and experience. Attention has previously been drawn to the letter from over 70 organisations and figures from the UK’s health and safety profession in the aftermath of the Grenfell Tower fire. The joint letter to the Prime Minister called on the Government to end their approach to the deregulation of health and safety legislation. It called on the Government to think again. I hope very much that the Minister will be able to tell the House what has happened as a consequence of that letter from those organisations, figures and experts.

The dreadful disaster at Grenfell Tower should never have happened. Much has been said and written about it, but at its root it was a devastating failure of building control either through the regulations themselves or through their application. The public inquiry may take a long time, but as a matter of urgency we will need to review the building control regulations and the fire protection safeguards and whether they were correctly applied. Speed is essential. Three separate investigations are proceeding: the public inquiry, which may take some time; the police investigations; and the Government-appointed expert advisory group working with the Government for the last few weeks to identify in what ways regulations should be changed. We must heed their professional advice, and it is not for us to second guess the conclusion reached by any of those investigations or the inquiry. However, I agree entirely with the noble Baroness, Lady Crawley, who reminded us that the Government have a role in identifying what changes could be implemented immediately.

I draw attention to the Lakanal House fire in the London Borough of Southwark, which occurred just eight years ago, in which several people died. In 2011, the Department for Communities and Local Government wrote to housing providers with a number of recommendations that should be implemented as a result of the experience from that fire. In 2013, the coroner’s report made a set of recommendations about what housing providers should do to minimise the impact of a fire breaking out. I hope the Minister may be in a position to tell the House today—and, if not, in writing afterwards—what audit the Government have undertaken of the work of housing providers as a consequence of the letter sent by the then Secretary of State, Eric Pickles, in 2011 and the coroner’s report in 2013, which made a number of recommendations. There may have been a list of explanations as to what happened, but I have not seen it and I think it would be helpful if we did see it.

The noble Baroness, Lady Andrews, raised the question of the private sector’s role in building regulation, and I agree with her. This has been the case for over 30 years —it is not something new that the Government have done—but I question whether it is appropriate for building control, which is about public protection, to be managed entirely by the private sector in some cases.

Crucially, we have to examine why, in the light of the experience in so many parts of the world of the combustibility of external cladding, action in the UK has been slow and why whole-system testing has not been adopted until very recently, I understand, by the Building Research Establishment. In the course of doing some work on that, will the Government examine the relationship between British Standard 8414 and the relevant EU directive? It would appear that the British standard is actually stronger than the EU directive, but it is only advisory and is secondary to the EU directive, which seems to be weaker. I would be grateful for advice from the Minister about that.

Two suggestions were made, one by the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, and the other by my noble friend Lord Stunell, which the Government ought to take particularly seriously. The noble Lord, Lord Hunt, reminded us of the importance of not always agreeing the lowest tender when quality may be compromised. Agreeing the lowest tender is one of the consequences of budgets being under stress. My noble friend Lord Stunell suggested we should have a named building regulation compliance officer for every contract. Both seem to be important suggestions and, taken together, would improve the strength of our regulatory frameworks.