Deregulation Bill

Lord Stoneham of Droxford Excerpts

Monday 7th July 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Stoneham of Droxford (LD)]

My Lords, it is strange having a Second Reading debate when the principles of the Bill seem fairly straightforward and the argument will all be over the detail of the matters to be deregulated, which are more properly dealt with in Committee

The Liberal Democrats believe that regulation plays a vital legislative function and can be hugely important in protecting people, businesses and other interests, but we are critical of overcentralisation in our national Government and we certainly accept the need, particularly when recovering from a deep and damaging recession, to look critically at regulations to simplify and eliminate those which are over-complex and outdated. We know, too, that many of the jobs coming in the recovery are being created in the SME sector and among the self-employed. That is critical to future competitiveness, flexibility and creativity in our economy. We supported the Red Tape Challenge and the one-in, one-out system for new regulations and the extension to the one-in, two-out policy. We accept that free markets do not simply happen; we need regulation to ensure fair competition and free markets. Much has to be done to simplify and reduce regulation as standardisation is increasingly achieved in the EU.

The Government having focused on deregulation, the Bill is an inevitable consequence. We may argue in this House over some of the detail, but the direction and objectives we strongly share. There are a number of measures that we welcome and have strongly supported. One of the great successes of the coalition, building on the foundations left by the previous Government, has been the growth in apprenticeships, with more than 2 million created in five years at a time of strong economic adversity. The Bill seeks to put in place the new framework for delivering apprenticeships proposed by the Richard review. The review proposed a new, simplified structure of apprenticeships and funding to give employers a greater say in their structure and content. This new approved apprenticeship scheme means that apprenticeships will be delivered to a recognised standard, with the Government funding their part of the training aspects through HMRC. The Secretary of State will have the power to amend the apprenticeship standard agreed with employers. Flexible, more efficient and simpler administration will mean that authorities and employers can concentrate on updating apprenticeships and improving standards. We strongly support this measure.

I also support the efforts to help local communities run functions in their communities without undue regulation. It is obviously long overdue for us to look at the alcohol rules for these events. I give credit to the Minister in the Home Office, Norman Baker, who has helped to push through some of these reforms in the Bill. The sale of limited alcohol at community events is to be deregulated. The exhibition of films in community premises not requiring a licence, as it does currently, may be a small measure but is clearly long overdue. The deregulation will encourage community participation and, indeed, promote our creative industries.

We also support the whole complex deregulation on rights of way. I expect the devil is in the detail. I suspect more differences will be revealed as we go on. However, we clearly needed to ease the process of recognising public rights of way and dealing with registering historic rights of way, which now seems to have the support of the principal stakeholders. Therefore, we support deregulation in this area.

There are, however, some matters that will need attention when we get to the detail. Health and safety has already been mentioned. With the growth of self-employment, we need to make sure that the new provisions excluding the self-employed, except those in dangerous occupations, do not simply create greater complexity rather than give a general commitment to good health and safety practice. We need to look at the detail of this and be convinced by it. On the right to buy, there is no great principle at stake in reducing the qualifying period from five to three years, although I think we probably would have preferred to see how the current measures stand up over time. However, we do not want to see social-needs housing simply become a way of finding an incentive to home ownership. The objective of that housing should be to serve social needs. The key issue is whether we will use the proceeds from the social housing sold to add to the housing stock, rather than diminish the social housing stock as we have done over the past 30 years, except in the past couple of years of this Government.

On the licence fee, clauses provide for an appropriate review of penalties for non-payment. We accept that it is a review but we are not necessarily being committed to how that will be done in the future. Ideally, it should be done at the same time as the charter review. The key should be to look at how any new system can improve on the current low level of evasion and reduce the £111 million cost of collection. The BBC cannot stop people using its services without paying the licence fee, unlike its competitors, such as Sky. We should be aware that if the BBC reverts to the utilities’ record of dealing with bad debt, it will lose £200 million of revenue.

We welcome the Government’s commitment to reducing and simplifying unnecessary regulation. It is needed to improve the country’s competitive advantage and that should be a preoccupation of all elements of government and, indeed, the country as a whole, particularly in relation to small businesses, which often hold the burden of regulation. This is one small step to grasp the need for simpler legislation, which does not hold back the creative and dynamic aspects of small businesses. Small steps will help but we will need many more.